Consumer electronics company Apex Digital plans to announce a new game console based on a processor from Via Technologies on Thursday at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
The game console, called ApeXtreme, is based on a 1.4GHz C3 processor from Via and has a 40G-byte hard drive, 256M bytes of RAM, an S3 Graphics DeltaChrome graphics chip with 64M bytes of memory, and Via's new CN400 chip set, which includes hardware acceleration for MPEG4 video, according to a source familiar with the device.
The ApeXtreme is based on Microsoft's Windows XP Embedded operating system and is designed to play PC games, the source said. The console has four USB ports located on the front of the machine for connecting gamepads and other input devices. The console also includes a built-in modem, an Ethernet connection and a remote control for playback of DVDs, VCDs and MP3 music files, the source said.
The console will be demonstrated at CES and will ship in the near future at a price of US$399, the source said.
