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Microsoft Moving Into Chip Design With Xbox Next
adamsmith_uk writes "According to ZDNet, Microsoft will more actively participate in chip design for the next version of its Xbox gaming console, tentatively called Xbox Next. By switching from using relatively standard parts to more customized silicon, the company can better optimize its game console, due in 2005. At the same time, the move potentially gives the company a toehold in a completely new market."
I wonder how much of this is to make it harder to pirate games or run linux on the XBox?
The IBM representative acknowledged that Microsoft is looking at the company's PowerPC technology, the underlying architecture behind the chips in Apple computers. PowerPC concepts will also be the basis of the Cell processor, which will contain multiple chip cores that handle a variety of tasks.
Microsoft absorbs good ideas from multiple places... Here they are considering powerpc concepts!
As I have said many time... Microsoft is very borg-like! I use and enjoy Microsoft everyday... but their ability to "borrow" technology and ideas is slightly disturbing.
Davak
The original X-Box was a reworked PC. Maybe they want a closed system for their next box so Linux won't run on it.
By switching from using relatively standard parts to more customized silicon, the company can better optimize its game console
And they are effectively removing the aspect of XBox that made it cost effective and appealing to developers: easy porting to the PC through common components and CPU architecture.
just = (My)Opinion.toCents();
1. Microsoft will find a partner willing to invest in designing a new generation of hardware.
2. The product will start to become a reality.
3. Microsoft will pull out of the deal, citing "differences" and go into the hardware business itself, suddenly having aquired lots of new technology and staff.
4. Lawyers everywhere will rejoice once again.
Ah, but the lure of big money will find a sucker every time. Microsoft is like a huge fat 419 scam artist. "Have $500bn sitting in games market, need someone to facilitate extraction, will give 10%".
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Wasn't the XBox supposed to crush Sony like a grape because it used commodity parts while silly Sony used specialized ones, therefore much more expensive?
But, the thing is, for the most part, only the extreme crowd is interested in doing that sort of thing. One drawback that Microsoft is going to have to work at, is that if they get too custom, they're going to make the big selling point (i.e. it's next to nothing to port a Windows game over to the X-Box...) and pretty much throw it out the window.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I just shelled out 200 for a playstation 2 late last year. I can't afford to go buying another game console every 2-3 years. I know technology is racing ahead so fast the a console is already obslete by the time it hits the market but would it really hurt if a company stuck to an obslete console for 5-7 years. I mean, whose going to remember a console in ten years if it was only out 3 years before ti was discontinued? Stick with one console, build up a decent library for it, and actually work on a few good games for that console rather than the eyecandy we get now. I can't keep buying consoles like this. I don't many can. And why shoudl I* buy the comapnies latest console, when if I just continue to save my money, I'll be able to afford the next model 3 years later.
Cost of console = n + $100 where n equals the prices of the console this one renders obselete.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Didn't MS agree to stay the hell out of the chip making business in order to be lovey-dovey with Intel and their specs?
How's Intel taking the news?
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
I doubt Microsoft cares as much about Linux as the rampant piracy of the Xbox games
I knew this was coming.
Microsoft made some serious design mistakes with the first X-Box. One of the big ones was they assumed that if they used generic standard PC parts that would make it somehow cheaper. However, the economic logic of the PC industry doesn't necessarily apply to the gaming console industry, where you want to make tens of millions of consoles all exactly the same. When you are doing that, it actually is worth the effort making fairly customized hardware, because every cent you can shave of the production costs of a unit makes a big difference.
With a changein graphic processors, I wonder if Microsoft plans to not include backward-compatibility with the original (current) XBox.
One of PS2's main strengths was that consumers didn't have to throw away their PSOne game libraries or keep two consoles hooked up. Sega didn't do this with their hardware and suffered as a result. Nintendo did not do this with its consoles but _did_ with the GameBoy line, and look at which one is more successful.
If Microsoft wants to build a sustainable marketshare for XBox, it must keep consumer units "in the family" as Sony did with Playstation and Nintendo did with GameBoy.
Is the XBox actually going anywhere? Here in Spain I must see ten PS2 advertisements on the TV for every one for the XBox. And in most stores the PS2 seems to have about three to five times more shelf space allocated to it than the XBox. Not only that, but with the GameCube priced at 99 Euros, the XBox has some serious competition this Christmas. Can the XBox ever become serious competition to the Playstation under those conditions?
What's it like in the rest of the world?
Changing architectures will not change whether the new box can be hacked. And if it can be hacked to run code at all it can be hacked to run Linux. Or OpenBSD. Both, and many others, are very portable - and any obscurity about the system's setup will be penetrated. Heck - changing architectures will just make the hacking more interesting.
I'm not saying that "security" won't be a priority, just that it is not overwhelmingly affected by architecture - and certainly isn't affected enough to dictate a major change like the one they're doing.
This change was about performance, price, and possibly politics.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
MS gets bashed for trying to pawn off a PC as a console, so now they are moving to a proprietary hardware solution, just like Sony and Nintendo, and once again MS is getting slammed for it!
Its fucking amazing!
Wasn't one of the "strengths" Microsoft was touting with the original Xbox was that because it uses standard PC parts it would be easier to develop and port games?
Now it looks as if the parts are going to be as "standard" as WMA.
So, what will be the advantage the Xbox has now? I doubt there will be that much of a technology gap between any of the next-gen systems. It puts it much closer to the other consoles, and among those, sheer numbers usually wins out - these days, namely, Sony. Only if the custom parts become much cheaper, and the Xbox stops creating losses for MS, would this be a good step for them.
If anything is going to tip the scales away from Sony in the console wars, I doubt it is going to happen this round.