The Xbox is Microsoft's first video game console. This does not meant that Microsoft does not have the experience they need to succeed, however. Microsoft has made PC games for years, and since it is targeting the late teenage PC gamer market, it should do just fine. Even the console itself is based on PC components using PC development tools and a modified PC OS. In terms of raw speed, the Xbox is clearly the victor, sporting the fastest CPU and GPU, and the most RAM, as well as a standard hard drive to stream and save information. Microsoft claims that the console itself is three times as powerful as the competition, and while this is close to true on paper, in real world terms it is not the case. The CPU is a RISC based processor with inferior ability to efficiently handle instructions, and the RAM is not as fast as that of the GameCube. Also, the RAM uses a "unified memory architecture", making it simple to determine the amount of RAM you want available for certain tasks, but this has a drawback. It is one data pipeline to split data transfer with all the systems components. While it is a large pipeline, it is still a disabling bottleneck for the system. Again, it is still likely to have the best looking games when all is said and done, but quite probably only from a technical standpoint. Looking at the screenshots in a direct comparison, the GameCube should be a very close second, and in some cases it could even best the Xbox.