More On IBM's Next-Gen Xbox Chipset Win

Pieroxy writes "EE Times reports further details on Microsoft's use of IBM chips in its next generation Xbox game and consumer electronics devices, dealing a blow to Intel and providing a much needed boost for IBM's lossmaking chip business." An analyst claims that "IBM is likely to modify its most advanced G5 PowerPC silicon, which is being used in Apple Computer's fastest Macintosh desktops, for the embedded market, reducing the cache and cutting power consumption", and further comments: "This is likely to heat things up at Intel, but it is competition that is healthy for the industry. It's ironic that IBM, with its roots in the computer industry, doesn't supply the processors for the main portion of the personal computer industry. Intel does." We covered IBM's initial announcement as a section-specific story earlier today.

Comments

Whose roots where?

[csnydermvpsoft]

It's ironic that IBM, with its roots in the computer industry, doesn't supply the processors for the main portion of the personal computer industry. Intel does.

Wouldn't it be more like the "computer industry, with its roots in IBM," not the other way around? Though that's not entirely accurate either - maybe if it was changed to be the personal computer industry.

What about today's Xbox?

[O]

Are they not going to have backward compatibility? That seems like a big mistake in the game console market to me.

Re:What about today's Xbox?

[pi eater]

I doubt it.. Look at nintendo, none of their consoles are backwards compatible.. Although it is a point you could argue, I doubt that this had a big impact on their popularity.. I blame competition from sony and ms

funny geeky shirt

Re:What about today's Xbox?

[vanillacoke]

Well to be honest the gamecube is the first time Nintendo is using optical media, so i think they may finally have backwards compatibility.

But it's all speculation.

And suicide if they don't.

Re:What about today's Xbox?

[yamla]

You have shown a correlation. Unfortunately, you have not shown causation. Apparently, the market research shows that backwards compatibility is only important at launch and then, only if you don't have a solid set of high-quality games available for that platform. Of course, the XBox didn't have this stable of games (and really only has KotOR now) upon release. I don't recall what the PS2 had. If it had GT3, that was almost enough to carry the platform there and then even without PS1 compatibility.

The question really comes down to this. How many people do you know who own a PS2 and play PS1 games on it? Not a single person I know does this. That's not to say that _you_ might not know people who do, only that this does not represent the average user. Most people who buy a PS2 only want to play PS2 games on it. They are unlikely to buy a PS1 game. They may already own some PS1 games but if so, they could just use their PS1 to play them on.

Stupid for MS

[afidel]

One of the few competitive advantages MS has with the XBox is that games created for it take little work to port over to the PC arena. By using a PPC chip much of that ease of porting is eliminated and along with it one of the few selling points for title owners.

Re:Stupid for MS

[terminal.dk]

Are you a developer without a clue ? Or have you been smoking the funny stuff ?

The CPU does mean shit when it comes to porting games. Games can only be written to the API since the hardware box is closed, and as long as the API is frozen, all it takes is a recompile. But there is a chance MS will use the longhorn API by then, and maybe even say C# - so they can be platform independent. Remember, C# is portable bytecode like Java.

There was a time when all it took was a recompile, and your Windows app would run on PowerPC or MIPS, Alpha or even Intel :)

A PowerPC in 2005 should also be able to do pretty well emulating the 733 MHz P3.

there will be backwards compatibility

[spir0]

as mentioned in Financial Times, Microsoft will likely be using their recently acquired Virtual PC software. This software is the way mac users run windows software on PPC chips. VPC technology will allow MS to provide backwards compatibility under Intel emulation.

I don't see anything about XBox2 using IBM chips..

[downix]

What I do see is Microsoft hedging its bets by licensing technology. Now, it can go to both Intel *and* AMD and go "if you two won't give us a better price, we'll cut you both off."

When businesses compete, the consumer wins.

Re:A question

[NanoGator]

"Does this mean that the modified Windows 2000 kernel used with the current XBox will be upgraded and ported to G5, or that we might see a completely different and new kernel? "

Probably a little bit of both. First a recompile followed by some hand-tweaking in the slower areas of the code. Microsoft has operated with other processors before, so I doubt this'd catch their dev teams completely off-guard.

Re:A question

[AKAImBatman]

> didn't some guy at microsoft get fired for posting a
> picture of lots of G5's bought by microsoft?

Yes. However, you realize that Microsoft needs those machines to test the Mac software they MAKE. Right? You know, like Microsoft Office X.

Re:Backwards Compatible?

[Daniel_Staal]

Quick counterpoint:

1: The PowerPC architecture has proven fairly good at emulating Intel architecture. It's definitely not megahertz for megahertz, but a G5 chip that emulates a 733Mhz x86 is not out of the question for a game console. If you don't mind a performance hit you don't even need to keep the same preformance nessisarially... Just tell people that while they can run their old XBox games they aren't 'optimized' for the XBox2 and therefore won't run as fast.

2: Microsoft has emulation code for the PPC inhouse: they recently bought VirtualPC which did exactly that. Now, I'm sure it is not a direct port, but it would make a good starting code base.

I'm not saying it will happen. Just that it is not out of the question.

Re:Won't MS have to rewrite everything?

[Anonymous Coward]

1) NT ran on PowerPC long ago, porting it wont be hard.


I keep seeing folks post this. Have y'all ever actually dealt with thechnology?

The PowerPC port of Windows NT was abandoned long ago. Since that time the nice microkernel architecture and the clean HAL that made the PPC and Alpha ports practical have both been largely compromised/abandoned because NT performance sucked.

Getting the modern codebase to run on the PPC again is going to be a bitch.

Re:Hope it's...

[Paladine97]

I wouldn't say there is a Gamecube "performance issue." It runs beautifully fast. 485 Mhz of PowerPPC goodness. It is right on par with the XBox CPU since the PowerPPC design is so much more efficient.