Article on 360's gestation

[Titanio]

There's a good, long article on development of Xbox 360 from Dean Takahashi here:

http://www.reed-electronics.com/eb-mag/article/CA6328378?pubdate=5/1/2006

There's a good number of interesting bits in there, including:

- some of the original designs called for a 60-shader GPU and 16-core CPU

- IBM initially pitched Waternoose as a 3.5Ghz processor

- MS didn't finalise contracts immediately to keep their options open. At one point in 03, ATi's president thought they had lost the contract to nVidia. nVidia's president comments that 360 "wasn't a good deal" for them - if they were going to deviate in a large way from their PC line, they want $$$ for it.

- During the Xenon team's final pitch, Gates enquired if the box would ever be able to run a full version of Windows. They approved the Windows-less box, however.

- Initial tapeouts for Xenon and Xenos were Oct 04 and Sept 04 respectively. Final tapeouts were Jan 05 and July 05 respectively - ATi ran into a spot of bother getting Xenos finalised on time.

- In Spring 05, MS bumped the amount of memory in 360 for fear of Sony's plans, to 512MB. This will cost them $900m more than expected over 5 years, and has forced them to pare back spending elsewhere to meet profitability targets.

- Slow GDDR3 sticks were indeed one of the key causes of 360 shortages.

 

[expletive]

Good find, i wonder what spending they 'pared back' as a result of the extra cost of the 512MB of GDDR3. I wonder if they mean hardware that was scaled back such as built in wifi or a larger HD...

 

[RavenFox]

The guy sounds like he has something against Japan and its gaming industry. I mean wasnt it Matsushita the one that killed 3DO. Then he says I donot have to play Nintendo anymore lol.
All in all very interesting the stuff to find out what happened behind the scenes. I think one day Sony and Microsoft will eventually shake hands and produce one unit.

 

[Hardknock]

Good find, i wonder what spending they 'pared back' as a result of the extra cost of the 512MB of GDDR3. I wonder if they mean hardware that was scaled back such as built in wifi or a larger HD...

Yeah, I remember Cliffy B. stating that it was between a standard HDD for every system or 512MBs of Ram. And that he was glad MS chose the Ram over the standard HDD.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

All in all very interesting the stuff to find out what happened behind the scenes. I think one day Sony and Microsoft will eventually shake hands and produce one unit.

I think that chance has been and gone, and it'll be winner takes all, loser pulls out in the end. Unless MS win, create the standard, and open it to 3rd parties to create XBox consoles to spec like DVD players which Sony creates a part of it's CE line. If Sony win out and control the market, they'll be the only ones making the hardware and they won't be running MS OS's either.

 

[expletive]

I think that chance has been and gone, and it'll be winner takes all, loser pulls out in the end. Unless MS win, create the standard, and open it to 3rd parties to create XBox consoles to spec like DVD players which Sony creates a part of it's CE line. If Sony win out and control the market, they'll be the only ones making the hardware and they won't be running MS OS's either.

Tough to define 'winners' and 'losers' though. Some would call Nintendo last gen's console 'loser', yet they were profitable so why pull out?

I think all 3 will be profitable this gen regardless of market share so i'm not sure there's any incentive for any of them to pull out. The only way is maybe some off-chance that one of them drops to such a low market share that they risk losses for NEXT next-gen.

 

[NavNucST3]

I think that chance has been and gone, and it'll be winner takes all, loser pulls out in the end. Unless MS win, create the standard, and open it to 3rd parties to create XBox consoles to spec like DVD players which Sony creates a part of it's CE line. If Sony win out and control the market, they'll be the only ones making the hardware and they won't be running MS OS's either.

Well... there is this to ponder

Randy Pitchford, President, Gearbox Software

Can you give your thoughts on the PS3 online initiative?

Sony reaches a huge number of video gamers all around the world. The idea that Sony would invest heavily in bringing their customers online is exciting. There was a different kind of initiative for the PS2 (and a partnership with AOL), but it never really got any traction. I think Microsoft has really shown everyone how it should be done with Xbox Live. I still hold onto my prediction from a couple years back that, eventually, Sony will be licensing the video game operating system software from Microsoft. Perhaps Sony’s experiences with their new online initiative will actually make that difficult-to-imagine step a little easier… If Microsoft can ever figure out how to gain traction and trust as a gaming platform in Japan, I believe that the two companies will rapidly desire to become partners instead of competitors. It sounds counter to expectations at first because we are so caught up in the competition, but I assure you that I could explain why the concept of an eventual partnership between Sony and Microsoft has merit.

 

[expletive]

I think Microsoft has really shown everyone how it should be done with Xbox Live. I still hold onto my prediction from a couple years back that, eventually, Sony will be licensing the video game operating system software from Microsoft. Perhaps Sony’s experiences with their new online initiative will actually make that difficult-to-imagine step a little easier…

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Sony service is it...

 

[Carl B]

I personally don't see MS and Sony tying up, but hey anything's possible.

 

[NavNucST3]

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the Sony service is it...

Well, I'll leave that one alone...but I was more responding to, Shiftys belief that the SonySoft opportunities have come and gone, there are some of us that believe it still possible, maybe not probable, but hey...

 

[blakjedi]

Apple will never use Intel processers. Ever.

 

[expletive]

Well, I'll leave that one alone...but I was more responding to, Shiftys belief that the SonySoft opportunities have come and gone, there are some of us that believe it still possible, maybe not probable, but hey...

Sure, didnt mean for it to come across that it was your assertion. Thats just what i took from the quote.

 

[pc0999]

A 16 cores CPU, that would be interesting to know how it is made.

It would also be very interesting to know why they did nit use the others ideas too.

 

[zRifle1z]

There's a good, long article on development of Xbox 360 from Dean Takahashi here:

http://www.reed-electronics.com/eb-mag/article/CA6328378?pubdate=5/1/2006

.........

Great read. Thanks for the info.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Well, I'll leave that one alone...but I was more responding to, Shiftys belief that the SonySoft opportunities have come and gone, there are some of us that believe it still possible, maybe not probable, but hey...

Sony turned down MS before so why take them up a second time? What have Sony got to gain? By joining up with MS they're forsaking a large piece of their pie. If the PS brand stays as strong as ever, and Sony finally come up with an online service that meets their desires, there'll be no need to join up with MS. And if MS start making headway and prevent Sony securing PS as the distribution platform for d'load content, they can keep pushing with the idea of an open standard. I can't see either company wants to give up on the earnings potential by partnering with the other as long as each feels they've a chance of dominating, and the moment it's obvious one company is out of the race and they feel like partnering up, why would the other take them on board? If PS3 only sells 20 million this time, and XB360 sells 80 million and has a thriving online service and content galore, why would MS care to take on the PS brand?

The only other possible outcome I can see is if there's an entrenched competition for years, perhaps through another two generations of consoles where neither secures all the content, at which point a partnership might be considered. Kinda like how there's two HD optical formats and I know people not considering either until they know which is worth having, if there's two platforms with different content it could put off buyers until there's a unified one-platform-has-it-all. So where they might be 60 million XB20000s and 60 million PS5s, if they create a single platform they'll attract far more than 120 million customers. But with the other rivals and jiggling around, I don't think that'll happen, any more than Sony Connect and iTunes and Napster etc. all join up to make one music distribution service with a standard format supported on all players and every possible piece of music availalble. They all dream of the monopoly and not sharing that.

 

[RavenFox]

Well written Shifty especially your last paragraph and the last sentence says it all. Hmm I guess the Trip Hawkins dream will stay in dreamland for quite sometime.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Sony turned down MS before so why take them up a second time?

Because things change? Because MS continues to grow their market share? Because MS seems well on track to blow away the install #'s of their previous console?

For the record, I don't believe this will ever happen, but the logic that they said no once, so they'll always say no, just doesn't work. The more marketshare they lose, the more attractive this type of merger would become.

 

[one]

- MS didn't finalise contracts immediately to keep their options open. At one point in 03, ATi's president thought they had lost the contract to nVidia. nVidia's president comments that 360 "wasn't a good deal" for them - if they were going to deviate in a large way from their PC line, they want $$$ for it.

My theory seems relevant here

I'm surprised to know it's very late (in the spring of 2005) that they decided bumping up the RAM. Didn't it affect the balance in UMA?

 

[one]

Well written Shifty especially your last paragraph and the last sentence says it all. Hmm I guess the Trip Hawkins dream will stay in dreamland for quite sometime.

Agreed. Linux and other OSs are just applications on Cell...

About that next-gen.biz article I created it in the other side of the forum so please join them to discuss it.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=30317

 

[Shifty Geezer]

...the logic that they said no once, so they'll always say no, just doesn't work.

That wasn't my reasoning. The idea of a cooperation has already been tried and failed, so it's not something Sony have cared for in the past. For a cooperation to occur, things will have to change. What things could change to cause that? I think I've addressed them all above. Basically, the moment MS are in a strong enough position to get Sony wanting to join them, MS won't care to have Sony. It was different with the PS2 because that was MS wanting to 'shortcut' their way into the sector and it was in their interests to pursue a partnership. It's probably still in their interests and I imagine if for PS3 Sony had approached MS to create an OS and tools, MS would have ditched XB360 and gone with the unified platform. But Sony want to go it alone, and will continue to until it's too late to partner up (if that situation ever arises).

My point that the chance has been and gone is based on looking at how these businesses are competing and how opportunities will be viewed. It was never a 'it didn't happen before which proves it won't happen again' argument.