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I recall reading that when Microsoft selected IBM and AMD to design the CPU and GPU respectively for the Xbox 360 they wanted (and received) the IP so they coul
by maximilianburke 14y ago
I recall reading that when Microsoft selected IBM and AMD to design the CPU and GPU respectively for the Xbox 360 they wanted (and received) the IP so they could produce the chips themselves. The original Xbox was dependent on an Intel processor which they did not have the same rights to and could not, for example, build it on a smaller or cheaper process as the console's life ran on.
I'd imagine that combining that, plus that the market for powerful number-crunching processors is slightly narrower now that IBM has taken itself out of the consumer processor game, would mean that they would not have many vendors to choose from for the CPU/GPU. ARM processors are coming along but I think they are still a ways out from the speculated performance of what is going into the next generation of consoles.
- MBCook 14y agoI thought the problem with the original Xbox was the nVidia GPU, and that it was nVidia that refused to do a process shrink.
- wmf 14y agoIt is rumored that Nvidia felt burned by the contract on the Xbox and they didn't want to bear the risk of a shrink.
- AlexDanger 14y agoSo was Intel even part of the tendering process for this new generation of consoles? Or could AMD jack up their margins knowing they were the only option? As a PC gamer, I'm glad both consoles are going with x86 and AMD. I'd assume (please correct me) this will mean more console ports of higher quality for the PC given the shared architecture. Secondly, I presume these massive contracts will keep AMD's CPU division in business for a while. Its been a long time since AMD had CPUs on par with Intel's performance but at least they'll remain in the desktop market space.