UNDER THE HOOD
The $7.1 billion videogame console battle moves to another level with the September 9 US release of Sega's Dreamcast. Boasting a 1-Gbyte CD-ROM drive and a graphics engine that cranks out 3-D images four times faster than a Pentium II, Dreamcast is playing tough.
But console heavyweights Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64, commanding 96 percent of the US market between them, aren't exactly throwing in the joystick.
Gamers are already itching for Sony's late-2000 release of PlayStation 2, which the Tokyo Godzilla claims will render polygons 20 times faster than Dreamcast can. And Nintendo is gearing up for its next-generation console, code-named Dolphin. Based on a 400-MHz PowerPC chip that outruns the PlayStation 2, Dolphin may also play DVD movies.
Sega's biggest advantage is timing. For at least 14 months, its $199 Dreamcast will deliver the speediest consumer gaming hardware on the planet.
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