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."

Comments

DRM

[Rosyna]

I wonder how much of this is to make it harder to pirate games or run linux on the XBox?

Because they have to...

[pubjames]

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.

Re:From commodity to specialized?

[cgenman]

Amusingly enough, the opposite proved true. (can't tell if you were being sarcastic)

Sony's specialized parts ensured that Sony owned all of the rights. Sony's intimate knowledge of the parts and the manufacturing has allowed them to combine silicon, cutting down on overall size and costs. Likewise, the only profittaking is from Sony, and with fewer hands in the pot the margins can be shrunk. Unfortunately for Microsoft, using off-the-shelf parts from different manufacturers ensured that they needed the cooperation (and credits) from different companies. Nvidia, for example, gets a cut on the sales of the hardware, not from the software like ATI gets from Nintendo. Microsoft similarly needs to use faster hardware in their machines as they aren't exactly console-optimized. The 'Cube, again, can get away with running on much slower (read, cheaper) hardware, because it would be a terrible webserver. Say what you will about the XBox OS, it's hardware and interfaces were not originally developed with gaming in mind.

On the other hand, the success of the PS2 can probably be traced to GT3, GTA, Square, Metal Gear Solid 2, Onimusha, and a host of must-have games that were released before the Xbox hit its stride. People buy games and hardware to play those games, not hardware and games to play on that hardware.