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| Xbox 360 Demos are Really on Macs |
| Reviewed By: |
Toria Maciulski <toria_93004@yahoo.com> |
2005-05-14 |
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My brother Mark, who lives in Seattle, has a good friend who is in management at Microsoft. He called and told me that his friend was able to get a used (and upgraded with lots or RAM) dual processor G5 very cheaply, because Microsoft was done with them. He said they had been used to design the new Xbox 360. Mark is not very technical, so I wasn't sure if he had the details right.
A few days later, Microsoft announced the Xbox 360 and showed product demos on an MTV special. It appears that they were trying to be first to market with a new console. (Sony and Nintendo are expected to announce fairly soon.)
Well, it turns out that the cool clips of video games supporting Microsoft's new Xbox 360 console are actually running on Apple PowerMac G5s! Microsoft confirmed this on May 13. The current systems being shown at product introductions are prototypes. Final systems are expected to come out by the end of the year. The Xbox 360 is not quite ready for prime-time and they wanted to announce before the competition, so....
Microsoft purchased a raft of Apple G5's because very specific hardware components of the G5 allow developers to emulate some of the technology behind future Xbox products and services.
The new console from Microsoft is based on a similar IBM PowerPC architecture used in Apple G5 PowerMac computers. The Xbox 360 uses three 3.2GHz symmetrical cores, according to the company. Ever the trailblazer, Apple has been using PowerPC chips since 1994.
Microsoft recently switched from the Intel processors used in the first Xbox console to a custom Xbox processor based on IBM's PowerPC in its new Xbox 360. All of us happy PowerPC users can predict they will be happy with them.
The new Xbox 360 has features that make it sound more like a computer, such as its 20GB hard drive, DVD-ROM drive and 500MHz ATI graphics processor. Microsoft says up to 40 titles will be announced for the Xbox 360 by the end of the year.
I'm thinking that if the Xbox 360 and PowerMac G5 are cousins, it shouldn't be hard to port games to the Mac.
==========================================(c) copyright 2004 Victoria Maciulski
Conejo Ventura Mac User Group (CVMUG)
Ventura, CA
Re-printed by permission
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