Microsoft has signed up 30-ish PC builders to flog entertainment-centric PCs based on WinXP Media Center Edition in Europe for the first time. The company already has a roster of 20 OEMs selling Media Center PCs in US, Canada and Korea.

So what is a entertainment-centric PC? Essentially you get to watch TV and DVDs, check out the telly guide, play computer games, listen to music - and you get a remote control thrown in too.

WinXP Media Center Edition marks a major Microsoft thrust to capture the digital entertainment hub which is supposed to be coming to all our living rooms. The company recently commissioned a MORI poll which purports to show that the PC will be the centre of the home entertainment universe. Actually the poll, as Reg hardware editor Tony Smith points out, (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/31521.html) merely confirms that punters are mustard keen to have a single digital entertainment device but much fewer want this to be a PC.

Still, Microsoft has eggs in more than one basket; future iterations of xBox will deliver a alternative entry point for the company, if consumers reject the PC as entertainment hub. Nvidia, Sony, and Intel are also staking competing claims for occupying centre-stage in the digital living room. ®

You may be interested in the list of new Media Center OEMs. Here it is:

France: Absolut Technology, Elonex, Granville Services France, HP, Kesa Electricals, Packard Bell, PC City, Peristyle, Toshiba, UNIKA, Yakumo

Germany: 4MBO, Actebis, Fujitsu Siemens, HP, GERICOM AG, Hyrican, Medion, Packard Bell, TAROX, Toshiba, Vobis, WORTMANN, Yakumo

UK: Centerprise, CFL Media Center Systems, Elonex Plc, Evesham Technology, Hi-Grade Computers, HP, Hugh Symons Group, iQon Technologies, MESH Computers, Packard Bell, PC World, Quantum Microponents , Time, Toshiba, Yakumo

China: HP, Toshiba

Japan: Fujitsu, Hitachi, NEC, SOTEC, Toshiba

Related story

PC, CE giants propose digital interoperability scheme (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/31421.html)