Xplanation
The strange thing is, why would Microsoft invest heavily in Sega's Dreamcast platform only to apparently develop their own competitor? Even Bill couldn't be that pointlessly evil, could he? Chris Deering of Sony Computer Entertainment told CTW that he reckoned it was because Microsoft were disappointed by Dreamcast's performance so far. However, considering the machine has sold 500,000 units in its first fortnight on sale in the US, this just sounds like the snide rhetoric of a jumpy competitor.

So what are Microsoft doing? Well, there's another theory. Perhaps X Box isn't a videogame console at all. Over the last year, the Seattle based megacorp have been openly investigating the world of television - or more specifically, the emerging world of interactive television.

In this capacity, it recently developed a 'product' named TVPAK, a client-server software solution designed for television companies so they can deliver "new forms of entertainment, communication and e-commerce via the television". Could it be then that X Box is part of this whole TV push? Could the alleged machine be a set-top box, offering digital TV decoding, web access, interactive TV, etc? If so, it would pitching into a different market than Dreamcast - the serious home entertainment market, rather than the games market (even if it does offer PC gaming as part of the package). It would probably go out at a higher retail price as well. X Box could well be a complement to Dreamcast, rather than a rival.

Predictably, Microsoft aren't commenting at the moment, so all we have is speculation. But the set-top box scenario would seem to make more sense, with Dreamcast and X Box working in two different markets at two different price points. Perhaps the most interesting question now is where this leaves PlayStation2...