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ATI Wins Bid For Next Xbox
TypoNAM writes "CNET News is reporting that graphics chip underdog ATI Technologies has signed a contract with Microsoft to produce components for future versions of the Xbox game console, beating out market leader Nvidia." According to the article, "The announcement ends months of speculation over whether Nvidia, the leading maker of graphics processors for PCs, would renew its troubled partnership with Microsoft on the Xbox."
Backward compatibility is death to the console market. Much better to release updated versions of old games and force the consumer to purchase them again.
It's also possible that the Xbox2 will be powerful enough to emulate whatever hardware is missing/needed to run Xbox games...Or simply have built in the hardware the ability to redirect direct hardware calls of the original xbox games to be used on Ati's hardware. Realisticly the two are going to be DX compatible there can't be that much hardware confliction.
The Good Life
I think any chance AMD had in getting the X-Box contract just went up in flames.
ATI Technologies has signed a contract with Microsoft... ...which means ATI will be yanking all their open source and Linux support within the next 60 days.
It's Corel all over again.
Yeah, I mean look how much it hurt the PS2.
For the record, I would not have bought a PS2 if it didn't support PSX games, because a good chunk of the games I wanted to play (and all of the ones I was _really_ interested in) were PSX games, but I didn't have a PSX. Fortunatly, the backwards compataiblity of the PS2 made my choice easy. Plus, it just gets messy having 6 game consoles hooked up to the TV, when it's much nicer to be able to upgrade a console by swapping it out with a newer one.
I read the internet for the articles.
I don't understand why ATI is considered an "underdog" these days.
... people tend to forget that nVidia was not only supplying the video solution for the Xbox, but also the networking and audio components. So with nVidia out of the picture, who is going to do the audio and networking? Does ATI have any GOOD audio and network chipsets? I know they have some sort of motherboard chipset "a la nForce", but does it feature decent 5.1 audio and networking?
How do you figure?
If I have a couple dozen games for Xbox, and then have a choice between buying a XB2 that doesn't support those games, or a PS3...I'll have to think about it, since they will be on level terms.
But if I can buy an XB2 and still get to play all my old games on ONE console not too, I'll be heavily favouring buying an XB2 since I can sell my original XB console and still play all my old games.
Yep...really a bad thing...
Gibble: Descriptive of an emotional state in which one's mind is scrabbling for some purchase on reality
Just like they did with NVidia!!! Now they're producing their own graphics chips without the help of another com--
Oh wait.
Okay, well, I'm going to leave my personal opinions are out of this one, but just so you know, this is what the official Slashdot Party Line(TM) seems to be:
People who partner with MS are not necessarily bad, and in fact in some tiny way on the "good" side, because they are Victims. Victims, and nothing worse than misguided. Anyone who partners with MS are going to get screwed, eventually, in the end. Remember: *everyone* is a competitor to Microsoft. The world is simply split up into people Microsoft can replace and people Microsoft can't replace *yet*. If you're in the second group, Microsoft temporarily needs you, so they cuddle up to you and try to ensure that the alliance works out in such a way that at the moment Microsoft gains the ability to replace you they can as efficiently as possible stab you in the back and quietly wipe you out of existence.
Look at MS's business partners and allies for the last ten years. It's a steady stream of broken promises, broken hearts, and dead companies.
Once/if it becomes clear there's no way the partner is ever going to wind up a Victim-- say, NBC or SCO (and SCO's pretty clearly about to implode.. f you can think of any other examples offhand of a company that's partnered with MS and not lost an arm and a leg in the end, feel free to speak up)-- the company becomes a "puppet" or "shill" and defaults back into the "Bad" camp, indistinguishable from MS itself.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Speakin as someone who has used ATI video cards for over 6 years I can say that ATI has cleaned up their driver act considerably. I'm thinking that the problem with your computer is entirely PEBMAC.
These are some of the reasons I hate your idiot president, hope it's rational enough for you - although, to be frank, with a sig such as the one you're sporting I'm sincerely doubting whether I should have bothered.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
access the hardware directly? where would you get such an idea?
developers are using dx8 and at most are hand-coding vertex and shader routines; which if you hadn't noticed, may have been proprietary to nvidia 2 years ago, but are directx 9 canon now.
there is no reason to expect that xbox2 will not have backwards compatibility. there is every reason to assume that it will. heck, nintendo might even cave and have backwards compatibility.
if anyone has learned anything from the ps2 run - it's that backwards compatibility guarantees solid sales out of the gate. you can accuse microsoft of many things - but being bad businesspeople is not one of them. they know where the money goes.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Hopefully MS will take advantage of ATI's other strength (swiss army knife video card) and expand the concept of a console into PVR, etc.
Hmm, not really. Anyone that cared already knew, after all the dev details for xbox 2 have been circulating for a very long time now.
There is a difference between "catching up with eyecandy" and "catching up with gameplay".
Chances are Doom3 will have kick-ass graphics but the AI will be "the same old, same old" and the physics models [and interaction with the environment] will be "more of the same".
I'd rather see games invest more time into physical interactions with the environment. E.g. can move objects, pick them up, kick them, break them, put them to use, etc...
Look at UT2K3. It has awesome graphics but it isn't anything more than UT2 with fancy graphics and a better modeling system. The AI is the same, the maps are the same [e.g. all inmovable objects around with the players running at each other]. Same for GTA style and other racing games.
I mean what happend to the promise of "totally immersive" gameplay? I'm sorry but for anyone with an IQ over 80 games like Quake, while fun and a mild diversion, are not games that require a lot of thinking power.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
They're buying the package. nVidia doesn't have a Pentium IV bus license. Their nForce 2 efforts have been with AMD. ATI's Pentium efforts will soon shine when the RS300 integrated dual-channel DDR solutions are released. ATI has long been ahead in the low-power and pda/settop box area. That is what Microsoft wants Xbox to become - the new media center. Microsoft is not going for ATI as much for technology (which kicks ass - my 9700 pro rules) as for the relationship ATI has Intel and the fact that ATI can better deliver on Intel processors.
XBOX will use Intel. ATI-Intel are cozy (Intel licenses graphics tech from ATI, ATI gets to use the Pentium IV bus. nVidia is not getting a license to use the Pentium bus for daring to help AMD. Microsoft would have to dump Intel to use nVidia. Prediction: The rumored nForce for Pentiums will never be seen.
Yes, the Flipper chip in GameCube was designed by ArtX, a company formed by ex-SGI people. ATI didn't just buy ArtX and the Flipper deal with it, they made ArtX CEO David Orton the new COO of ATI. Rumor says it was primarily his insistence on a "no holds barred" "screw the transistor budget" chip that ultimately produced the phenomenally successful R300 (Radeon 9700 Pro) chip.
MS picking ATI does not surprise me at all. It is a natural progression based on the direction XBOX is taking.
Remember that MS's big goal with XBOX (at least the current vision), is to make it become the home entertainment center for home. This means future XBOX will have to have (addition to gaming), Progressive DVD (current XBOX is not very good), TV/Cable tuner, and HDTV tuner.
ATI with its "Wonder" cards, is clearly the leader in integrating video with PC graphics. ATI cards are the graphics card of choice for Home Theater PC enthusists. MS's move just makes it crystal clear that they are serious about making XBOX the home entertainment center.
Sure, ATI probably offered better financial deal on top of everything, but ATI's strength is probably what put them over NVidia.
Actually, you have that wrong. It's time to sell all your ATI stock. Very, very soon.
Instead of NVidia losing money hand over fist on XBox, with XBox2 it'll be ATI.
Christ, how many companies going into the tank making XBox-related software/hardware does it take for people to wake up and say "Hey! The only people who can profit off the XBox is Microsoft, and even they expect to run the operation at a loss for over 5 years."
It will be interesting to see how they are able to get Xbox1 games run on Xbox2. This is not HLSL, OGL SLang, or Cg, this is GPU specific machine language.
Sony has already shown the enormous value of generation to generation compatibility (both in games and controller button layout). If Xbox2 is not compatibily with Xbox1 then...