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Xbox2 With Virtual PC For Backwards Compatibility

An anonymous reader writes "The next Xbox may use Virtual PC for backwards compatibility for original Xbox games. According to reports from Geek.com's Apple insider section the reason for the delay of Virtual PC 7 is because Microsoft has given it exclusively to the Xbox team. The reason hinted at: Xbox will include an IBM PowerPC 970, and current Xbox game developers are shipped G5 PowerMac."

2 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. hardly new rumours. by gl4ss · · Score: 1, Insightful

    and thin on facts.
    what about the hd?
    nvidias properiaty gfx chip stuff?

    yes, a true tech "journalist"(forum-boy) takes couple of facts and extrapolates from there to an "obvious" conclusion. doesn't make it a fact though.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  2. Re:Mac Compatibility by Hast · · Score: 2, Insightful

    First off, what stops you from taking a XBox2 games and playing on a G5 is the same which stops you from playing normal Xbox games on a PC. Different architectures. While it may be a pretty standard processor, graphics chip and sound chip they are put together in quite a non-standard way. Sooner or later you will be able to run the programs (barring encryption) on standard PCs but by then it will no longer look as hot. (Typically you need "next generation" stuff to emulate a console.)

    If anything I imagine XBox2 will be harder to hack than current generation.

    And furthermore, since current gen Xbox is basically a P3 I'd say that having it G5 compatible will make it relatively harder for homebrew people. Virtually everyone has Wintel compatible (and including X86 Linux and you have even more people) computers. The number of G5 developers is quite small in comparison.

    But in case you haven't noticed there is quite a large XBox homebrew market. You still need a modded XBox to use it, and that is not likely to change with XBox2. It will probably take a while before you can run unlicensed code on it.