Microsoft Moving Into Chip Design With Xbox Next 383
adamsmith_uk writes "According to ZDNet, Microsoft will more actively participate in chip design for the next version of its Xbox gaming console, tentatively called Xbox Next. By switching from using relatively standard parts to more customized silicon, the company can better optimize its game console, due in 2005. At the same time, the move potentially gives the company a toehold in a completely new market."
wonderful (Score:2, Funny)
Re:wonderful (Score:2, Funny)
Substitute Microsoft for The Borg. It's not that much of a difference. They started as an OS. Then came software apps and games. Soon to come antivirus, mainframes, and chips. What's next?
Great (Score:2, Funny)
So now I'm supposed to trust MS with anitvirus?
Re:wonderful (Score:3, Offtopic)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Re:wonderful (Score:2)
DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DRM (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:DRM (Score:5, Informative)
Well, as the article [com.com] said, "They sure don't want to have a situation where an Xbox can be turned into a PC."
-h-
Re:DRM (Score:4, Funny)
Unfortunately, the ability to hack a system into a useful device is not prevented by it being something other than a PC. Plenty of network boxes, PDAs, and embedded devices run Linux or any other non-M$ OS.
It will simply be a matter of time before the system would be reversed far enough anyway to do some good for the mod community.
DRM applications to trusted computing? (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux? (Score:3, Interesting)
The flip side to this is that it will throw their own developers off. They, bless their suffering
MicroApple? (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft absorbs good ideas from multiple places... Here they are considering powerpc concepts!
As I have said many time... Microsoft is very borg-like! I use and enjoy Microsoft everyday... but their ability to "borrow" technology and ideas is slightly disturbing.
Davak
Re:MicroApple? (Score:3, Funny)
Then don't think of it as "borrowing" - think of it as learning. Surely that's something any good techy aspires to - to continue learning for as long as possible?
Re:MicroApple? (Score:3, Insightful)
No.. what's disturbing is they think it's 'innovation'. Why can't they just call it what it is: Integration.
(and there's room for improvement there, too)
Re:MicroApple? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, MS is going to have to port over a major portion of their kernel, including directx and a few other bits, to the G5? Is this like Apple internally porting OS-X to intel, but never letting the public have i
Re:MicroApple? (Score:4, Interesting)
Then just get a normal Xbox, throw a mod chip [easybuy2000.com], then get a copy of XBox Media Player [xboxmediaplayer.de]..
It works beautifully.
Also, if the stock Xbox makes too much noise, improve it. I ripped out all the shielding and replaced the fan with a quieter one. It runs a few degrees cooler without that insulation, but collects dust more readily. I just leave the bolts out so I can pop the lid off and vacuum it out when it comes time to vacuum out my PC's (monthly)..
Or you could quit trusting a HDD with all your rips and just slap them on a DVD(+/-)R and get a DVD player that'll read them reliably (all the progressive scan Sony's do, to my knowledge).
Re:MicroApple? (Score:3, Interesting)
"So, are we developing straight for the chip, or what?"
"Well, actually you'll be developing on top of DirectX, which lies on top of a cut down version of XP, which runs on VirtualPC, which runs on a microkernel, which then interfaces with the System Bios and its integrated DRM."
"I mean, yeah, it'll be running right on the bare metal, Real Soon Now(TM)..."
"That's what I thought you'd say."
-Adam
Re:MicroApple? (Score:3, Insightful)
And how is this different than, say, GM sitting by the wayside while other automakers figure out what works?
Chrysler introduces PT Cruiser [edmunds.com] (2000) / GM introduces HHR [cnn.com] (2005).
Toyota introduces gasoline-electric hybrid vehicle [yomari.com] (1997) / GM annouces plan for hybrids in 2007 [yahoo.com].
It is common for the larger companies to let the smaller ones take the risks.
Re:MicroApple? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why? If it's a successful product, then they (typically) did something right with it.
Often is the case that the 'inventor' of an idea isn't the one who made a product worthwhile. Look at Palm Pilot vs. Newton. Apple invented Newton, Palm made it a mass-market device.
I could be mistaken about what you meant though, if you meant monopoly driven then I'd sort of agree. Thing is, though, Microsoft doesn't make a monopoly over e
Re:MicroApple? (Score:3, Funny)
1987 - Steve Jobs forms NeXT computer
1995 - Apple merges with NeXT
1998 - Apple announces new OS "Mac OS X"
2000 - Microsoft announced gaming platform - "X Box"
2003 - Microsoft commits to PowerPC for Xbox, called Next.
It's a funny thing about trademarks - you have to defend them by law. So, if you have limitless funds and you want to drain some cash from a competitor, just make a new product with a name similar to your competitors', and expect to change it later.
P.S. I know, X windo
Port 139? (Score:2, Funny)
Best Mr. Burns voice: Excellent
those that learn history don't repeat it (Score:2, Insightful)
The original X-Box was a reworked PC. Maybe they want a closed system for their next box so Linux won't run on it.
XBox NeXT? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:XBox NeXT? (Score:2, Funny)
Bill Gates loves Steve Jobs (Score:5, Funny)
"next" - NeXT
Those who previously doubted Bill Gates love obsession with Steve Jobs be damed...
Re:Bill Gates loves Steve Jobs (Score:2)
Panther - Port of Windows NT Win32 core to run atop Cougar. Project subsequently abandoned in favor of Chicago.
Jaguar - Retail implementation of Cougar (DOS 7.00). Major features included more powerful and consistent command-line options, improved NLS support, Flash Memory Filesystem, etc. Subsequently merged with Cougar and Stimpy (but not Panther) to become Chicago.
MS is removing a key advantage of XBox (Score:5, Insightful)
And they are effectively removing the aspect of XBox that made it cost effective and appealing to developers: easy porting to the PC through common components and CPU architecture.
Re:MS is removing a key advantage of XBox (Score:5, Interesting)
I very much doubt the ActiveX APIs on the next XBox will differ much from the ActiveX found on ordinary PC hardware. Most of the rest, the compiler takes care of. How difficult is it to port most apps from linux-ppc to linux-i386, or even from linux-ppc to freebsd-i386?
The XBox already runs on not-quite-standard hardware and not-quite-windows-2k/xp..
Re:MS is removing a key advantage of XBox (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I'm not sure this is really a relevant issue. Most Xbox games have *not* had PC ports. Granted, developers appreciate that the Xbox's structure is similar to PCs and thus easier to work with than, say, the parallelized PS2, but that's different from wanting it for ease of cross-platform development.
Re:MS is removing a key advantage of XBox (Score:2)
It isn't, the first post doesn't know what he is talking about. There are lots of games which get released simutaneously across many different consoles at the same time. An example of a company who does this is EA.
So developing for a single API isn't a problem or an advantage for certain companies.
Re:MS is removing a key advantage of XBox (Score:2)
Re:MS is removing a key advantage of XBox (Score:2)
Like it was previously mentionned, they will probably use the VirtualPC software to provide game compatibility with the current XBox. I bet that the new API will be backward compatibile with the current one. They will certainly not do a complete rewrite of it. So
Re:MS is removing a key advantage of XBox (Score:2)
I logged onto slashdot to point out the exact same thing, but realized they can continue to use many off the shelf parts such as hard drives, usb, and different subcomponents.
I'm just curious how they intend to keep the price point the same, how they plan to treat past owners of the XBox, and what, if any, is the upgrade path.
Re:MS is removing a key advantage of XBox (Score:3, Insightful)
That might have been the case ten years ago, when most game development still took place in ASM and at so low a level that it fell out of the bottom of the console and burnt a hole in your carpet.
Now, however, that is nonsense. Portability these days is defined by the operating system and API, not the underlying hardware. If
doubtfully (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure 95% of it will still be a solid C compiler and directx api.
hell, it'd probably have a setting for Endian notation in the dev env too.
the main loss is that with general components they can send devkits to developers early and when the ps3 specs get announced, MS could simply bump up the included cpu and gpu on the release units - guaranteeing that it'd keep ahead
The short story (Score:5, Insightful)
2. The product will start to become a reality.
3. Microsoft will pull out of the deal, citing "differences" and go into the hardware business itself, suddenly having aquired lots of new technology and staff.
4. Lawyers everywhere will rejoice once again.
Ah, but the lure of big money will find a sucker every time. Microsoft is like a huge fat 419 scam artist. "Have $500bn sitting in games market, need someone to facilitate extraction, will give 10%".
Sad, isn't it? (Score:2)
IBM of the RIng (Score:2, Interesting)
Once the process is decided that it it. You can't just switch to someone else.
This means that for once in their life MS is at the mercy of someone else.
Screw IBM and you just free up resources for Nintendo and Sony (Assume you know that they have chosen IBM as well), and delay your own product by 1-2 years, meaning the project is pretty much dead.
IBM is the Ring that Rules them All.
Re:IBM of the RIng (Score:2)
Do your semis research, man. There are probably a hundred companies with top engineers that have the capacity and knowledge to design a great graphically-oriented processor. Loads of them. Why would Nintendo and Sony go talk to IBM when they've been doing their own thing for so long, anyway?
Re:IBM of the RIng (Score:5, Informative)
This is not a problem for IBM, the reason being that there is no other manufacturing player in town.
Huh? NEC, LSI, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, . . . there are plenty of manufacturing players.
Once the process is decided that it it. You can't just switch to someone else.
Wrong. We port ASIC designs from competitor's processes all the time.
This means that for once in their life MS is at the mercy of someone else.
Not at all.
Screw IBM and you just free up resources for Nintendo and Sony (Assume you know that they have chosen IBM as well), and delay your own product by 1-2 years, meaning the project is pretty much dead.
Sony is making their own chips. Nintendo uses NEC.
IBM is the Ring that Rules them All.
I'm not really sure of what overall point you were shooting for, but every statement you made is false.
From commodity to specialized? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:From commodity to specialized? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sony used custom Si with the same die area as Itanium1, yet could afford to pull it off by selling in the millions.
MS thought that by reusing PC kit they could get in the business easily (true), and ride the continual fall in PC part cost. Unfortunately, PC parts had had their cost already sucked out of them, apart from the effective 5% a month cost reduction of the Si parts. HDD and the DVD dont have much cost reduction at all, so that HDD is $70 of rotating iron whose cost is fixed. The best bit: Sony also rode the fall in Si parts, didnt have an HDD to provide fixed cost and can cut the selling price of the PS/2 whenever their spreadsheet hints that MS may be about to break even on hardware.
I think the biggest mistake of MS was thinking they could sell the hardware at a loss and make money on the games. The trick is to sell the hardware at a profit and make even more money on the games. Sony do that. Adding the HDD was another error. All it does is replicate DLL hell and add the Bill Of Materials of the box.
Re:From commodity to specialized? (Score:3, Insightful)
PCs on the other hand have games with tons of content, easily downloadable extras, user mods, complex games where you can save *all* the state, not just wh
Re:From commodity to specialized? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sony's specialized parts ensured that Sony owned all of the rights. Sony's intimate knowledge of the parts and the manufacturing has allowed them to combine silicon, cutting down on overall size and costs. Likewise, the only profittaking is from Sony, and with fewer hands in the pot the margins can be shrunk. Unfortunately for Microsoft, using off-the-shelf parts from different manufacturers ensured that they needed the cooperation (and credits) from different companies. Nvidia, for example, gets a cut on the sales of the hardware, not from the software like ATI gets from Nintendo. Microsoft similarly needs to use faster hardware in their machines as they aren't exactly console-optimized. The 'Cube, again, can get away with running on much slower (read, cheaper) hardware, because it would be a terrible webserver. Say what you will about the XBox OS, it's hardware and interfaces were not originally developed with gaming in mind.
On the other hand, the success of the PS2 can probably be traced to GT3, GTA, Square, Metal Gear Solid 2, Onimusha, and a host of must-have games that were released before the Xbox hit its stride. People buy games and hardware to play those games, not hardware and games to play on that hardware.
Re:From commodity to specialized? (Score:2)
if you only plan to produce a limited run of the machines(cheap r&d, expensive if you use zillions of them, compared to spending a bit more on r&d up front and then being able to produce the chips yourself, without paying some % of extra to some another company for every chip).
Propritary (Score:2, Interesting)
Or cut back on piracy. Perhaps we will have to activate games online in the future!
uh huh (Score:2)
Re:uh huh (Score:2)
Except for the company actually developing the chips, which happens to have hardware development contracts with two other game console companies, which will remain nameless.
If they're so concerned about IBM's ability to keep IP under wraps, why trust them with this one?
A lesson from Steve Jobs (Score:2)
Come on! (Score:4, Insightful)
Cost of console = n + $100 where n equals the prices of the console this one renders obselete.
Re:Come on! (Score:2)
Who sez you have to? There's a bajillion games for PS2 in just about every niche you can imagine. How many have you played? The size of the library goes well beyond the definition of "decent," I think.
I love my XBox, but I'm pretty sure I won't be buying the next gen model the day it comes out, as by then I'll prolly be about 50 games behind (I'm fascinated by these people who "
Re:Come on! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but if you're just buying a PS2, then you're a latecomer. That was the end of 2002, and these were out in 2000. The PS3 isn't scheduled to be out til 2005 or 2006. These things do stick around for 5-7 years.
The SNES was dominant for well over a decade. You can buy them for a reasonable price and find games used for cheap in shops. PS1 games are still just as available and just as good as they always were. PS2 games will be around for an equivalent amount of time. (They were still making PS1 games even for the US market up until very recently.)
Oh, stop whining. If you're just getting a PS2 end of 2002/beginning of 2003, you're sure as heck not someone who buys all the new stuff when it comes out. You probably won't have a PS3 until it's on its third generation, so that's a good 6 years right there.
This is an obvious troll. Anyone who really plays games doesn't toss their old consoles just because a new one comes out. I have a NES, N64, PS1, PS2, Cube, and GBA. I can still play games on any of them. There are many, many games I don't have for all of them. Obsolescence is something for PC's, not consoles.
(Unless of course you buy a DOA console that doesn't go anywhere. And that's just buyer cluelessness.)
Get with the program (Score:2)
would it really hurt if a company stuck to an obsolete console for 5-7 years?
Wouldn't hurt the company directly to lose those console sales, anyway. The truth is, consoles themselves are mostly a break-even proposition, or even a loss leader.
The real money's in the games, so if you can
Re:Come on! (Score:2, Insightful)
Heh why way PS1 $300 dollars when it came out?
I wouldn't be shocked to see MS's Next-Box prices running higher because it will may have more power than the PS3's 4 GHz Cells
But it comes down to games IMHO, Sony can put out an amazing array of titles compared to X-Box. Even with X
Re:Come on! (Score:2, Informative)
Intel NetBurst micro-architecture (Pentium 4 or revised name) on 0.07-micron process
Clock Speed: 7 GHz to 8 GHz
SSE2 Floating-Point Performance: 28 to 32 GFLOPS (or 64 GFLOPS with architecture improvements)
External Bus Bandwidth: 5.33 GB/sec
System Memory: 1024MB (1GB)
System Memory Bandwidth: 32 GB/sec (or up to 64 GB/sec)
NVIDIA XGPU2
Clock Speed: 1 GHz
128 Gigatexels per Second
512 Billion Anti-Aliased Samples per Second
Full-Scene Anti-Alias
Re:Come on! (Score:2)
Seven years is way, way too long to stick with one console. Didn't the PSX come out about 7 years ago? Seriously, it was a great system, but any company sticking with it would be suicide. It can't hold a candle to what is out now. If you're serious about gaming pick a favorite console and go with it. Seriously, $200 every three years is less than $10
Well gee, that's easy to answer (Score:2)
So? You are not their target market.
Re:Come on! (Score:2)
Quite frankly having to spend $200 every two years is nothing for most people. Unless you are a kid without income in which case ($200 + games = equals annoyed parent).
Did I miss something? (Score:4, Insightful)
How's Intel taking the news?
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:2)
Considering Intel's stock [yahoo.com] was doing a slow decline today, I'd say not well. Something tells me Intel will retaliate, and that Palladium initiative may find itself having "problems" very soon. ;-)
You know, this time I really think... (Score:2)
This time I really think they've picked a great name.
It's just what I'll say when I think of it.
"XBox? Next!"
(Sorry, but you have to admit they really had that one coming ;-))
Because they have to... (Score:5, Insightful)
I knew this was coming.
Microsoft made some serious design mistakes with the first X-Box. One of the big ones was they assumed that if they used generic standard PC parts that would make it somehow cheaper. However, the economic logic of the PC industry doesn't necessarily apply to the gaming console industry, where you want to make tens of millions of consoles all exactly the same. When you are doing that, it actually is worth the effort making fairly customized hardware, because every cent you can shave of the production costs of a unit makes a big difference.
Re:Because they have to... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Because they have to... (Score:2)
Not to mention the fact that Microsoft's competitors were able to lower their costs considerably by integrating their silicon as they went along. Microsoft was stuck with chips from rival competitors that were already at their lowest possible price point on day one. The cost to produce a PS/2 has dropped dramatically. The cost to produce an XBox is almost the same now as it was when it was introduced.
And they need to reduce per-box losses badly (Score:5, Interesting)
Your reasoning is spot on for any console manufacturer, but it's especially important for Microsoft because of the dreadful arithmetic of long-duration per-box losses resulting from slow growth of Xbox against the PS2.
The problem there is that Microsoft doesn't write a whole lot of games itself, so they're at the mercy of the usual game dev companies' choice of platform and rate of production. That rate has been slow, and every month that the ramp-up drags on with the PS2 light-years ahead in terms of game numbers represents another chunk of losses stemming from the high cost of the console versus number of games sold.
Exactly why Xbox hasn't exploded onto the scene and become a head-for-head PS2 rival after all this time is a good question which I haven't seen explained anywhere. It's nice hardware from a dev perspective, so why so few games? (Even the Xbox mags are disappearing from shops. Looks bad.)
With the present sluggish rate of new releases and with way under 200 Xbox games in most of the "Coming Soon" lists despite Xmas approaching, I don't see any light at the end of the Xbox tunnel for a long time to come. Under these inauspicious circumstances, I'd have to guess (and we can only guess) that bringing down the pre-console loss must be extraordinarily important to MS.
these guys can't even.... (Score:2)
Not Capitalizing on PS2 Strength, Back-Compat? (Score:5, Insightful)
One of PS2's main strengths was that consumers didn't have to throw away their PSOne game libraries or keep two consoles hooked up. Sega didn't do this with their hardware and suffered as a result. Nintendo did not do this with its consoles but _did_ with the GameBoy line, and look at which one is more successful.
If Microsoft wants to build a sustainable marketshare for XBox, it must keep consumer units "in the family" as Sony did with Playstation and Nintendo did with GameBoy.
Re:Not Capitalizing on PS2 Strength, Back-Compat? (Score:2)
I'm not quite sure if this is possible... Does Virtual PC emulate a processor? Or is it like VMware, and emulate a BIOS...
Re:Not Capitalizing on PS2 Strength, Back-Compat? (Score:2, Informative)
It was 12 year olds that wanted to play pokemon.
The joke's already been made... (Score:5, Funny)
NeXT-Box sounds better than "Xbox Next" anyway.
Although I am partial to "XX-Box", and eventually, "XXX-Box".
Re:The joke's already been made... (Score:2)
XT box? (Score:2)
Better use programmable logic (Score:2)
Will the XBox ever take off? (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the XBox actually going anywhere? Here in Spain I must see ten PS2 advertisements on the TV for every one for the XBox. And in most stores the PS2 seems to have about three to five times more shelf space allocated to it than the XBox. Not only that, but with the GameCube priced at 99 Euros, the XBox has some serious competition this Christmas. Can the XBox ever become serious competition to the Playstation under those conditions?
What's it like in the rest of the world?
Re:Will the XBox ever take off? (Score:2)
Re:Will the XBox ever take off? (Score:3, Insightful)
The fundemental flaw with the XBox still is games.
I just don't get that. Put it this way... there are, according to GameRankings, 98 games on Xbox that scored 80% or better and 12 that scored 90% or better. For GameCube, there are 72 games that scored 80% or better and 16 that scored 90% or better. Xbox has its share of exclusives (the past two weeks have seen Crimson Skies, Top
Why don't they just take off the facade? (Score:3, Interesting)
To be honest, I'll bet they are really vying to make their own chips for home users and set top boxes and keep Intel and AMD on the backend.
Great quote: (Score:5, Interesting)
This really highlights the stupidity of MS's anti-hacking efforts. I don't ever remember a company spending so much effort and money on an attempt to remove functionality and desirability from their products.
Its not just the 'next' name (Score:5, Funny)
http://www.wired.com/news/games/0,2101,610
So, the new XBox will be called Next, and will be running a G5 chip.
Only thing left to happen now is for Apple to come out with a video game console running on an Intel P4 called "Apple ME", and we'll know for a fact that the whole world has gone to hell.
So in other words... (Score:2)
Jonathan
Xbox Next? (Score:2)
manufacturing? (Score:2)
there were numerous suppliers who weren't keeping up with demand, thus shipping was held up.
maybe microsoft has a better plan in mind but relying on many external suppliers can be hazardous!
Finding engineers (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure it's possible, but designing ICs requires some serious software and hardware tools, and an OS that won't get in the engineers way.
Not an entirely new move (Score:2, Interesting)
Service packs (Score:5, Funny)
Special Silicone (Score:2, Funny)
Xbox/2 (Score:2, Insightful)
Now it looks as if the parts are going to be as "standard" as WMA.
So, what will be the advantage the Xbox has now? I doubt there will be that much of a technology gap between any of the next-gen systems. It puts it much closer to the other consoles, and among those, sheer numbers usually wins out - these days, namely, Sony. Only if the custom pa
This will result in fewer X-Box titles (Score:3, Interesting)
Why do developers do this?
Because development for the X-Box is otherwise relatively easy. The X-Box being a modified PC, means that porting PC titles to the X-Box is cake.
The modified PC architecture also allows Microsoft to raid E3 for hot-titles, and buy out (or sign advance release deals) on hot titles. ("Halo" for example was originally supposed to be a PC release).
But what happens when Microsoft begins to move away from standard components?
The first and most obvious advantage to Microsoft is cost. Owning the chip manufacturing reduces the overall cost of production, not only by cutting out the 3rd party, but through efficiencies of custom architecture. This will translate into a more competitive console price. Most people don't know it, but Microsoft is in a state of panic right now over console prices. GameCube and PS2 can undercut X-Box comfortably in the late-stage console cycle (2 years after a console's release).
But (buyer beware) even though the X-Box NEXT will carry a nice price-tag, the number of titles will be SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER.
Developers *hate* working with the X-Box team at M'soft, and if coding for the X-Box was as difficult as coding for the PS2 developers would choose 1 console and stick with it.
This is almost guaranteed to happen with the release of X-NEXT. Watch as Sony announces a larger than ever release calendar and Microsoft is forced to go on an acquisition streak in order to bulk up on releases.
Also watch as GameCube surprises everyone with their next console which will demolish Sony and Microsoft's benchmarks...
"Old" semiconductor companies salivating.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I can just see the Intels, Siemens, TIs and NECs of the world lining up for patent suits on this one. If Microsoft plans to wade into this battle without any existing IP they are going to get smacked very hard with the infringement stick...
IBM is good (Score:2, Troll)
IBM brings linux to the desktop [slashdot.org] -- yeah!
IBM develops evil patents [slashdot.org] -- boo!
I'm confused. Do we like or hate big blue this week?
Davak
Re:IBM is good (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, that it is.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is about pulling the plug on Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is about pulling the plug on Linux (Score:2)
That's retarded. (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not saying that "security" won't be a priority, just that it is not overwhelmingly affected by architecture - and certainly isn't affected enough to dictate a major change like the one they're doing.
This change was about performance, price, and possibly politics.
Re:How much... (Score:5, Informative)
I doubt that they intend to do quite as much as some are claiming. I suspect that all they are going to do is to integrate standard cells for the processor and graphics processor onto the same chip. Probably losing the FPU in the process and some other stuff that is not much use on a dedicated graphics machine - or at least not enough use to want to spend silicon on it.
The PC has been dancing close to the line where a PC on a chip becomes possible for some time. This has happened before of course, Inmos did it in the 1980s, but then you got 4Kb or Ram per transputer. Today you can get a CPU, Graphics processor and 2Mb of cache onto a chip without too much pain.
The costs of going custom are not that great for the production runs involved. We are talking tens of millions of chips. So the cost of some custom masks is really not that big of a problem. Microsoft hae to pay for the processor IP whether they use it as a standard cell or buy it in as a commodity.
The support chips will probably still be commodity items - but remember that there are a lot of things you just do not need on a game box that are vital for a PC, things like protected memory, virtual memory etc. They take up a lot of real estate but you don't need them in a game box.
Re:How much... (Score:2)
In most graphics applications fixed point calculations are far more important. I suspect you can probably lose quite a bit of the FPU in exchange for on-chip access to the GPU.
Re:How much... (Score:3, Interesting)
Back in the early days of RISC the same was being said of the idea of breaking down the CPU, eliminating complex instructions.
My point is that you have a very different set of tradeoffs going on to those in a general purpose PC. The main reason PCs have FPUs is to run benchmarks, if you look at the work most PCs do they don't really need them.
Re:How much... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Terrific.... (Score:5, Funny)
Ugh! Mental image of Bill Gates putting his