Developers from around the world announced that they are joining the Xbox 360 brigade. Be prepared for rocking Xbox versions of your best-loved games, like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, SSX, Oddworld and Metal Gear Solid. What is Xbox? Imagine that Bill Gates walks into the room and tells you and your friends to come up with the ideal game console. He's got the resources, the engineers and the connections to make it all happen. You just have to tell him what to build. So you and your friends get to work. It's got to be powerful, that's a given. It's got to have a comfortable, functional controller and it has to have great games. Microsoft is recruiting the world's best developers to be a part of the Xbox experience. Soon you'll wonder how you ever called yourself a gamer, how you ever lived before playing new mind-shredding titles like Halo and Malice. More than 200 companies from around the world have announced their commitment to Xbox, including Sega, Activision, Capcom, Eidos, Infogrames, Konami, Midway, THQ and Electronic Arts. Why are they so excited?

You want full-blown broadband to send your plays, your combos and your plasma blobs across the globe and back. You write it all down and give your wish list to Bill Gates. "Outstanding," he says. Since he's got the smartest people in the world working for him, he adds a few of their ideas to your list, like four high-speed controller ports and DVD capabilities.

And then he tells you he's going to cram all this gaming goodness into a cool-looking black box that looks like a cross between a mega-watt amplifier and Batman's briefcase. How cool is that? As it turns out, that's pretty much exactly what Microsoft did, which is create a gaming dream machine designed by gamers. That's Xbox. capabilities of the Xbox platform with these downloadable demos created by Xbox developers.