The Scoop on the Xbox 360's Embedded OS? 504
An anonymous reader writes "When the Xbox 360 was launched two weeks ago amid much brouhaha over its custom-designed IBM PowerPC-based CPU with 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2GHz each, WindowsForDevices.com wondered aloud, 'What OS runs inside the Xbox 360?' Now, the website thinks it has found the answer to its question. No, it's not Linux or BSD, nor a derivative of Longhorn or Windows CE."
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Huh. (Score:5, Informative)
That was certainly a surprise. Oh wait, no it wasn't.
The server's dying... (Score:2, Informative)
When the Xbox 360 was launched two weeks ago amid much brouhaha over its custom-designed IBM PowerPC-based CPU with 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2GHz each, WindowsForDevices.com wondered aloud, "What OS runs inside the Xbox 360?"
We offered a few alternatives and called on our readers for their ideas on the subject. Now, we think we have the answer to our question.
But first, a bit of background.
As we stated in our previous story on this topic, the earlier Xbox (shown at right) was based on a Pentium-family processor and was said to run a variant of Windows 2000. But the new Xbox 360 has a completely different architecture, based on a custom triple-core IBM PowerPC processor along with other specialty silicon including a custom graphics processor made by ATI, plus 512MB of system DRAM (see table of specs at the bottom of this article).
Since neither Windows XP nor Windows CE supports the PowerPC architecture (Windows hasn't supported PowerPC architecture since Windows NT 4.0 SP3), we devised the following set of alternatives for the Xbox 360's embedded OS:
A hitherto unpublicized port by Microsoft of Windows XP or Windows CE to the PowerPC
A version of some off-the-shelf embedded OS, possibly even a variant of BSD Unix or #%$@& (sorry, our censors deleted the "L-word")
A new embedded software platform developed specifically for Xbox use
And the OS is...
So, which is it -- choice 1, choice 2, or choice 3?
Our readers had some interesting comments, ranging from a derivative of the "yet to be released Longhorn" to "a ported Win XP kernel" to "its own private OS that was built from the ground up for gaming." And, to no one's surprise, nobody seemed to think Microsoft would embed BSD or "#%$@&" inside its Xbox!
We also asked fellow editor and ExtremeTech technology analyst Jason Cross (and self-described "certified geek") whether he had turned up anything about the Xbox's embedded OS while he was at E3 2005. There, we seem to have struck gold. "Yes," Cross replied, he had indeed uncovered some interesting tidbits in conversations with folks both inside and outside of Microsoft. Here's what he told us . .
The original Xbox ran an OS that had its roots in Windows 2000. Granted, by the time you strip out everything that is not needed in a console like the Xbox and replace some of the parts with stuff specific to that device (like the file system), and add a few pieces, it hardly resembles anything remotely like Windows 2000 at all. But you could say that's where its original roots lie, even if 95 percent of it has been cut or heavily altered.
The Xbox 360's OS, in turn, has its roots in the OS of the original Xbox. I've been told (not by Microsoft, but by one of its hardware partners) that the Xbox absolutely positively does NOT run Linux [oops, the censors missed that one --Ed.] or Unix or some variant of that. The Xbox 360 project started with the Xbox OS the same way the Xbox project started with Windows 2000. They cut, added, and changed it in both large and small ways. It's now quite a bit different from the Xbox OS, which was itself quite a bit different from Windows 2000.
Really, the best way to think of it is as "The Xbox 360 OS." But if you really have to think of it in Windows terms, you could say it has roots in Windows 2000 by way of the original Xbox, albeit with sweeping changes along the way.
So there you have it: the Xbox 360 reportedly runs a second-order derivative of Windows 2000 that has been ported to the custom triple-core IBM PowerPC processor. Well, that's what we think, anyhow.
Why does it matter?
Bear in mind, Microsoft has big plans for the home -- plans that include media center PCs, family entertainment centers, TV set-top boxes, portable media players, mobile phones, and, of course, gaming devices.
Considering that the Xbox 360 represents a powerful new computing platform that will be finding
Coral Cache (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Heathens! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My question is. . . (Score:1, Informative)
Microsoft made no money from selling a single xbox.. Maybe later in the production run after component costs fall, but certainly not in the first year.
Re:My question is. . . (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone else know how to spell 'monopoly'?
Re:My question is. . . (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My question is. . . (Score:2, Informative)
Remember, you have to figure in costs of actually bundling it all together (discs, manuals, maps, quick reference sheets, etc).
Now figure in the publisher's share. The distributors share, the retailers share.. And the developer is left with what, $5 or $10 per box sold?
I don't know the exact numbers, and admit I am pulling these out of my ass for illustrative purposes only.
Re:My question is. . . (Score:3, Informative)
Until the most recent price wars, Nintendo never sold a unit at a loss, now each GC is sold at several dollars below cost, which is quickly repaid by the hundreds of thousands of sales in zelda and mario games.
Sega is the only company that was unable to turn a profit on consoles, see where they are now? If the makers of the X Box didn't have billions on hand thanks to OS sales and office suites, they'd have folded even faster.
Re:Hmmm... billg said it was impossible (Score:3, Informative)
Also, I don't think it runs IE at all. Could be wrong, though.
I'm not sure how thrilled the average home user would be with this OS on their PC.
Re:My question is. . . (Score:3, Informative)
Not informative, incorrect. (Score:2, Informative)
And slashdot sucks for putting in captchas for logged in users.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Informative)
Honestly, I don't know where these silly rumors come from. [apple.com]
Re:My question is. . . (Score:2, Informative)
It's not rocket science.
Re:My question is. . . (Score:3, Informative)
1. Get a monopoly in something.
2. Sell something else at a lose using your profits from Step 1.
3. Get a new monopoly, profit! and repeat.
Re:My question is. . . (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Informative)
The original version of NT was targeted at Intel's i860. There were versions of NT for MIPS, Alpha, PowerPC, and x86. I don't recall if support for MIPS and PowerPC was dropped before or after NT 4.0 was released. Later service packs only supported Alpha and x86. The NT kernel was designed from the begining to be portable.
Despite all the bellyacheing the NT kernel was well designed and is good solid code.
Re:My question is. . . (Score:1, Informative)
Did you even read that article? (Score:3, Informative)
And if you read the article you posted, the doom and gloom predictions were because the PS2 didn't have much for games at launch, and there were component shortages so they couldn't produce as many as they wanted. They made money on PS2s, and wanted to make more but couldn't because they couldn't make enough of them.
And of course the 4 games is a random number that was chosen for that particular rumor, which was about the xbox. What does the article have to do with anything, it doesn't mention this rumor. People claimed various things about how much MS was losing per xbox, but the fact is they never said how much they lose, just that it loses money, therefore its a rumor.