But what´s in it for gamers? We´ve spent quite some time putting an early version of Windows XP through its gaming paces. While it is too early to judge a product that is being fine-tuned for several more months before being released to production sometime in August, our early experience with XP suggests that gamers will be faced with a thorny decision in this fall. Depending on the games and hardware you like to use, XP´s superior stability and usability may come at the price of compatibility and performance.