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• A look at the NPD games sales charts for the month of March 2006 tells you everything you need to know about how consoles and PCs are dividing like drifting continents, with game genres split between them like separate species. The weird hybrid of anime and Disneyland, Kingdom Hearts II, took the lead spot again in the console sales charts, with mainly action combat games - among them, mostly first-person shooters - and sports titles following. Meanwhile, the PC games chart - whose titles now sell with one-third the quantity - is dominated by simulated worlds and gothic role-playing, with the add-on Sims 2: Open for Business leading the top spot, and Sims 2 itself at #7. Interspersed among them are all the major genre franchises we've come to know, with the powerhouse World of Warcraft clinching tightly to #5, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion at #2, and Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, D&D, Age of Empires, and Civilization IV all well represented. Are PC games becoming a minor player? Not really, believes Parks Associates' Michael Cai. While that continent may continue to drift, he believes it's in a state of transformation, and may yet have its just revenge. The secret is in the online component. Consoles and console games dominate the retail market today, he explained, and because of that, they command the spotlight. But as the online business models for PC games change, away from the "per-box" retail model and more toward subscriptions, gaming-on-demand, and ad-subsidized services (more on that later), the big franchise games and role-playing simulations that are already well established on the PC side, are perhaps best suited to these models. They fit like a glove. A "blood elf" - a kind of well-endowed Darryl Hannah/Christopher Walken hybrid, due to inhabit the long-awaited Continent of the Upgrades in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. Welcoming the new business models to E3 this year could be an absolute blitz of PC games franchises, all of which are battling with each other for the biggest splash. I would say there's a "blizzard" ahead, but that name's been taken already. Blizzard's The Burning Crusade expansion to WoW, expected at E3, actually will create an entirely new continent, called "Outland," where one might find a new race of so-called "blood elves." (Oh, you never will believe where those Keebler cookies come from.) Meanwhile, Namco - yes, the company that introduced the world to Galaxian and Pac-Man - will actually try to knock WoW off its throne, with its much-anticipated Warhammer: Mark of Chaos. The company describes it as dealing particularly with "WAR, focusing on the armies and battles while de-emphasizing the tedious aspects of base and resource management." Which should already win this title some followers at the Defense Dept. Sticking a finger in the notion that first-person shooters are entirely migrating to console-based platforms, CryTek is likely to demonstrate its even-more-perfected rendering engine, in a demo of its upcoming sequel to Far Cry, entitled Crysis. This is the game that should prove the viability of Microsoft's DirectX 10 rendering library, due to become one of the foundation components of its upcoming Windows Vista operating system. The difference between DirectX 10 worlds and DirectX 9 worlds (for Windows XP), gamers are led to believe, will be clearly visible. But if the first-person shooter crowd is all gathering together around consoles, and if shooter games are more adapted to the retail model than the online sales model (How long can a gamer go on subscribing to the right to keep shooting down the same thing?), then could Crysis be less well received among publishers and retailers than it's likely to be among fans? This could be a bright comet of a game that burns out fairly quickly, as franchise role-playing and strategy titles such as Midway's Unreal Tournament 2007 appear well positioned to command and conquer - to borrow a phrase - the resurrected realm of PC gaming. And there's one more little thing: While fans of the Star Trek movies will happily remind you that it's generally the even-numbered films that are the best, and the odd-numbered ones that are as cursed as a red-shirted security officer in a dark cave, they'll also tell you that there has never really been a completely perfect Star Trek game, for any genre, in the last quarter-century. So the question on at least some people's minds at E3 (they'll be the ones in Starfleet uniforms) is whether Perpetual's Star Trek Online - which is likely to be previewed on Tuesday - will break this curse. Set 20 years after the last "Next Generation" movie, with slightly updated ships, set decoration, and uniforms designed under the direction of no less than Trek veteran artist Andrew Probert, the screen shots of this MMORPG look perhaps even more stunning than some of the odd-numbered films (Trek V comes to mind). But with the promise of away-team exploration of multiple worlds, and true 3D combat among fleets of starships, manned by multiple live players simultaneously, the question transcends whether this game will feel like a Trek movie, and becomes whether it places the gamer in anything resembling his understanding of the Trek universe.

• As expected, AGP 8x can safely be considered a marketing feature for now. Although it sounds impressive, it offers no real benefit for the current generation of games. A GPU like the GeForce4 MX440 would be unable to handle the amount of data the 8x interface is capable of supplying anyway, and it would be much slower than the on-board memory as well. The most telling sign that the switch to AGP 8x is more of a calculated marketing move than a push for desperately needed hardware resources is the fact that the only two NVIDIA cards that are being "upgraded" to the new interface are also the company's mainstream cards, the best sellers MX440 and Ti4200, while the heavyweights Ti4400 and Ti4600 remain unchanged. At least the switch brings with it the additional and more tangible upgrade of a clockspeed increase for the MX440-8x, bringing it into the performance regions of the MX460. This also does a lot to close the performance gap to the Radeon 9000 Pro, even allowing the 8x MX to overtake it in Jedi Knight II. Nonetheless the MX chip is still inferior to the Radeon 9000 Pro where 3D features are concerned, since it is still a DirectX 7 chip. The Radeon 9000 Pro, on the other hand, comes equipped with both vertex and pixel shaders, thanks to its close relation to the Radeon 8500. Strangely, this will have less impact on OEM sales than a nice big number like "8x." Crazy world? My thoughts exactly! New Cards With NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti4200-8x And MX440-8x Some pictures of MX440-8x and Ti4200-8x boards from several companies that have already announced products based on these chips: Leadtek WinFast A180 (GeForce4 MX440-8x). Leadtek WinFast A180 AGP8x LED. Leadtek WinFast A280 (GeForce4 Ti4200-8x).

• A problem that has plagued the x86-based Windows world of late is that of high power requirements. This has been especially true of systems based on current Intel processors , a fact we already covered extensively in previous articles. During testing, our Mac mini was able to shine in this respect, drawing a mere 20 watts of power; during DVD playback, this rose to only 28 W. In contrast, the power requirements of current Intel-based PC systems is anything but reasonable - under comparable conditions, these power-hungry machines draw up to 160 W , as tests in our THG lab have shown. Strictly speaking, the Intel system's 700% higher power draw (!!!) is not justifiable, considering today's energy costs. And users should definitely be considering the energy cost to run a computer, not just looking at the price tag on the machine. Corporate users, especially, need to think about long-term total cost of ownership (TCO). Great Sales Through Clear Design As a company, Apple's star does seem to be rising, at least where sales and profits are concerned. The last fiscal quarter was the best in the company's entire history. Apple owes a large part of this success to its trend-setting MP3 player, the iPod, which has reached a kind of cult status, selling more than 10 million units. Now, the new year is starting off with new products, such as the Mac mini and the iPod Shuffle. In Germany, as in most of the rest of the world, the classic PC sales strategy is simple - lure the buyer with high gigahertz numbers, tons of megaBytes and additional goodies. Yet despite the introduction of SFF (small form factor) PCs, it seems that design and the overall look still seem to be only of secondary importance. For years now, the average buyer has been fed the mantras of "high performance" and "good upgradeability." Obviously, the Mac mini has taken a completely different approach here, emphasizing compactness, style and simplicity. On To Further Successes In 2005 After The Record Year In 2004? Interested in a few numbers? In the fourth quarter of 2004, Apple sold 4.5 million iPod players, resulting in sales of $1.2 billion. This makes for an average price of $375 per unit - not bad at all for an MP3 player. The company's overall sales in 4Q04 totaled nearly $3.5 billion, an increase of 74% compared to the same quarter in 2003. Also, it has been able to sell more computers in the first quarter of this year: 1,046,000 units, again a 26% increase over the same period in the previous year. This resulted in profits of $1.6 billion. Apple sold 456,000 of the new iMacs alone. However, the Powerbooks have not been doing so well - 152,000 units sold means a decline in sales by 22% compared to the first quarter of 2004. iBooks, on the other hand, have gained momentum, selling 271,000 units, an increase of 35%. The "other music products" branch, which includes the iTunes music store and iPod accessories and services, is also very lucrative, with sales totaling $177 million, a 277% increase over Q1 '04.