IBM To Design Technology For XBox 2 CPU

An anonymous reader writes "According to Biz Ink, 'Microsoft has licensed leading-edge semiconductor processor technology from IBM for use in future Xbox products and services to be announced at a later date..' IBM are already working on the PlayStation 3 CPU alongside Toshiba, and have a relationship with Nintendo after making the GameCube CPU, though there's been no official announcement on GameCube 2's hardware. Is the next-gen hardware war heating up?"

Comments

Is it still going to be X86?

[Random832]

Is Microsoft abandoning its "Intel compatibility" policy? I remember the original reason was to make it easy to port between PC and X-box, to attract developers

Uhh, so which is it?

[mcc]

So is IBM "Designing and building" the x-box 2 CPU, or is Microsoft "licensing technology" from them? That's a pretty big friggin difference. And it looks like it's the latter.

Seeing as IBM does so much research these days, it seems that "licensing technology" could possibly mean something really minor. Well, it could mean almost anything.

Personally, I predict that the GC2 will be the first Nintendo console to feature backward compatibility, and will also feature an IBM chip. Which would make it really wierd if IBM made the x-box chip as well. But what do I know..