Xbox 2 Hardware Details Leaked

[Supervlieg]

I hope they rethink the backward compatibility issue. They could emulate the old xbox on the new one for all I care.

[Cararan]

Would love to see where this go.

[parallax]

Imagine that.
Microsoft using a couple of souped up G5's.
That box would have some serious performance and bandwidth.

[Icarus]

Yet again,

People Wasting money on a cheap computer....

but.. i must admit there will be some nice healthy compitition out there in the console market, :)

[DotPainter]

If this actually comes to pass, the new xbox may possibly surpass most 2005 PCs in terms of graphics performance. Hope they have some games ready to actually showcase that power. More 1st person titles with free camera movements and open ended enviroments like PC games would be nice also.

[WhiteRabbitObj]

When the XBox came out originally it surpassed all but the newest top PCs in terms of raw power. However, computers kept moving and consoles are rooted in time. I really hope they keep the harddrive, even if they take it down to 5 megabytes, just because it's so nice to have a drive to save to and not stupid memory cards. And if they don't have backwards compatibility that will nail their sales to the cross and set it on fire. I own an XBox and plan to buy a new XBox when it comes out, and not any of the other systems, but if they hope to convert and keep current customers, they will definitely need to keep the game options open. PS3 will certainly be backwards compatible unless Sony has gotten a fat head being at the top for so long, which I doubt.

[jud]

If they have no hard drive wont that slow down the loading times of the games?

jud

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by jud
If they have no hard drive wont that slow down the loading times of the games?
jud

That depends on other factors, like whether or not there's
enough memory for caching, how good the performance of the
media drive is (the one that right now is a DVD-ROM drive),
whether or not it has any (and enough) flash memory (which
could also be used for caching if there's a lot of it), and so on.

So the answer to your question is probably something like
"possibly, but probably not".

[jud]

I hope it does not as I hate the long loading times with the PS2,I
hope they keep the drive even if it has less capacity.

jud

[mjSoft]

"The new console will allegedly be powered by three IBM-designed 64-bit microprocessors (as used in high-end G5 PowerMacs)" - So you will be able to run OSX on these then? ;)

[Spankspeople]

Isn't the Gamecube 2 also going to be based on the IBM PowerPC, and using ATI graphics?

If they're running such similar hardware, Microsoft is seriously going to have a hard time if they DO decide to release it a year ahead of Sony and Nintendo as planned... Since the same people are develloping fairly similar parts for both systems, they should be about the same when the X-Box2(Please, can't people come up with original names for systems these days? I soooo hope we see something other than the Playstation3) comes out, and that gives them a year to beef up the specs...

[beaker]

Originally posted by mjSoft
"The new console will allegedly be powered by three IBM-designed 64-bit microprocessors (as used in high-end G5 PowerMacs)" - So you will be able to run OSX on these then? ;)
Not quite. These chips are based on the same technology as the G5, but they are not g5 chips. These are embeded chips special made for a game system. It is about as close to a G5 as the current PS2(not P3) chip is close to an SGI Mips chip(PS2 uses a mips core).

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by beaker
Not quite. These chips are based on the same technology as the G5, but they are not g5 chips. These are embeded chips special made for a game system. It is about as close to a G5 as the current P3 chip is close to an SGI Mips chip(p3 uses a mips core).

P3? You're not referring to the Pentium3 in the current XBox, are
you? If so, you're wrong; they're not related -- Intel is not a MIPS
licensee.

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by Spankspeople
Isn't the Gamecube 2 also going to be based on the IBM PowerPC, and using ATI graphics?


It's probably not the same PPC core, but other than that, yes. And
it might end up being the same PPC core in the end, since IBM
probably doesn't have more than one PPC team nowadays.


If they're running such similar hardware, Microsoft is seriously going to have a hard time if they DO decide to release it a year ahead of Sony and Nintendo as planned...


As far as I know, they're all going to be using the same fab, which
would imply that releasing the XBox2 a year before the PS3 and
the GameCube2 isn't an option.

[beaker]

Originally posted by Thalaxis
P3? You're not referring to the Pentium3 in the current XBox, are
you? If so, you're wrong; they're not related -- Intel is not a MIPS
licensee.
Woops, I meant PS2, not P3. I'm editing my original post. All this talk of PS3, got me mixed up. :)

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by beaker
Woops, I meant PS2, not P3. I'm editing my original post. All this talk of PS3, got me mixed up. :)

Ah, that explains it. Now I'm with you :)

[onlooker]

It's based on a similar technology as the next version of processors IBM is producing for Apple that are dual core processors, but I think it's a misrepresented conclusion in that it states they are running on 3 processors. I think they misconstrued the differences of virtual SMP, multiprocessing + Dual Cores somehow to come up with a 3 processor configuration. A dual core processor is like having a 2nd processor on board, but it's not actually a second processor.
One thing for certain is IBM's new dual core processors are undoubtedly going to blow all competition out of the water, and Microsoft, and Sony are well aware of it. It will usher in a whole new era of console based gaming. There is no doubt about that.

[Neil]

Originally posted by DotPainter
Hope they have some games ready to actually showcase that power. More 1st person titles with free camera movements and open ended enviroments like PC games would be nice also.

Halo 1 is still their highest selling title, and that was a launch title. They have apparently yet to make anything else good... kinda sad.
Halo 2 is delayed too.

Btw, why all this chat on here abou Xenon and then no mention in the article (and all other sites i've heard rumors from also haven't mentioned it)

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by onlooker

One thing for certain is IBM's new dual core processors are undoubtedly going to blow all competition out of the water,


No.


and Microsoft, and Sony are well aware of it. It will usher in a whole new era of console based gaming. There is no doubt about that.

Yes.

[beaker]

IBM has been producing dual core Power 4 processors for over 3-4 years. It's not new technology.

[Renzsu]

Well hype is hype I guess.. Xbox demoes blew me away but I've yet to see a game that looks as good as those were....

I just hope the thing will be a lot prettier than it's now.. no doubt it'll be fast, but you can count on the initial games to harness only 50% of the available power if it goes like a typical console launch :shrug:

[WhiteRabbitObj]

Originally posted by Neil
Halo 1 is still their highest selling title, and that was a launch title. They have apparently yet to make anything else good... kinda sad.
Halo 2 is delayed too.


It's the highest selling titled because it was good, and because it WAS a launch title. That means it obviously had more time to sell. It also has MP support as well as platinum ($20) status. KOTOR and Prince of Persia will give it a run for its money over time, and Fable, which comes out this spring, will sell like wildfire assuming it lives up to the hype, which there is no indication it won't.

Well hype is hype I guess.. Xbox demoes blew me away but I've yet to see a game that looks as good as those were....

I just hope the thing will be a lot prettier than it's now.. no doubt it'll be fast, but you can count on the initial games to harness only 50% of the available power if it goes like a typical console launch



The demos are always built to showcase the highest abilities of the system but that doesn't translate into games necessarily because the games have to handle more. They tailor those demo scenes (for any system or graphics card) specifically to look as good as possible but they aren't adaptable. Look at the pixie demo for the newest nVidida cards. There are no games that can display graphics of that caliber but the card can render it if written correctly! And even if the new games can only harness 50% of the newest power, I'd still expect them to be at least 2x as good looking as Xbox 1 games just because of the tech advances. I know that a video game company I interviewed with last year had just gotten a devkit for the PS3 and said the graphics for their new PS3 games would equal the cutscene graphics for the PS2 games they did, which is a pretty lofty statement indeed! Something I wonder is if there will be DX10 support. I haven't heard anything regarding what's coming after DX9, but since the Xbox2 won't come out till 2005, it wouldnt surprise me if microsoft tried to get the newest version of graphics code into the system.

[TheGreenGiant]

MS strategy on XBOX2 is very much "we'll see what Sony does before we counter in our design specs" and them detailing this in their statement is only an indicator on the possibility of PS3 overtaking sales on XBOX2 (like it did the dreamcast). Also the timeframe in which the latter consoles (xbox + gc) is released would also mean that a lot of people are recent adopters.

Early release of the XBOX2 before Sony's 2006 date (And that's for Japan) will spell death for Xbox brand; people will adopt the wait and see attitute and no backwards compatibilty (while the ps3 will have it) will also ensure that its survivability is lowered. The fact the resources will become diluted for current xbox gamers as development time is moved to the next gen console won't be a good thing.

I'm pretty happy with the way graphics look on the box, gamecube and ps2 as it is. Sony's street date looks about right imo, if the graphical leap isn't go to be by quite a feat (and i doubt gameplay will evolve that much on a better platform), then we can wait.

[onlooker]

Originally posted by beaker
IBM has been producing dual core Power 4 processors for over 3-4 years. It's not new technology.

Who said it was? I said IBM's new dual core processors were going to blow the competition away. They aren't planning on using the old ones in there are they?
As you mentioned this is not new technology, but it's gotten much better. More so than you may know.


And to whoever said: NO.
If they are not going to blow the competition away. Why is everyone suddenly jumping on, and using them? Maybe they are beige?


O YES!

[bentllama]

It makes me itchy not being able to comment on this thread.


*mouth closed*:hmm:

[pogonip]

Yeah bent I can see what you mean you totally have the In.... but as you know people dont REALLY know shit about any of this it's all speculation . I got that news story from gamasutra but they have not always been right . I really wish people would not get so worked up over something until it's been made official by the actual company . :rolleyes: Also it may not have a hard drive but it might have extremly low cost high capacity memory cards ...anyways waiting for official word from the big M though I suspect that will be some months away .:hmm:

[klingspor]

Three CPUs? I doubt that information is accurate... remember the SEGA Saturn? It had two of them and was a nightmare to develop with... also consider the price! Sure, by the time it's released they'll be cheaper than today, but then putting in three of them seems a little over the top.

Anyway, the games are what's important - I'd take a simple system with good titles over a three CPU graphics-monster anyday...

[heavyness]

i hear that xbox2 will run on sugar and spice and all things nice...

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by onlooker
Who said it was? I said IBM's new dual core processors were going to blow the competition away.


That's still fantasy.


And to whoever said: NO.
If they are not going to blow the competition away. Why is everyone suddenly jumping on, and using them? Maybe they are beige?


There are quite a few obvious reasons... and blowing away the
competition isn't one of them.

One of the most obvious reasons is that IBM is trying very, very
hard to undercut Intel (who would most likely not be willing to
develop a custom processor for them anyway) just to get some
more customers for their ailing microelectonics business that has
so far lost around $1.5 billion for them.

[Spankspeople]

and Fable, which comes out this spring, will sell like wildfire assuming it lives up to the hype, which there is no indication it won't.

I wouldn't count on a Moleneux(sp?) game to generate massive sales past the first week or so unless he remembers to actually add a game to his shiny engine this time.

[TheGreenGiant]

I wouldn't count on a Moleneux(sp?) game to generate massive sales past the first week or so unless he remembers to actually add a game to his shiny engine this time. [/QUOTE]

true. and I wouldn't count on too many consumers in the xbox market knowing who Molyneux is in the first place. Unless they're from the UK that is.

[onlooker]

Originally posted by Thalaxis
That's still fantasy.



There are quite a few obvious reasons... and blowing away the
competition isn't one of them.

One of the most obvious reasons is that IBM is trying very, very
hard to undercut Intel (who would most likely not be willing to
develop a custom processor for them anyway) just to get some
more customers for their ailing microelectonics business that has
so far lost around $1.5 billion for them. Rather than argue with you - I'll just say we'll see a comparable preview soon enough. :)

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by TheGreenGiant

true. and I wouldn't count on too many consumers in the xbox market knowing who Molyneux is in the first place. Unless they're from the UK that is.

Well, several of his games were huge hits in the PC market, and
the XBox drew in a large fraction of that market, so his name
might still have some recognition in the XBox user community even
so :)

onlooker --
You're right, we will see soon enough. In any case, you're making
the classic mistake of ignoring the fact that IBM's competitors are
not exactly planning on standing still, and the fact that IBM's
microelectronics division has been suffering quite a bit of late.

[onlooker]

Originally posted by Thalaxis


onlooker --
You're right, we will see soon enough. In any case, you're making
the classic mistake of ignoring the fact that IBM's competitors are
not exactly planning on standing still, and the fact that IBM's
microelectronics division has been suffering quite a bit of late.

I'm not totally ignoring it, but I do believe intel is suffering much much worse.

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by onlooker
I'm not totally ignoring it, but I do believe intel is suffering much much worse.

So you believe that reality is lying to you?

Or are you just terrible at math? IBM Microelectronics revenue was
-$1.5 billion for the last 18 months, while Intel's was +$8 billion
in Q4 -- and Intel doesn't do anything else. It's pretty obvious
that IBM Microelectronics is having far, far more trouble than Intel
is.

Of course, if you expand the scope to systems, then things only
end up looking even better for Intel -- especially since IBM's doing
a great job of selling, supporting, and deploying solutions using
Intel processors from nearly all of Intel's market segments.

[bentllama]

xenon gonna rokk yoo.

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by bentllama
xenon gonna rokk yoo.

What do noble gasses have to do with microprocesors?

[jipe]

Some guy over at shacknews who works at the company that's doing interface design for Xbox 2 said that these "leaked specs" were completely off, so take them with a grain of salt..

[heavyness]

this might be a controled MS leak. MS/Sony/Nintendo are all wondering what the other is up to. and if one spills some fake news, the others might counter thinking its real and spill some real beans about their system. then the other company has the upper hand cuase they can out do the other companies' specs.

wow! this would make a great movie, all cloak and danger and shit!

my prediction, 3 systems in 2006 and all in the same ballpark when it comes to power. and guess what, we will buy them all!!!! mahahahah!

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by kole

my prediction, 3 systems in 2006 and all in the same ballpark when it comes to power. and guess what, we will buy them all!!!! mahahahah!

That's a prediction that's highly likely to be borne out, especially
since there is so much overlap in technology providers for the
three. In the end, the main difference will be the game licenses,
and it seems that Microsoft and Sony have a serious edge there.

Besides, why else would MS buy up a major developer of titles
for the GameCube like Rare? :)

[seanic]

i find it interesting to see that microsoft is basing their production off of what Sony's new PS3 is going to house....

No other game console has kept my interest like the playstation line, and i dont think that is going to change for a loong while.

[FloydBishop]

Maybe there will be some major announcements at E3 this year?

[BiTMAP]

hmm, i do hope they do not loose the hard drive, that was the selling point for me.

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by seanic
i find it interesting to see that microsoft is basing their production off of what Sony's new PS3 is going to house....


It may have more in common with the new GameCube. I got the
impression from the press releases that whatever IBM is cooking
up for MS, it's largely based on IBM technology, and Sony is
funding most of the R&D on the Cell, so that may not be an option
for MS.

Then again, IBM might have IP licensed from that R&D project
that they could use for the XBox2, so who knows?

[onlooker]

Originally posted by Thalaxis
So you believe that reality is lying to you?

Or are you just terrible at math? IBM Microelectronics revenue was
-$1.5 billion for the last 18 months, while Intel's was +$8 billion
in Q4 -- and Intel doesn't do anything else. It's pretty obvious
that IBM Microelectronics is having far, far more trouble than Intel
is.

Of course, if you expand the scope to systems, then things only
end up looking even better for Intel -- especially since IBM's doing
a great job of selling, supporting, and deploying solutions using
Intel processors from nearly all of Intel's market segments.


I wasn't talking about suffering financially. I was talking about the processors they are trying to develop for future use, and the endless problems they have encountered.

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by onlooker
I wasn't talking about suffering financially. I was talking about the processors they are trying to develop for future use, and the endless problems they have encountered.

In light of the fact that vast majority of the "problems" that they
encountered were based on false rumors started by people who
didn't know what they're talking about, that isn't significantly
more rational a belief.

[onlooker]

Originally posted by Thalaxis
In light of the fact that vast majority of the "problems" that they
encountered were based on false rumors started by people who
didn't know what they're talking about, that isn't significantly
more rational a belief.

I'm retiring from this thread.

I wasn't intending to cause an argument.

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by onlooker
I'm retiring from this thread.

I wasn't intending to cause an argument.

All you had to do was read -- and learn how to differentiate
rumors from company-haters from reality.

This reminds me of the zillion and a half "apple is doomed"
articles... only most of them occurred when Apple's sales and
profits were down, not when their sales and profits were nearing
all-time highs.

[onlooker]

EDITED

[Lockstar]

xenon gonna rokk yoo. What do noble gasses have to do with microprocesors?
http://discuss.foresight.org/critmail/sci_nano.88-94/0671.html

Am I warm yet?

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by Lockstar
http://discuss.foresight.org/critmail/sci_nano.88-94/0671.html

Am I warm yet?

Thanks for the link, that's pretty cool stuff :)

[Lockstar]

Hendrik Schon, you are a pioneer and a genius.

Just hope I don't get covered in grey goo when I'm playing Halo 3;)

Wonder if this also has something to do with PS3 Cell?, the name alone implies some sort of living organism. (Maybe i'm reading to much into it)

[heavyness]

xenon = codename = xbox2

[Thalaxis]

Originally posted by kole
xenon = codename = xbox2

Interesting codename. With the number of people who confuse
Xeon and xenon, it's hard to tell what they're talking about
sometimes. :)

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