(Japanese Site)
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May 28, 1998 (TOKYO) -- Microsoft Co., Ltd. of Japan announced a
tie-up with Sega Enterprises Ltd. to help develop Dreamcast, a
new type of video game machine to be delivered in November.
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In late July, Microsoft Japan will start to provide Sega with a
development environment for Dreamcast. Third-party vendors under
partner contract with Sega can obtain this development
environment through Sega.
Dreamcast runs a customized version of the Windows CE operating
system developed by Microsoft Corp. of the United States. This
operating system corresponds to Win32API, a subset of DirectX5.0,
and TCP/IP.
The development environment provided by Microsoft consists of
Visual C++ 5.0 and Windows CE software development kit (SDK).
Further, Windows CE SDK is composed of: (1) Windows CE Toolkit
including the compiler and other tools for SH-4, a processor of
Dreamcast made by Hitachi Ltd., and (2) Windows CE-DirectX SDK,
including software such as libraries.
This development environment doesn't require dedicated tools or
workstations as in the case of software development for the
existing game machines. Development is possible on an ordinary
Windows PC, which leads to a significant cost reduction on
development when used by game software vendors.
Moreover, there is strong compatibility at the source code level
between Dreamcast and Windows systems, so that software
portability between the two systems can be easily realized,
according to the announcement.
Related story: Sega Enterprises Unveils Dreamcast Video Game
Machine
(Nikkei Software)
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