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.

Re:Whose roots where?

[t0ny]

Considering Intel developed the first microprocessor, you could swing the statement around toward them as well. Perhaps its best if we just stick to the present.

Personally, this isnt too much of a surprise. Consoles generally use a chip specialized for their specific needs (much like the architecture of the XBox was specialized for it, rather than being a straight PC). Intel is most likely too big to do something that is both relatively (to Intel) small scale and essentially a single-purpose chip.

IBM, on the other hand, is hungrier than Intel, and is also the only company set up with the necessary chip fabrication resources to create a high volume of very specialized chips.

Honesly, the only other way this could work out is if the XBox2 were going to stick with the Pentium line; since the XBox2 is most likely going to aim much higher than the XBox (maybe with integrated PVR and expanded multimedia features), they seem to have outgrown their original product design.

Oh well, maybe Intel can nab that lucrative contract selling chips for Infinium Lab's "Phantom"

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?

[chill]

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

By the time the X2 comes out, Celeron 733s will probably be cheap enough to put on an add-on card and sell for $49.

That is the price of 1 game. Lot of people with existing X-Box titles would buy that.

Re:What about today's Xbox?

[jo42]

Microsoft wants you to throw out all of your old stuff and buy new stuff. This is, after all, their business model. Don't use Windows 2000 with Office 2000 anymore! Throw it out and buy Windows XP and Office XP instead. Then throw all that out and buy Office 2003 and run it on, oh wait, we have no Windows 2003 for the desktop - doh! Just missed an opportunity to sell a new round of OS upgrades - cr*p!

Re:What about today's Xbox?

[AuMatar]

I do. I own about 6 PS1 games to every PS2 game. Never owned a PS1, I was in college when it came out, had no money. So being able to do both was great, I could play all the games I missed.

In addition, if I had had a PS1, I'd still find it a great feature since it would let me get rid of a piece of hardware and remove clutter.

Re:What about today's Xbox?

[Osty]

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.

What? It's generally accepted that XBox has had the strongest launch lineup of any recent console (perhaps of any console?). With Halo, Project: Gotham Racing, Amped, NFL Fever, Oddworld, DoA3, and a bunch of other titles, the XBox did quite well for itself. The PS2 on the other hand had a pretty weak launch library, so weak in fact that I can't even recall what titles launched with the system (probably a Madden title, maybe the first SSX?). GT3 was released a year or more after the launch of the PS2, and was eventually bundled with the PS2 for a while, but it was definitely not a system seller for the PS2 launch except by anticipation, ie "Why should I buy a Dreamcast with a bunch of great games right now when I could buy a PS2 and get Gran Turismo 3 in a year even though there's really nothing worth playing yet?"

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.

I know exactly two people who have a PS2 (and thus, I'm probably not typical, but oh well), and both of them use their PS2 for PS1 games. Mostly, they play Square's PS1 games like the Final Fantasy series and re-releases (Anthologies, Chronicles, Origins). Nobody is going to buy a PS2 so that they can play the PS1 version of John Madden Football, but I could see someone buying a PS2 because they want to play Gran Turismo 2 (they'll probably also get GT3, but the hardcore will dig up copies of 1 and 2 as well). And as for just playing the PS1 games on the old PS1, why bother? Do you really want to have another box connected to your TV/home theater system? More importantly, the PS2 does smooth the graphics somewhat of PS1 games, making them look a bit better, so except for the very few games that don't work with the PS2's PSOne-on-a-chip, there's no reason you wouldn't want to play your PS1 games on your PS2.

A question

[FreeBSD Goddess]

Forgive me if I'm being moronic about this, but if it's based off the G5, it has a completely different instruction set. 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?

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:A question

[jonbryce]

http://www.google.com/search?q=nt%20power%20pc

The first link should do.

At one point it was available for i386, alpha, ppc and mips. They dropped mips, cause nobody bought it, then IBM/Motorola pulled out of the ppc project for the same reason.

Alpha lasted a bit longer but was withdrawn as of Windows 2000.

More recently it has been ported to ia64, and they are working on a port to AMD's 64bit chip.

Re:A question

[grotgrot]

In fact Microsoft developers on the OS side do a lot of their development on non-Intel platforms such as PowerPC. The reason is that it ensures the code is cleaner and architecture neutral. Later on it is "ported" to Intel.

Re:A question

[laird]

Actually, NT 3.x (and, possibly 4.0) ran on many CPU's including the PowerPC. If you remember back when the PPC was being promoted as the CPU of the Common Hardware Reference Platform, you could run MacOS, Linux, and NT on the same hardware. Anyway, I would hope that MS has retained that portability in the core of the OS (the same way Apple makes sure that MacOS X still runs on the x86) in order to keep its options open.

So it'd be easy for new "Xbox 2" games to run natively on PPC. That being said, they'd still need an x86 emulator to run the Xbox games. I bet a 2 GHz G5 could emulate an Xbox pretty well...

Re:A question

[ADRA]

If for instance the code was somehow embedded inside the CPU core, then the following holds:

- The Signature that allows the boot loader to run is stored inside the CPU, but it can only run a boot loader that has been signed by microsoft beforehand. Since the key can't be changed, all it guarantees is that the boot loader is secure. Now, you have the kernel, which one would assume to be upgradable. If the kernel is not upgradable, a major bug / exploit found in the kernel could be exploited and never get fixed until Xbox 3.

If the kernel isn't upgradable, you need to start hackimng the userspace apps to kill the lock-out.

If they make the kernel upgradable, they have to be able to sign the kernel from the boot loader. So, you either use the embedded CPU ID to sign the kernel, or they will have the key somewhere else that normal users won't be able to reach. Of course having the decode key only gives you half the prize. You need to find the encoding key in order to encrypt software that actually runs on the Xbox. Once software has been signed, there is no stopping anyone from running anything as long as that piece of software has kernel-level access to the hardware. If you rely on a userspace exploit, you can only perform a limited set of operations, like running arbitrary commands. Get the kernel, and you could burn in a new kernel in its place tricking everything on the higher levels as to who you are.

So, how do we hack the Xbox 2 if we can't run arbitrary code on the xbox to begin with?
Any external access to the system is exploitable through its IO subssytems. The kernel could have a buffer overrun, the game running could leak precious data, who knows. The more functionality left open, the more potential expoits there are to take advantage of.

I haven't bridged the topic of hardware mods which does get more sticky if the encryption is processes in the CPU. I'd have to see when and how the CPU decrypts a signed working set and how the decoded code is run after the decrypt.

Re:A question

[jafac]

Prediction:
This will be the one PPC Platform where Microsoft will deliver a version of Virtual PC that works with the G5.

Will this affect users?

[Ed Avis]

Time was, when the choice of CPU meant something. If two machines used the same CPU you had a good chance of getting a speedy emulation of one using the other - for example the Mac emulators for the Amiga which were close to 100% compatible. But even though this is a Power-derived processor it doesn't seem likely anyone will be running AIX or Mac OS X on the Xbox2, or the other way round.

Re:Will this affect users?

[nate1138]

No, but what about Linux or xBSD? They both already run on that architecture. The article mentioned that MS was pissed about people turning their heavily subsidized game platform into a PC without buying the games that make it a profitable product. Those folks aren't running windows on it anyhow. Now maybe if it was an "extended" power architecture, something not publicly documented, it could delay the hacks.

Re:Will this affect users?

[motorsabbath]

Which begs the question: with Apple running IBM CPUs *and* playing reasonably well with the open-source community, why isn't IBM pushing Apple desktops at all? Seems to me both could clearly benefit from some help from the IBM marketing machine, given it's size and scope. Apple wants to do it all itself (and is doing a pretty good job) but the benefits of such help are undeniable.

Won't MS have to rewrite everything?

[ajiva]

Uhhh, won't MS have to rewrite the whole OS, directX, etc for the XBox2? It seems that porting Windows to PowerPC may be harder than just getting a new Intel processor in there. Of course if MS does port XP to the G5, maybe the Apple guys can install something besides a real OS :)

Re:Won't MS have to rewrite everything?

[stratjakt]

Yah, MS and IBM are stupid, you better call 'em and set them straight!

Some things to consider:

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

2) Wasn't IBM working on a new mega-chip that can run x86 and PowerPC codes side by side?

3) Perhaps making the Xbox so close to a PC blew up in MSFTs face, and they don't plan to do it again. You can turn your noses at "security through obscurity" all you want, but the Xbox, once initiall cracked, has been blown wide open - it's a no brainer to port PC emulators and apps to it. The GCN or PS2, however, have taken much longer, and are still an obfuscated mess to try and develop custom stuff for.

Bodes well for Apple too!

[MarcQuadra]

Who thinks that IBM is going to turn around and sell these things to Aplle as the CPU for the G5 laptop?

This bodes VERY well for IBM, Apple, Microsoft, and anyone else interested in low-power-draw PowerPC systems. It sucks for Motorola, but they lost my favor years ago, and they really charge ludicrous prices for their wares.

Also, Could IBM be developing their G3+AltiVec chip for this? It seems to me that if the G3 series was dead IBM would stop working on it, but there are 750GX CPUs due soon (just a 750FX with 1MB on-die cache), and rumors of a G3 with SIMD coming down the pipe. It seems to me that if IBM bastardized some of the SIMD logic from the 970 and strapped it to the 750 they'd have a pretty decent low-power SIMD chip that Apple could market as a 'G3', 'G4' or a 'G5.'

Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic, but the G3 was the CPU best-suited for what I do, and I hope it doesn't disappear. I have little use for SIMD, and I really appreciate running a CPU without a fan strapped to it, it's just so... elegant.

Backwards Compatible?

[realdpk]

It seems that it would be prudent for Microsoft to announce something about backwards compatibility if they're going to make such a dramatic platform change. That's one of the greatest things for early adopters of the PS2 - they could still play their PS1 games on 'em.

Re:Backwards Compatible?

[yamla]

Nothing has been officially announced but I will bet you the purchase and shipping price of an XBox 2 that it will not run XBox 1 games.

There are several reasons why this is true, not least of which the use of the CPU which would make emulation troublesome at best. I am not sure what speed of G5 the XBox 2 will contain but it wouldn't be fast enough to provide a 733 Mhz x86 in emulation. IBM is already talking about stripping down the CPU, removing some of the cache, etc.

You can count this as FUD if you want. You can assume I know no more than you do about the XBox 2. But you'll see when they announce the full specs, the XBox 2 cannot run XBox 1 games.

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.

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.

Other links

[iJed]

This has also been mentioned on the following sites:

• The Register
• Mac Rumors
• Mac Central

It would be interesting to know exactly why they have picked an IBM chip rather than Intel or AMD. I wouldn't think the IBM (PPC?) chip would be more cost effective than the Intel/AMD but you never know...

Erm...

[athakur999]

and then adding a pirated disk drive

This is just pure ignorance. Apparently going to Best Buy and buying a hard drive is now "piracy".

Re:Erm...

[cK-Gunslinger]

Apparently going to Best Buy and buying a hard drive is now "piracy".

Yes, but only because 80% of these people return home via ship and swing on a rope into their homes. Arrrrgh!

PowerPC was *supposed* to become a commodity chip

[KojakBang]

IBM was going to come out with personal powerpc systems which would even have a common motherboard reference design with Macs. The volume of production would drive down costs dramatically. But IBM didn't and Apple basically got screwed on that deal.

Interestly enough, the reason IBM canned the personal powerpc systems was that OS2 for PPC completely blew its schedule several times over. IBM had a personal AIX edition for PPC ready but chose not to go with that. The reason. Unix would never make it as a mainstream operating system for PCs.

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.

Re:there will be backwards compatibility

[pi radians]

There is no way they are discussing the G4... since Motorola, not IBM are the manufacturers of it.

Okay, now this could be awesome.

[iamdrscience]

Assuming that this "next generation xbox" thing will be as hackable as the current Xbox (and the Dreamcast and the PS2, etc.) this could lead to a reasonably priced PowerPC machine to mess around with. This could be very cool. The current Xbox isn't especially competitive with a comparable low budget x86 system, but right now the only way you can mess with a G5 is to spend a couple grand on a new mac and likely once this new system comes out a cheap G5 system will still be the better part of a grand.

interesting move for xbox..

[Thrakkerzog]

Wasn't one of the "Benefits" for people making games for xbox the ability to code just like they did for pc games?

perhaps they are trying to lure developers away from GCN by offering a similar cpu architecture?

So is it a fair assumption...

[NanoGator]

... that backwards compatibility isn't part of Microsoft's game here? I suppose they could do like the PS2 did and use the original Intel processor to act as a controller or something, but somehow I doubt that'd be cost effective enough.

Emulator? Eck I hope not. Well.. maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Maybe they could do a combination emulator and wrapper. The emulator would be for the processor instructions, and the wrapper would be to send the graphics commands to the new GPU. Presumably, the difference between the two GPUs wouldn't be big enough as to prevent that from working.

Eh I dunno. Personally, I'm hoping Microsoft does something a little more interesting than just throwing next-gen hardware into a box as an upgrade. Pushing polygons around is nice, but I really like how small and cheap my GameCube is. *Hint hint*

Let me get this straight...

[HoldmyCauls]

That's IBM... supplying Microsoft... with PowerPC processors... for a gaming console...?

If anyone needs me, I'll be conferring with my local pastor as to whether or not Hell has frozen over.

Re:Let me get this straight...

[Temporal]

Dude, hell froze over weeks ago. This is just an after-shock. Didn't you see the iTunes announcement?

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.

Ironic

[Gregoyle]

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.

That's not ironic. It would be ironic if IBM declared the PC industry dead, and said that the embedded industry was all that was viable, made this processor for the embedded industry, and someone used it to revitalize the PC industry and put IBM back on top there. The fact that they are not on top of an industry that they helped start is interesting, but it's a far cry from ironic.

Not to pick nits, but misuse of the word "irony" is one of my pet peeves.

Re:Hope it's...

[Jesrad]

The Gamecube has a 486MHz PPC 750CX/e, which is 32bits, has limited front side bus bandwidth and 256K L2 on-die cache. The XBox2 will likely use a variant of the PPC 970 or 980, which are 64bits, have plentiful bandwidth and 512K on-die L2 cache, plus an altivec unit, and run around 2GHz.

Of course it'll be better.

intel/amd/ppc

[Sebastopol]

Intel went after Xbox originally so that AMD wouldn't get the win, but Intel still took it in the shorts, or so it is claimed, by offering a nutrageously low price to outbid AMD. Probably even at a loss given the timeframe.

Intel doesn't give a crap about PPC, as it isn't even a remote threat, what at 4% of the market. Intel could have EASILY played the same power-play and had another design win, but at the cost of lower ASPs for a niche market (compared to its $20b a year market, xbox isn't worth it).

just my $0.02.

X86 emulation under PowerPC

[ahchem]

This is actually a very interesting move on MS's part. Not too long ago they purchased the premier x86 on PPC emulator. Now they are going with IBM's PPC as there next Xbox. Maybe they are ready to have a win-tel divorce and declare their independence from Intel, or maybe just shake the relationship up a bit.

Re:X86 emulation under PowerPC

[yamla]

This would be great as far as I am concerned. However, ix86 is still the cheapest instruction set for the performance available for a general-purpose PC. I don't see any benefit, and considerable problems, with Microsoft divorcing itself from the ix86 instruction set. Don't forget, of course, that Microsoft already tried something similar back in the NT days and ended up abandoning all non-ix86 platforms.

Of course, ix86 isn't the be-all and end-all, not by a long shot. I'd rather run PowerPC, myself, if the price was right.

Windows for PPC

[Sri Lumpa]

I must say I absolutely didn't see that coming and if somebody had told be beforehand I probably would have chuckled.

This means a version of Windows for PowerPC and, if they use the G5, a 64 bit version of Windows.

I think the former used to exist a while ago (NT4?) and the latter is available in a more or less broken form but the fact that XBox2 would be a fixed hardware platform may allow them to make a better version.

I'm no MS fan but I can only see that as a good sign as long as they don't use the 32 bit subset of the PPC architecture, it could help them with a better 64 bit Windows which would help drive the adoption of such systems up and therefore drive the price down; which would help enlarging the 64 bit Linux userbase.

Ok, it's a lot of "if's" but at least it opens the possibility a bit wider.

Um, so how is PPC more stable than Intel?!?!

[FatSean]

Please give examples of instability in the Intel hardware.

History Repeats Itself

[ewhac]

Not long after the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer came out, we started designing the next-generation platform. The machine was to be PowerPC-based with true 3D rendering capabilities (triangle engine, MIP-mapping, perspective-correct textures, 32-bit rendering, etc.).

The CPU was supplied by IBM. What we ended up with was the PowerPC 602, which was essentially a 603 (?) with a smaller cache and single-precision floating point operations that executed in a single cycle, which were essential for 3D gaming. The part ran at 66MHz.

It was a really nice machine. Sadly, it essentially died on the vine, as Matsushita chose not to exploit its gaming potential, relegating it instead to "kiosk" activities.

IBM also manufactured the triangle engine. It was a five layer chip -- at that time, a rather sophisticated process -- occupying 144 square millimetres.

Schwab

Re:Megadrive was first

[default luser]

Actually, the earliest instance of easy backward-compatibility I can recall was the Atari 7800. It could read 2600 and 7800 carts, all from the same cartridge slot. Of course, the 7800 was so heavily delayed that Nintendo stole their market...

Even though the z80 hardware was built in to the Megadrive / Genesis, you had to shell out for the Master System Converter.

This, plus the fact that the Master System didn't sell too well, made it a losing feature.

When you sell millions of PS1s, and you can get an optical drive cheap that reads your old CD media, and your new DVD media, then you've got backward-compatibility that's a selling point.

ATARI and Sega did it first. Nintendo and Sony were the first companies to do it right.

Re:i'd buy an xbox if osx ran on it

[Jesrad]

You probably want to speak with Apple, instead.

Unfortunately Apple already tried to get in the videogame console market, with the Pippin, which was a monumental failure. Steve Jobs is not likely to send Apple this way again anytime soon.

My Prediction

[Goyuix]

Just as with the original XBox, there were plans to use AMD chips, at least that is what most of the speculation on the internet said, up until they announced the specs and low and behold Intel had "won" the contract instead.

I could very easily see this deal with IBM as a backdoor sneaky tatic to get nVidia hardware under the hood again, especially with their cozy arrangements as of late. For that matter, AMD and IBM are also in bed so it wouldn't be surprising at all the see ATI booted and AMD/NV offering becoming the real guts of the console. IBM would be the fab for the chips and assembly for the mainboard... heck they might even just roll the whole thing and take a cool percentage.

Off the wall? Perhaps. But I think this xb0x0r war is far from over. There are no published specs and these talks of industry deals are by no means what the final product will necessarily be.

C'mon, there are lots of non-x86 chips out there

[Junks Jerzey]

Most embedded CPUs are not x86-based. They're not PowerPC or ARM based either. It's just that most people aren't familiar with what CPUs are out there, only what's available for PC boxes.

That said, consider that the PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 use MIPS processors. The Sega Saturn used a Hitachi SH-2. The Dreamcast used an SH-4. The 3DO console was ARM based. The Nintendo 64 uses a MIPS. The GameCube uses a PowerPC. The Game Boy Color is Z80 based. The Game Boy Advance uses an ARM. The Nokia N-Gage also uses an ARM.

In short, non-x86 based game consoles are the norm, not the exception. You simply can't put a super hot P4 in an embedded environment. Intel knows this. That's not the market they're after with the P4. This is basic embedded systems design.

One wrinkle using the VPC code from Connectix...

[LionMage]

as mentioned in Financial Times, Microsoft will likely be using their recently acquired Virtual PC software

Except that if Microsoft uses the G5 (PPC970) chip, as everyone is speculating, they'll have to tweak the Virtual PC code base to run on the G5. Why? Because the G5 silicon lacks the special "virtual little endian mode" that the Virtual PC code from Connectix relies upon for performance on the G3 and G4 chips.

Of course, a highly optimal bit of PPC assembly could be written to replace the missing mode and instructions on the G5.

Then again, Microsoft could twist IBM's arm and get them to make a custom variant of the G5 that includes this mode, and maybe chops some cache for cost conservation. I sincerely doubt that the chip IBM winds up fabbing for the next Xbox is going to be identical to the version currently shipping in Apple's G5 desktops.

IBM could have offered more customizations.....

[JollyFinn]

IBM microelectronics make custom asics with PPC cores in them, and IBM:s chip designing is in higher level stuff than AMD so they can modify that cheaper at expense of clock speed that they get... But now at 0.9u the PPC970 is supposed to be quite tiny so what ELSE they will put in there besides the CPU core and cache? Instead of using altivec they might go something more excess like putting 16 FMACS. Which would give microsoft both superiour numbers and performance but also guarantee that other chips wouldn't be compatible with it, as they would have instructions that no one else has, and in other way their developement package might be really only way to port software for it, and the customizations might even make reverse engineering the thing without full developement package from microsoft impossible. They could offer packaging with low latency mainmemory in the package, and something like 4-8 channels to the memory chip, inside the package. And only put outside interface to graphic chip outside the package and put all the other supporting logic in the same chip with CPU. Hey IBM has LOTS of options and modifications and stuff that they could have offered for microsoft besides price point. IBM could have made point hey we offer you 4 times as much memory bandwith and 4 times as many flops as our competitors in same price if you take the reduction of other chips in the system in account. And AMD and INTEL in their highly tuned hand optimized design methologies where not able to offer something even resembling the beast that IBM could customize for microsoft, at reasonable price. IBM makes great business selling G3:s with lots of custom stuff attached to it on single chip. They might even maker HARDWARE decryption on the processor chip for instructions stream, that could mean a LOT harder modifications for it than for original xbox.

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.

Re:Hope it's...

[AtaruMoroboshi]

Frankly, what are you talking about? Performance issues?

The Gamecube is way more powerful than the PS2, most importantly with none of the jaggie aliasing problems nor the atrocious load times..

Yes, most of the time those 2 issues are no longer a big deal on the PS2 but it took a lot of developer cleverness to do it.

Re:Hope it's...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be so sure. Don't be fooled by the clock speeds. The GCN is as powerful as the PS2, if not moreso, and is the superior of the two machines if actual output is a layman's comparison. Check out a comparison.

OS X on XBox?!?

[illumin8]

Wow... I can see the potential implications now:

Microsoft releases XBox 2 with a PPC 970 running at 2 ghz.

XBox hackers break the encryption and are able to run unsigned code on the PPC 970 processor.

XBox hackers use MacOnLinux to run a full-fledged Mac OS X on cheap Xbox hardware.

???

Profit!!!

Just kidding about the profit part... But who wouldn't want a 2 ghz. G5 running Mac OS X for about $300. This would be a killer workstation and would run circles around the existing Xbox 1 running Linux. Can you imagine?

Re:One wrinkle using the VPC code from Connectix..

[Lars T.]

I have yet to see anything substantiating that claim. Heck, there never was a "virtual little endian mode". When somebody (esp. Microsoft) invents new names for something to prove they don't exist (anymore), I feel uneasy.

3.1.4 PowerPC Byte Ordering

The PowerPC architecture supports both big and little-endian byte ordering. The default byte ordering is bigendian. However, the code sequence used to switch from big to little-endian mode may differ among processors.

The PowerPC architecture defines two bits in the MSR for specifying byte ordering--LE (little-endian mode) and ILE (exception little-endian mode). The LE bit specifies the endian mode in which the processor is currently operating and ILE specifies the mode to be used when an exception handler is invoked. That is, when an exception occurs, the ILE bit (as set for the interrupted process) is copied into MSR[LE] to select the endian mode for the context established by the exception. For both bits, a value of 0 specifies big-endian mode and a value of 1 specifies little-endian mode.

The PowerPC architecture also provides load and store instructions that reverse byte ordering. These instructions have the effect of loading and storing data in the endian mode opposite from that which the processor is operating. See Section 4.2.3.4 Integer Load and Store with Byte-Reverse Instructions for more information on these instructions.

I have yet to see anything by IBM saying that there were changes in that behaviour in the 970.

Congratulations - Its a GameCube?

[justin_saunders]

What do you get when add an ATI graphics chip and a PowerPC processor? - thats right, the XBox 2 is a GameCube!.

But seriously folks, what does this mean for GameCube 2's "air supply". With ATI and IBM tied up (legally,financially) with exclusive tech deals with M$, how is the GameCube 2 going to retain backwards compatibility without using "second best" technology.