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

Compatibility ?

[vlad_petric]

Does this mean that Xbox2 won't run Xbox 1 titles ?

Granted, they could do what PS2 does - have the old chip somewhere on the board doing "collateral" stuff when PS2 games are played, and use it for PS1 games as a full processor - but that's not very cost effective when somebody else is manufacturing your chips.

Xbox2 Backward compatibility = Windows on Mac?

[G4from128k]

If Microsoft wants to create backward compatibility between XBox and XBox2, then they must find a way to run MS Pentium code on the G5 architecture. Unfortunately, the G5 lacks the big-endian/little-endian flexibility of the previous PPC processers and this makes the x86 hard to emulate on a G5. That is why Virtual PC won't run on the G5.

But with a motivated Microsoft, we might see Windows on a G5 with the coming of XBox2 (strange thought, that!)