BioWare is known for its extremely popular "Baldur's Gate (TM) " role-playing game (RPG) series, of which more than 4 million copies have been sold worldwide. Currently BioWare, in conjunction with LucasArts Entertainment Company LLC, is developing an RPG for the Xbox video game system titled "Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic." BioWare recently released "Neverwinter Nights (TM) ," which debuted at No. 1 in North America and remained there in its first two weeks at retail.

"I'm very excited about this new alliance between Microsoft and BioWare," said Ed Fries, vice president of Xbox Game Content at Microsoft Game Studios. "These guys are some of the most creative developers in the world. We're looking forward to working with them to bring the creativity and great gameplay they're known for to Xbox."

"This opportunity to work on a brand-new intellectual property owned by BioWare as a first-party Xbox developer for Microsoft is very exciting to us," said Dr. Ray Muzyka, joint CEO of BioWare.

"Microsoft clearly shares BioWare's vision in creating first-rate games, and the team at BioWare is looking forward to working with it," said Dr. Greg Zeschuk, joint CEO of BioWare.