Microsoft founder and chairman Bill Gates unveiled new initiatives designed to further the company’s vision of turning homes into digital media networks linked to its software, video game machine and Internet services. He said Microsoft’s most-recent product releases, the Windows XP operating system and the Xbox game machine, had been selling well, against a backdrop of somewhat stronger than expected year-end sales for both computers and other consumer electronics than many had expected. In his keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show, Gates said Windows XP has sold more than 17 million copies since its Oct 25 release, making it Microsoft’s fastest-selling operating system to date.

“The opportunities for the consumer electronics, software and media industries have never been greater and this cycle of innovation has the potential to deliver valuable stimulus to the economy,” Gates said in his prepared remarks. Microsoft met the high end of its estimates with the Xbox, shipping 1.5 million machines in the near six weeks between its launch and year-end, Gates said.

Microsoft and its rivals in the fast-growing video game market, Sony and Nintendo, have sparred over which platform has sold fastest. Gates, who also serves as Microsoft’s chief software architect, pointed to the average of the more than three games sold for every Xbox, as evidence the platform making an impact against its more-established rivals.

Gates also unveiled two new initiatives known by their internal code names: ‘Mira’, a technology platform for wireless home computing, and ‘Freestyle’, a hardware and software package for Windows XP-based PCs that promises to turn computers into something more like digital entertainment centres. Mira, based on the latest version of Microsoft’s portable operating system, would enable a range of wireless devices, such as PC monitors that detach and become portable touch-screen tablets, Gates said. He added that Microsoft was working with companies like Intel towards a goal of bringing the first products based on the new software to market in time for the year-end holiday season in 2002.