So Thursday's the day that Apple makes its big pitch to the game developers of the world at E3, the largest electronic entertainment expo showcasing the latest and greatest game hardware and software in existence. According to MacWEEK, they are expected to focus on showing off the iMac, the Aquafresh-colored, beautifully-rounded consumer Mac that's already been compared to the new Volkswagen Beetle too many times to count. "Lookee here," we expect Apple to say, "we're gonna sell a ton of these things, and the Mac game market is much less crowded than the PC one, so if you get in now and release something awesome, there's a good chance you can rule the roost. The families that buy these iMacs are going to want to buy games for them; there's gold in them thar hills."

That Apple is present at E3 at all is fantastic news. They must feel a little lost, given that they haven't attended in years. The key to winning back market share in the consumer space is by encouraging the development of cool games. Of course, the key to attracting games developers is by having lots of market share; Apple hopes to attract a few early entrants by showing the potential increase in market share the iMac represents. And if that's not enough incentive, Apple might mention that GT Interactive reports that sales of their Mac consumer software rose over 100% in the first quarter.

We're just hoping that the inability to upgrade the iMac with popular 3D gaming cards like the TechWorks Power3D or the ATI XClaim VR doesn't make the game developers walk away shaking their heads. If Apple really intends to lure Windows game programmers to the Mac side of the Force, it's going to be a tough sell if those programmers can't depend on the graphics improvements and speed boost given by a 3Dfx VooDoo processor, for instance. Still, we're expecting to hear that the iMac is just the first in a line of consumer-targeted Macs, intended primarily to increase Apple's market share and mind share; we've still got our fingers crossed for an iMac-looking variant of the Power Mac G3 All-in-one, the more pedestrian-looking big brother of the iMac which is currently only available in the education sector. At $1499, the current AIO is only $200 more than an iMac, and comes with PCI slots, a floppy drive, and a full complement of Mac ports. With a few tweaks (like adding USB), that could become the gMac that games developers might really drool over. (For some reason, we envision translucent red plastics instead of blue ones. Perhaps we've been playing too much Myth: The Fallen Lords.)

We've all seen (or at least read about) the pre-release 400 MHz Power Mac that Apple's been trotting around to various demonstrations here and there, and there's no doubt that the G3 inside is a killer. That 400 MHz G3 is expected to become available in production Power Macs and PowerBooks very shortly, further extending the Mac's performance lead over shipping Wintel systems. But what of the future? Now that Apple has reportedly quietly dropped development for Rhapsody for Intel beyond the 1.0 release and we're all reliant on Apple hardware with PowerPC processors, can we expect the PowerPC architecture to continue to outpace the Intel processors in competing PC's?

According to InformationWeek, the answer is probably a resounding yes. In an article about how even IBM is hedging its bets against the upcoming Intel/HP Merced processor by porting its AIX variant of Unix to that new chip, it's ironic to find mention of a 600 MHz PowerPC due as soon as the first quarter of next year. Beyond that, we're supposed to expect a 1 GHz PowerPC by the year 2000, with a copper-technology version not far behind. Sounds like we can all look forward to plenty of speed in our processors for years to come.

So will these super-speedy new PowerPCs make it into Mac systems, or are they destined solely for IBM's RS/6000 Unix workstations? Someone more knowledgable about computer guts could probably make a better guess than your humble AtAT staff, but this new PowerPC chip is a 64-bit processor; we're pretty sure that the existing Mac OS won't take full advantage of that fact. (Actually, we're not entirely certainly whether it'll run at all-- perhaps the chipheads in our viewing audience know better?) Nevertheless, the prospect of a 600 MHz PowerPC is an exciting one, and it bodes well for the future of the Mac-- provided Merced doesn't steal the show. It's a marketing game much more than a technical one, in many respects, and while the Merced is expected to be used only in high-end workstations and servers, that could certainly change by the time the thing actually ships. See? Isn't competition cool?

Speaking of competition, the recent antitrust action against Microsoft may finally be introducing some changes into the browser market, which Microsoft pretty much has been yanking away from Netscape over the last couple of years. According to Computer Reseller News, NEC Computer Systems has "unbundled" Internet Explorer from Windows 95 themselves, and will ship their systems with no browser pre-loaded, but with a CD-ROM including both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, so that end users can decide which to install and use. (NEC's method won't work with Windows 98 systems unless Microsoft releases a version without IE, due to the way that browser is hooked into the new OS, but it's a start.)

Then, according to an Associated Press article, Gateway announced that it's letting its customers choose which browser is designated as the "default browser" which pops up when the Windows 98 user connects to the internet. IE would still be installed, of course, but users would be using Netscape to surf the web. This concession by Microsoft may be an obvious attempt to cool down the flurry of antitrust action they've seen in the last six months or so.

Couple those moves with the fact that IE and Navigator are now both free, and we may just have a fair fight on our hands. Of course, only next year's market share numbers will say for sure.