Yesterday Microsoft announced it's picked IBM to do the chips for next Xbox game system. And though it doesn't say so in the press release, that probably means PowerPC in place of Intel's x86 architecture, joining other happy PPC users (and IBM clients) like the Nintendo Gamecube, Sony Playstation 3, and Apple G5.
So, uhm, all your games are belong to us now. It seems like a big deal that Microsoft would switch architectures like this -- will they have to port Windows to PPC? Will old games still work? According to Wired, they're going to use the VirtualPC emulator to play old x86 games? That sounds crazy, though; wouldn't an emulator be too slow? I guess IBM's crazy fab technology was enough to convince Microsoft to pull such a big 180 and pick the same architecture as its arch-rivals (Apple, IBM, Sony, etc).
I don't have a G5 yet, but the hardware at work is all PPC and is mad fast. Speaking of work, I just noticed we were in Slashdot last Friday for no good reason, since the article they linked to as "news" was over a year old -- typical, I suppose.
Sorry for the nerdy blogging again. I've been buried in computer science textbooks all week and I suppose it's starting to seep in ...
Posted by cce at November 4, 2003 10:41 PM | TrackBackI know you are not still in phoenix since you were at my doorstep on sunday. Time for a blog update. :-)
Posted by: mike's mom at December 4, 2003 07:53 AM