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Xbox 2 SDK Released On Mac G5?
Espectr0 writes "The Inquirer reports rumors, courtesy anonymous sources, that Microsoft has released the Xbox 2 SDK to select videogame developers, and they are using 'dual Apple Power Mac G5 systems running a custom Windows NT Kernel.' This ties up with earlier rumors which mention that the XBox 2 will be powered by the IBM chip, and ATI will be providing the video chip." The report also notes: "Interestingly, the SDK apparently also features an Apple logo on a side bar within the application."
hmmm wounder how long before the mac zelots turn the xbox 2 into a OS X compatible computer ;P
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Blue screens faster than ever.
the SDK apparently also features an Apple logo on a side bar within the application
Does anyone have a screenshot? I would like to see what size M$ put the logo.
Cheers,
RoadkillBunny
I think the use of the Apple G5 systems with a funny NT kernel running indicate that the XBox2 is going to have a lot more in common with the Apple G5 than the common PC. Afterall, there just aren't a lot of PC motherboards in circulation built for the IBM PowerPC chips.
Clearly, the final specs for the XBox2 aren't set in stone. So, since they can't deliver any XBox2 motherboards because they're not exactly fully designed yet, Apple's a reasonable place to turn for successful implementation of the IBM processor chips. It's likely that the Apple logo within the software was part of the price Microsoft had to pay for Apple's assitance in supplying a little help in writing that NT-on-PowerPC kernel...
Why would it mean anything. It seems its just a development environment for the Xbox, and considering that it seems the Xbox 2 will have no backwards compatibility why would this environment help in porting, when they have turned their back on intel architecture for the platform. Just because it has a NT kernel doesn't mean anything, remember NT ran on PPC as well as Alpha and Intel when NT was actually called NT.
"I use a Mac because I'm just better than you are."
Interesting. I wonder if we'll ever see an Xbox2 emu for the Macintosh? If memory serves, wasnt the first commercial Playstation emulator for the Mac? The other good thing about this, is that the more chips business IBM gets the more incentive they have to make (more/better/faster) PPC chips - which bodes well for us Mac users. This is good news, but I'm curious if anyone knows what Intel did to piss microsoft off so much that they turn to IBM?
-_-
I guess that answers the question of the X-Box 2's processer. I wonder why Microsoft made this move though, considering the classic WinTel alliance. It doesn't seem like a normal thing from them. Wether or not one companies top chip is faster than the other, does it really matter which one you use? It seems like by the time games start maxing out the processer, a new console has already come out. I mean look at all the other consoles. The Play Station used a relatively slow processer for the time. Same with the X-Box (733 mhz). Possibly price, but then wouldn't they go with AMD? I mean, why break compatibilty and go non x86 when x86 chips are farely cheap?
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I'm really not surprised. I mean, Apple has no stake in the videogame market, so why not help out someone (even Microsoft) and get a little bit of extra money? Microsoft would find a way to do it eventually, so its not like if Apple didn't help it would be any sort of blow against MS.
I think we should wait for an official release from any of the companies involved.
Until then the SDK is just Vaporware.
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
Good way to make sure people won't be able to run Xbox2 games on PCs.
...that will never be ported to the computer you're running them on.
I would say probably nothing - comparing running XBox SDK on G5's to porting windows apps to OSX is an apples to oranges kind of deal. If you're talking linux x86... shouldn't be too hard to port to OSX anyway.
[Z?]
This may be why all those new G5s where being rolled into the microsoft offices some months ago. The guy who took photo's of it and posted it on his web site got fired for taking the photo's because of what microsoft management called "security concerns". I can't seem to find the original story.
I'd say the most interesting result of this is that it appears microsoft made windows run on a mac. If their custom NT kernal is siimilar to what is on the X-box then it is quite a feat. The x-box ran a slightly modified directX which is the part of the windows OS that Wine is having a really hard time emulating. If microsoft could port that over to a G5 mac then i they could easily port a full Windows operating system over. Not that they would. It doesn't make a lot of sense for them to do it economically, but its still interesting that they could. ~Ian
Where's the .torrent?!
On a more practical note this doesn't hold out much hope for XBOX-1 game compatibility, does it?
...film at 11.
Seriously, how much is this thing gonna *cost*? The rumor I'm hearing everywhere is that the box will have three G5's and video superior to the current Radeon 9800. Dual G5's with a Radeon 9600 in an Apple wrapper costs nearly three grand! I mean, even if you drop the hard drive, you're knocking maybe $50 off of the cost to MS of this thing. Since Apple's hardware margins (once you take into account marketing, R&D, etc. - gross margins are higher) run about 4%, we're still talking about MS having north of $2500 in each of these units, unless component prices really drop by launch date.
I don't care how many launch titles it has, I'm not going to pay much more than $300 for a videogame system. I can't imagine anyone else will either. I don't see Microsoft being willing to lose $2200 on a console, then wait for me to buy 44 $50 games to make their money back.
What gives?
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Holy Jesus, you people are misinformed.
August 6, 1997- Microsoft agreed to purchase $150 million in non-voting Apple preferred stock. Note that it was NON-VOTING stock-- so essentially this was just a goodwill investment in Apple. Microsoft was required to hold the stock for at least 3 years before selling. Another clause of this investment was that Microsoft was to continue to produce Macintosh products, including all new versions of the Microsoft Office product, for a period of five years. In exchange, Apple would make Internet Explorer the default web browser on Macs, and not sue the living hell out of Microsoft.* Microsoft has since sold all of this stock, at a nice profit, I might add. This agreement expired in August 2002, and since then MS has occasionally made noise about discontinuing Mac Office. Apple is also no longer bound to the terms of this agreement, so expect to see IE vanish from new Macs as soon as Apple's Safari browser goes 1.0.
* Strong rumors from several sources indicate that the 1997 deal was the public portion of a settlement made after Apple discovered substantial patent and/or copyright infringment by MS in Windows. Word is that there was a meeting between senior Apple and MS officials where Apple laid out the evidence and an ultimatum. Personally, I think there is some credibility to this, as Microsoft rarely if ever does anything that could be deemed 'nice,' especially to a competitor. There is, however, another school of thought that says Microsoft was only acting in their own self-interest, propping up Apple so they would have a competitor to point to when the antitrust thing really built up some steam. I question the use of the term 'propping up,' as Apple had a few billion in the bank at the time and did not need the $150M, and the government would have realized that.
About six or seven years ago, MS bought a small amount of Apple preferred stock (which means non-voting shares). It was intended as a public show of confidence in Apple's future. Apple's stock price went up quite a bit in the time after that, so MS sold the stock for a nice profit. MS never had ANY control over Apple, contrary to what people mistakenly repeat.
Reason for Atari 5200's failure - lack of backward compatibility for Atari 2600
Reason for Sega Saturn's failure - lack of backward compatibility for Sega CD
Reason for Playstation 2's overwhelming success - presence of backward compatiblity for Playstation 1
Reason for X-Box 2's eventual failure - do I need to spell it out for you?
Well, I'm sure everyone is going to be happy to throw away their X-Box's, with its DX8 graphics, and resolution higher than most TV sets, and huge software library to buy a new X-Box 2, with its only slightly better graphics, at the same resolution without the ubergeek hacking potential.
Bill's short list of utter failures:
1990: MS-DOS 4
1995: Microsoft Bob
1999: Windows ME
2005: X-Box 2
But, hey, Microsoft is so big, that a huge failure can only mean one thing: Government Bailout!
I'd guess they made the choice for heat production reasons. The XBox is quite large for a game console and it still has heat problems. Using a smaller, cooler chip would help make this more of a real console. Intel is still having problems with its Prescott processor and is also currently trying to reposition itself with respect to the 64-bit transition. AMD doesn't have a low-heat CPU available either, though they're otherwise better positioned in the marketplace.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out, though. Getting Windows to run on a new architecture will likely take more than a new kernel.
Apple doesn't have a presence in the video game market, and if Microsoft uses something resembling the PPC 970 in the X2, that can only serve to [a] pay back IBM's investment in the 970 and [b] subsidize further development without Apple having to pick up the tab. Volume goes up, prices go down.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
But unless they make some changes from the X-box 1 it won't be trivial. People have been working on X-box 1 emus for the PC. Should be easy right? I mean an X-box has a slow P3 and a graphics chip that is the equivalant of a GeForce 4 4400. Well thing is, the system is different. A major difference is that the CPU and GPU share one memory space, where they are totally seperate in a PC (and Mac). Also programs have pretty much free run over all the memory on an X-box, where they are restricted on a PC (and Mac).
So instead of just being a matter of emulating BIOS and then running the game, you have to emulate the environment, and translate things that can't be executed directly.
It's akin to DOS emulators like DOSBox on NT. You can't just run DOS programs straight, they try and do things that aren't allowed by NT security. So you have to emulate an environment. Some things you pass straight through, and just execute natively, like most Ring 3 code. Some things, you have to go and emulate or fake or translate.
Now on a Mac it gets even harder since the X-box speaks DirectX and so probably will the X-box 2. I mean it's an MS system, they are going to use their API. Well that means that whereas on a PC you could at least pass some of that on as is, or with minor translations, you have to translate the whole thing to an API the Mac speaks.
So it certianly is possible, and something we'll probably see in time, but not something that will be trivially easy.
Blue screen different.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Consoles are a cutthroat market. The margins on hardware aren't razor thin, they are actually negative at least in the beginning and almost non existant after that. Also, it matters to be the biggest baddest, best looking, etc. So it is to the advantage of console makers to go with whoever will give them the cheapest stuff with the best performance.
I would bet that IBM is probably going to sell the 970s for X-box 2s at close to cost. For them it's not a money making move, it's a publicity move. As of late IBM's chip division has kind been seen only as a high-end server/supercomputer thing. Thier midrange market is almost non existant and their embedded market has been shrinking. Well the 970 is a serious midrange contender and I'm sure they want people to know it. Being the chip in one of the big 3 consoles certianly goes a long way for that.
This news is especially interesting in light of the conspiracy theories around the Xbox. Basically the idea is that the Xbox is a testbed/honeypot for palladium.
.NET gaining ground, Windows apps will become cross-platform easily. It makes sense that MS would want its APIs to dominate on all hardware platforms. They don't really need an alliance with Intel anymore.
What if instead of choosing PPC for the Xbox2 and porting Windows, they first chose to port Windows. Perhaps Xbox2 is a testbed for Windows-on-PPC, subsidizing the cost for writing the port through console licensing and mitigating the risk that PPC won't achieve wide adoption. The payoff is being able to continue to market Windows as a standard platform for both the desktop and server if PPC gains wider adoption.
With
For great justice.
It's called a rumor. You need to temper what you hear in the wind with what you actually know for sure. The XBox2 will be a game console and will be released at a similar price-point as the original XBox. Thus, we can safely assume that the cost of its components will be appreciable to the costs of the components in the current XBox.
Whatever you read on the internet more than a year before a product's release is most likely baloney.
How about this rumor. Every XBox2 will have a miniaturized human inside. This will give the X2 far superior natural language handling capabilities. As an even greater benefit, thousands of lonely dorks all over the country will finally be able to strike up friendships with their game console.
I place the previous paragraph in the public domain. Please feel free to spread that rumor wherever.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Ok, folks, this has nothing to do with apple as it is an ibm chip.
So will that matter? It SAVED the PS2 early on, but who knows if it will be needed for the X-Box 2. I would REALLY love it to have the compatability (which they could still do through emulation, I suppose) but if they don't have it they could really shoot themselves in the foot. Videogamers have had that abaility for years on the GameBoy, and the PS2 has it now. This could be a real big deal, depending on what they decide. It's not like the X-Box has a huge library of major titles though (the PS1 did), so it might not be worth the effort.
As for some of the other decisions they have made, I'm not suprised. Intel was dumped both because they didn't have a 64 bit CPU (which doing all the stuff in games could be handy) and I'm guessing because of the heat problems (which have only gotten worse, and would make for one LOUD console). As for nVidia, many people believe that they lost the lead in the 3D race with this last generation (although new rumors over the next GeForce look amazing!), and if you combine that with when they asked for more money publicly and had a little tiff with MS over that, I'm not suprised that they're gone.
All and all, it should be very interesting to see this next generation. Between the X-Box 2, the PS3 (will it run PS1/2 games? What's up with cell?), and the Game Cube's successor (should also be interesting) we should be in for some interesting developments (not to say anything about Nintendo's DS, the GBA's eventual successor, the PSP, and the persistant rumors of MS looking at portables). Video game fans, get ready for some cool stuff!
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Let's not forget that the speculation is that this will be a dual processor console.
The Sega Saturn was a console with multiple processors, and to this day there is no decent Saturn emulator. The hardware set-up of the Saturn made it one of the most difficult to emulate systems thus far, this has long been known/commented on/talked about.
Just because something runs on X processor, does not mean that even a computer with the same processor, or even 2-3 times the processing power can emulate it. The N64 had a 93.75MHz processor, and 3d hardware archaic by todays standards, but most PC N64 emulators list 1ghz+ processors in their requirements.
You wouldn't pay much more than $300 for a videogame system, but... how much would you pay for a box that:
- plays next generation videogames
- plays DVDs (HD-DVD maybe?)
- acts as a PVR
- plays MP3/WMA music, with a nice on-screen browser
- acts as a server or client to distribute media
to all the TVs/stereos in your house (they are already doing this with XBOX and Windows MCE)
This is the goal of the XBox2. It is not just another videogame system. It is Microsoft's next attempt at becoming a real player in the consumer electronics market.
Let's see here:
For Nintendo:
SNES: Success, not backward compatible with NES.
N64: Success, not backward compatible with SNES or NES.
Gamecube: Success, not backward compatible with N64, SNES, or NES.
For Sega:
Genesis: Success, not backward compatible with SMS.
Saturn: Failure, because of lack of 3d. The Saturn was designed to be the ultimate 2d console, which it was. 3d was an afterthought, and never worked well.
For Sony:
Playstation: Success, not compatible with ANY other system, being their first.
So it looks to me like backwards compatibility is a nice feature, nothing more. Nintendo, being the oldest company, is the most shining example. NONE of their consoles have been compatible. They thought about it with the SNES, hence the use of the 65C816 (which has a compatibility mode for 6502 code) but didn't end up doing it. The rest of the consoles aren't even remotely compatible. None the less, each has been a success.
What makes a console succede? Two main things:
1) Having flashy graphics to attract people, and the marketing to let people know about them. You may not, but most people gravitate towards pretty graphics.
2) More importantly: Good games. This is REALLY what makes or breaks a console. If your system has the games people want to play, they'll buy it. If it doesn't they won't. This is also a positive feedback loop since the more good games you have the more you sell and the more consolse you sell the more developers that will want to release for your console.
That's why Sony succeded, despite being new to the market. They released the games people wanted to play, and had stunning graphics for the time. Combine that with good marketing, you've got a winner.
well it will probably lack some of the chips and stuff to run OS X, but maybe Yellow Dog Linux will have a jump on turning these new Xboxs into something for more than games. They already have it running well on G5 Macs and their own hardware that uses 970 Chips (as well as G3 and G4 chips).
everyone knows Xbox and PS2 and all those game systems are sold at a loss, and they make up for it when users by software and maybe accessories. So the fact that someone will be selling hardware with a G5 for $600 won't matter too much. By the time the Xbox ships they may have 970/G5 chips in eMacs and they run about $1000 anyway.
Nahhh.
They'll have those perdy Apple kernel panic screens that have been professionally designed by typographers.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Wouldn't XP be Windows NT 6.0? I though Win2k was 5.0
Windows 2K is NT 5.0 and Windows XP is NT 5.1. Server 2003 is NT 5.2. These are the official version strings from Microsoft.
There is very little under-the-hood change between Windows 2000 (NT 5.0) and Windows XP (NT 5.1) aside from GUI modifications. From an application's point of view (or even a power user who makes all of his settings via the registry) there is not much different between the two. A lot of little things have been refined and updated, yes, but nothing huge.
And really... Win2K (NT 5.0) isn't a whole lot more than NT 4.0 SP4/SP5 + modern version of Direct X + modern drivers + light GUI polish. When NT 4 first shipped it did not come with Internet Explorer... later versions included a standalone version of IE... and still later versions included the deeply-rooted IE that we know and hate today.
NT 3.x was pretty archaic *looking* (Windows 3.x GUI, ugh!!) but still had most of the guts that NT 4 later used....
Call it what you will, but NT was the best thing Microsoft has ever done. We could all be using a heavily patched version of Win95 running atop DOS 7. "Win98 Seventh Edition!"
...and a voice said "Come and see," and the four horsemen of the apocalypse were unleashed upon the earth, and Microsoft released Windows NT for Macintosh, and verily the end times had come.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Good point.
0 4/01-07eHomeCES2004PR.asp
If that is the case (no HD in Xbox2), I bet a Windows MCE computer will be required, to act as the server for your house. You can then have various Xbox2 systems as "clients" in each room in your house. http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/Jan
OR
Your data is stored on MS servers. You pay a monthly fee, like Xbox Live, and can stream your data for playback when needed.
Actually, the new G5 tower has a completely different system architecture which uses HyperTransport technology co-designed with AMD. Each processor has it's own point to point bus to the system controller.
http://www.apple.com/powermac/architecture.html
I believe that only AMD Opteron systems have a similar architecture.
While both PCs and Macs support the PCI, USB and Firewire standards, the connections between the chips that implement these standards is quite different.
Could this be the REAL purpose of the VirtualPC aquisition? That was my first thought after reading the MS is considering basing xbox around a PPC CPU. They could have possibly decided to switch to PPC when the IBM 970 was anounced but needed to consider backward compatibility and figured buying outside technology (and maybe developers??? i don't know if the deal included transfer of VirtualPC developers/engineers) instead of rolling their own x86 emulation software would be a safer bet, give them a head start, and possibly be easier and cheaper as well.
I use a powerbook with Mac OS X. I've played with VirtualPC and it's not too bad for most things. It's definately not a substitute for a physical x86 machine for any really hairy apps like Oracle or say Pro/Engineer or heavy Photoshop usage(it's just for the sake of argument. I know, why use Windows Photoshop when there is a native mac version) Terminal Services/Remote Desktop is much better for that purpose. If the release of Xbox 2 is still a year or two off. I'm sure IBM will have ramped up the speed even more. possibly by that time a G5 would easily be able to emulate a PIII 500 or 733 or what ever lower end PIII the xbox was using thus solving the possible backward compatiblity problem
--
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
I just don't see why we here even care what the hardware is in these boxes. In general, the user experience between all 3 of the current consoles is nearly identical. The Xbox is more geared toward online gaming than the others, but that's about it. I first played this one game on PS2 a couple months ago, and even though I am new to owning a console, I knew that I most likely would be able to get the exact same game for my GameCube and it would look and feel the same. Sure enough, I picked it up for the same price and it was essentially the same game. Considering the GameCube media has maybe a third of the storage capacity of the full DVD media found in the other 2 consoles, this is kind of surprising, but shows that games still aren't that huge on the most part.
What I am really trying to get at here is we can admire and debate the specs of these consoles, but these specs have little to do with the fact that there hasn't really been any innovation since the first game console, unless you consider 3D and vibrating controllers amazing innovations (no, I'm not discrediting these ideas, but little has been done to make games more enjoyable to play, they're only more enjoyable to look at).
I am feeling fat and sassy
Actually, it wasn't so easy. Still to this day the Linux/XBox project isn't finished; you still need a modchip.
Everyone in the world uses PCs, and the software was easily ported, and the hardware easily understood. Microsoft will _not_ make the same mistake again.
Wrong again. Microsoft tried a new Xbox release with a tougher hardware configuration to break, and, lo and behold, it was immediately broken by the Linux on Xbox team.
You have to remember that the PPC only has about 1% of the global computing marketshare.
Man, can you get ANY of your facts straight? The current marketshare for Macs is 3% worldwide. However, since Mac users hang onto their expensive hardware longer, the real number of Mac users is very likely to be a couple of percentage points higher.
It is a platform that is always the _last_ to get any homebrew apps, like ports of utilities to transfer or unpack xbox isos for instance.
Yeah, that's definitely the software I had in mind as the standard of a homebrew app which everyone wants. Name ONE technology and/or application which is really useful or necessary, and I will show you a Mac implementation of it. Oracle? Oracle9i exists for the Mac. A good music player? How about iTunes. Linux software? I can run it all on the Mac thanks to X11 and the FINK project. Games? More than enough, although I will venture to say that if it's lots of games you want, get a Playstation II. Rapid development of apps with distributed compiling? Try xcode and CodeWarrior. Web Browsers? Safari beats the pants off of Internet Explorer in speed, stability, tabbed browsing, googling, and many other features. Email? Apple Mail far outdoes Outlook, but you can also run Outlook on the Mac (hint: they named it Entourage). Office? It exists on the Mac, along with all of the open source competitors OpenOffice, AbiWord, etc. Firewall? Built-in. Stability? I reboot my Mac every three months. Web,FTP, and Windows file server? Built-in. VNC and VPN? Also there.
There just arent enough people on Mac. If you take the 1-2% of the global computer base, then take the fraction of a percent of that which are people capable of writing programs, and then the fraction of them who have time to make a mac app to interface a game console etc.. I think you're left with 3 people, and from what I'm told, they live in Sweden.
Hmmm, since there are over 20,000 applications written by Mac developers since I checked last year, those 3 Swedish guys must be exhausted!
As if switching to a virtually unknown hardware platform wasn't enough...
Perhaps it is unknown to you... I think you failed to notice that the Linux on Xbox team is moving their work to the GameCube, most notably because it also runs on PPC. This wasn't an easy task since the Gamecube has such limited options for transferring data. If Microsoft really wants to keep the XBOX2 from being appealing to modders, they will learn from Nintendo, which did an excellent job at keeping the modders away.
Who moved my sig?