May 23, 02

More and more Taiwan enterprises are making inroads into the rapidly expanding market for game consoles to fight for orders from leading international brands.

Insiders of the business say that Taiwan's makers of game consoles are ready to obtain over US$10 billion orders as major suppliers like Sony and Nintendo of Japan and Microsoft of the U.S. are increasing outsource orders, especially from low-cost operations set up by Taiwan contract manufacturers in China.

While Sony is accelerating the release of orders fro PlayStation 2 game consoles to Taiwan manufacturers, including Hon Hai Precision Industrial Co. and Asustek Computer Inc., Microsoft will soon announce a plan to cooperate with Wistron Corp's factory in South China.

Under the pressure from Sony, Japan's Nintendo has beenb actively searching for contract suppliers in China. The First International Computer Group is also ready to launch a project tying up with a Japanese group that will be named later.

Industry insiders say that about 30% of the between 12 million and 15 million game consoles for the three world suppliers will be made by Taiwan contract manufacturers in China during the second half of this year.