Xbox 360 demos on Macs

[Poff]

Seems it opens the door to good Mac-based Xbox 360 emulators in the future. If people can reverse engineer the final Xbox.

arn

exactly what I'm thinking too.
It would be great to be able to pop up the emulator on any iMac G5 sold a year from now, and get respectable framerates on any 360-game you bought.

Microsoft would even earn on it. They loose money on consoles, and earn money on games. They should actually release the emulator!

 

[RupertJ]

exactly what I'm thinking too.
It would be great to be able to pop up the emulator on any iMac G5 sold a year from now, and get respectable framerates on any 360-game you bought.

It just means it'll be easier to do than were the XBox 360 based on a different processor. It doesn't mean it's likely to happen.

Look at the current scenario. The XBox has a whole load of stock PC hardware in it, but has anyone made an XBox emulator for the PC? Nope.

 

[jicon]

Probably $500-600 (CDN) for an XBOX360...

Yet Apple sell a 2.7Ghz G5 for $4300????

Microsoft will likely incur a bit of a loss on the sale of the hardware, but Apple must make money hand over fist with the sales of PowerMacs.

 

[scu]

This is big news and yet there are few comments. Obviously most post here while at work.

A couple of things. If it is true that Microsoft is using the same chips then this is good news in two respects.

First of all IBM can now lower the price on these chips since they need to produce many more. Apple will be able to put them in the iMacs in the next 6 months.

Secondly Apple choose the upgrade with slower chips. This tells me that they feel confident they can delay big upgardes on the PowerMac and make big bucks with cheaper chips, while milking the success of the iPod and iMac for a few more months. This also means that Apple is working on a big jump in speed via dual core and they needed a few more months to get up to speed and buy some time. They know that the new dual core PowerMacs will sale like hot cakes when they come out. It is important to have them fully stocked to maximize profits in the first or second quarter of Fiscal 2006.

 

[caveman_uk]

Probably $500-600 (CDN) for an XBOX360...

Yet Apple sell a 2.7Ghz G5 for $4300????

Microsoft will likely incur a bit of a loss on the sale of the hardware, but Apple must make money hand over fist with the sales of PowerMacs.

For microsoft the console itself is a loss-leader - the real money is in the games. For Apple it's reversed - they make their money on the hardware and their software is very keenly priced.

 

[lostinblue]

People at microsoft are not much different than us. When they need to get something done they use a mac too.

 

[aldo]

This is big news and yet there are few comments. Obviously most post here while at work.

A couple of things. If it is true that Microsoft is using the same chips then this is good news in two respects.

First of all IBM can now lower the price on these chips since they need to produce many more. Apple will be able to put them in the iMacs in the next 6 months.

Secondly Apple choose the upgrade with slower chips. This tells me that they feel confident they can delay big upgardes on the PowerMac and make big bucks with cheaper chips, while milking the success of the iPod and iMac for a few more months. This also means that Apple is working on a big jump in speed via dual core and they needed a few more months to get up to speed and buy some time. They know that the new dual core PowerMacs will sale like hot cakes when they come out. It is important to have them fully stocked to maximize profits in the first or second quarter of Fiscal 2006.

IBM is designing the chips. Microsoft is fabricating them 'themselves' (probably outsourced it to someone else).

If this lays the groundwork for a triple-core 3GHz iMac with graphics anyway near that of the Xbox 360 then it is going to be an awesome machine.

 

[jrv3034]

People at microsoft are not much different than us. When they need to get something done they use a mac too.

Nice!

I agree that making some sort of emulator for Mac to run 360 games would rock, but we'd all need some seriously powerful graphics card upgrades, no?

The XBOX 360 is probably the first MS product I'm really lusting after.

 

[Peace]

IBM is designing the chips. Microsoft is fabricating them 'themselves' (probably outsourced it to someone else).

If this lays the groundwork for a triple-core 3GHz iMac with graphics anyway near that of the Xbox 360 then it is going to be an awesome machine.

I keep reading this here.Can someone please post a link that proves Microsoft is fabricating this chip? Or if they are outsourcing it,who ( other than IBM ) is doing it ?

 

[Poff]

Probably $500-600 (CDN) for an XBOX360...

Yet Apple sell a 2.7Ghz G5 for $4300????

Microsoft will likely incur a bit of a loss on the sale of the hardware, but Apple must make money hand over fist with the sales of PowerMacs.

Again, those are not G5's. Even though they are made by the same manufacturer, and are based on the same architecture, they are not the same kind of processors.

 

[thatwendigo]

Probably $500-600 (CDN) for an XBOX360...

Yet Apple sell a 2.7Ghz G5 for $4300????

Microsoft will likely incur a bit of a loss on the sale of the hardware, but Apple must make money hand over fist with the sales of PowerMacs.

You're looking at this with blinders on.

The Xbox360 is a limited application computer with some very specialized design work that makes it good at a handful of things. Most interesting is its parallelization and massive vector calculation capabilities, which have long been the focus of Apple and IBM's designs. The CPU itself is a multi-core chip feeding multiple vector sub-units (ala AltiVec and SSE) that will handle much of the rendering needs of a game. The GPU is a next generation R5xx that uses main memory and a tiny dab of dedicated memory, not a full-fledged commercial graphics card.

A PowerMac is (usually) a dual processor machine with a wider range of applications, much more expansion capability, and a need to address more tasks than the XBox360. It has system overhead in the form of a full-fledged operating system, I/O paths, and other such drains that the console won't have much need of. In addition, the PowerMac is extensible through the addition of programs that don't have to be specifically vetted by Apple, unlike the DRMed console. There's also the small point that Apple makes most of their money on hardware and puts that back into software, while Microsoft does things the other way around and doesn't care if the physical unit of the XBox360 loses them money.

 

[budugu]

I keep reading this here.Can someone please post a link that proves Microsoft is fabricating this chip? Or if they are outsourcing it,who ( other than IBM ) is doing it ?

http://www7.tomshardware.com/game/200505121/xbox_360-05.html

and 100 other places....

 

[buryyourbrideau]

Windows XP on a Mac. Best of both worlds.

ha wrong thing to say. NO WAY

 

[SurfAddict]

You're looking at this with blinders on.

The Xbox360 is a limited application computer with some very specialized design work that makes it good at a handful of things. Most interesting is its parallelization and massive vector calculation capabilities, which have long been the focus of Apple and IBM's designs. The CPU itself is a multi-core chip feeding multiple vector sub-units (ala AltiVec and SSE) that will handle much of the rendering needs of a game. The GPU is a next generation R5xx that uses main memory and a tiny dab of dedicated memory, not a full-fledged commercial graphics card.

A PowerMac is (usually) a dual processor machine with a wider range of applications, much more expansion capability, and a need to address more tasks than the XBox360. It has system overhead in the form of a full-fledged operating system, I/O paths, and other such drains that the console won't have much need of. In addition, the PowerMac is extensible through the addition of programs that don't have to be specifically vetted by Apple, unlike the DRMed console. There's also the small point that Apple makes most of their money on hardware and puts that back into software, while Microsoft does things the other way around and doesn't care if the physical unit of the XBox360 loses them money.

Yay someone else figured it out to, anyhow guys these chips are not g5's please quit thinking that they are and that we can magically have them crossed into Powermacs, I say that with a tear in my eye since I wish it could be done too. But these chips are owned by microsoft is my understanding, MS owns this chip design therefore wouldn't apple have to lisence it from them if they wanted this exact core cpu (which their not going to but just to state the obvious). However the design can probably be altered a bit to be considered a new design that would work in apple land. Much like I think IBM did for MS, for some reason it seems a little hard to believe that they pulled some entirely new processor design out of their ass that no one new about as opposed to using elements of the cell. In regards to what you said arn about reverse engineering the 360 it seems like that would take two tonsof processing power for a mac to be able to do that so ya it probably could be done but its seems kind of unrealistic at the moment

 

[budugu]

Final is solution is an Development Board with its own software!

Microsoft sold and shipped Windows NT 3 and NT 4 for PowerPC computers. Windows NT runs (or has been supported on) x86, PPC, Alpha, MIPS, Itanium and x64.

Support for PPC was dropped at the time Service Pack 2 for NT 4 was released. There were very few applications for PPC NT systems, so little interest.

Forget it... NT is dead ... and they are not going to use any of that old muddy code any where! so if they are going to do any thing ... they are going to design a new Xbox development board and sell it to selected authorized developers much like (Sony/nintendo)...that is much more viable solution ( and can make huge money and completely be in control of who can develop!) .... this the final solution .... contrary to some one else said on the thread ... the final solution is not a 3.0Ghz DCore Powermac ....but a designed development board with software!

 

[SurfAddict]

Sorry for the double post but here is the link you requested "Peace" http://www.gamespot.com/features/6124293/p-3.html third paragraph down

 

[Peace]

http://www7.tomshardware.com/game/200505121/xbox_360-05.html

and 100 other places....

Thanks for the link...

From that article :
With specs this impressive, it's easy to see why a few of us wondered how they planned to make a profit, given that they were already operating at a loss as a result of hardware costs for the current platform. "This time, we own the silicon [chip designs]. We can have [the chips] manufactured at different foundries to keep costs down."

Nowhere does that article say or imply Microsoft would be making the chips themselves..They will outsource it to "different foundries"..

What "different foundries" have the capability of mass producing the custom PowerPC chip?

other than IBM..

 

[jiv3turkey748]

Windows XP on a Mac. Best of both worlds.

ummm id rather osx on a pc but even thats not as good as a mac

 

[jiv3turkey748]

People at microsoft are not much different than us. When they need to get something done they use a mac too.

hahaha

 

[AidenShaw]

NT is very, very much alive

Forget it... NT is dead ... and they are not going to use any of that old muddy code any where! so if they are going to do any thing ...

NT is dead?

What about the 64-bit NT known as "Windows XP x64 Edition" ? Dead? What about the 64-bit NT known as "Windows Server 2003 x64"?

I'm not saying that they'll get some old NT3 code running for the Xbox360 - they'll take the newest 64-bit NT stuff with the hyperthreaded scheduler enhancements and customize that for the console.

 

[biohazard6969]

will you be able to put an OS on the 360 so that you could then maybe hook it up to the monitor and use it as a normal computer? and does this mean that you could also put OS X onto it?

 

[AidenShaw]

Nowhere does that article say or imply Microsoft would be making the chips themselves..They will outsource it to "different foundries"..

What "different foundries" have the capability of mass producing the custom PowerPC chip?

other than IBM..

AMD, Intel, TI, TSCM, ....

The claim "Microsoft will fabricate it" is poorly worded.

"Microsoft will have it fabricated" is better - the important thing is the Microsoft owns the designs for the CPU and GPU, and is free to shop around for the best deal.

 

[budugu]

NT is dead?

What about the 64-bit NT known as "Windows XP x64 Edition" ? Dead? What about the 64-bit NT known as "Windows Server 2003 x64"?

I'm not saying that they'll get some old NT3 code running for the Xbox360 - they'll take the newest 64-bit NT stuff with the hyperthreaded scheduler enhancements and customize that for the console.

There are a lot differences as to how NT handles internals vs. how 2000 handles stuff ... vs. 2003 /XP handle stuff at the kernel level. x64 is not NT. x64/XP home/XP pro/ Server 2003/XP tablet/XP MCE - ALL share the same code base (read the first chapter in Windows Internals edition 4). So your XP home is more close (& literally has the same code) to Server 2003 than NT or 2000. If you want to customize it for the console you either need to rewrite the low level code ... write 20 different optimized compilers (which is THE most expensive and difficult part) or run emulation. they might choose to do both first to develop new games + second to run existing game base. so what ever your loose "customization" = REWRITE!

More over they are not going to port the whole OS for the box! So they will just make an API (which they already have called XNA -simply google for it) which can be universally used with out worrying about what is going on under it harware level. The interface itself looks like XP MCE. it could be a cross between CE and XP -MCE ...

 

[d.perel]

Probably $500-600 (CDN) for an XBOX360...

Yet Apple sell a 2.7Ghz G5 for $4300????

Microsoft will likely incur a bit of a loss on the sale of the hardware, but Apple must make money hand over fist with the sales of PowerMacs.

The xbox processors are (from what has been said in other threads) a very stripped down, yet nevertheless multicore, version of the PowerPC processors. Maybe the development that IBM did to power up these chips will positively affect Apple Hardware in the next few months....maybe

 

[Don't panic]

Windows XP on a Mac. Best of both worlds.

and then

? are you kidding

think you got it reversed.
OS X on a PC. Best of both worlds.

ha wrong thing to say. NO WAY

ummm id rather osx on a pc but even thats not as good as a mac

sooo, which part of did you not get? sheesh
OK, I'll spell it out: it was a joke