New console made by VIA under the APEX brand name, aptly called the "Apex Extreme Personal gaming console and DVD player," or Apex Extreme PGC for short. Like other DISCover based systems, This console is pretty much a low-end PC, not made to compete directly with the other game consoles but to fill a niche market of people who want to play PC games but can't afford to shell out $3000 to get a new computer. Runs at 1.4GHz, has an embedded (upgradable) version of Windows XP with Windows Media player installed, six USB ports, RCA, DVI, and S-Video outs, SPDIF out, 10/100 Ethernet and modem, Component video out, 40 GB IDE hard drive. Special versions of PC games will be released that you do not have to "load," (as in install on the hard drive.) You will be able to just put the game in and play it, just like a regular console. You will also be able to play DVDs, audio CDs, VCDs, etc. 

Well, will it work? The general consensus on the Net is "no." This isn't the first console to try and provide a game-console-and-computer-in-one, and seeing the history of other consoles in the past who tried to be a jack of all trades machine it's a good bet that this thing won't go very far. A $299 price tag isn't going to help it much either. But who knows, this machine may find that market of lower-income people who want to have the PC experience but never could afford to in the past. It all comes down to games, and while at the moment the hardware contained inside this thing might run most PC games today semi-decently, within a few years it's going to be horribly outdated

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