How much did the 3DO M2 and MX architects help with Xbox 360?

[Megadrive1988]

As you know Microsoft bought CagEnt aka 3DO Systems in 1998 and therefore acquired the MX chip technology, the MX was a beefed up 3DO M2. It seems that some of these guys had a hand in Xbox 360 development.

A Walk Through The Xbox 360 Evaluation Lab At Microsoft’s Mountain View, Calf. Campus

If you don’t know the history of the Xbox, Mountain View is worth explaining. Microsoft acquired its position in the heart of Silicon Valley when it bought WebTV Networks for $425 million in 1997. That was a very expensive boondoggle. But there were a cluster of video game veterans from 3DO within WebTV. Folks like Tim Bucher, Dave Riola, and Nick Baker. They stayed on and tried to pitch Redmond on a WebTV-like video game console. They lost out to the team from Redmond that proposed the Xbox, and had to content themselves in 2001 with designing UltimateTV, a digital video recorder that didn’t resonate that well with consumers. The Xbox went on to sell more than 20 million units, and much of the WebTV team was absorbed into the Xbox division. Some departed, but the remaining team at Mountain View soldiered on, and in many ways, WebTV has gotten its revenge by playing a major role with Xbox 360. “You could say we came in as the relief pitchers,â€￾ said Leland.

Larry Yang, another former WebTV engineer, led a group of 100 engineers on various Xbox chip projects at Mountain View. Yang worked at Sun Microsystems for a decade, helping to architect its Sparc microprocessors. He tripled the size of the team beyond its WebTV roots, adding considerable firepower from other hardware and chip companies in Silicon Valley. The team included chip architects, designers, verification experts, physical layout experts, operations people, supply chain managers and logistics planners.

be sure to read the rest of the article, it's a fairly facinating read
http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2005/08/a_walk_through_.html


p.s. the article states that there are more than 400 million transistors on all of the chips in the Xbox 360 -- and I hope they were *not* counting the eDRAM of the daughter die ^__^

All told, there are more than 400 million transistors on the chips in the box and a kilometer of wiring in the top three chips.

p.s. the Xbox1 I think had a total of roughly ~100 million transistors when you add NV2A, Intel CPU and MCPX. plus or minus 10 million....

 

[mesyn191]

Good read, thanks for linking.

Kinda cool that they're finally getting rid of the leaded solder on the mobos, no info. about if they'll meet thier launch window and/or if they'll have enough units to do it world wide like they said they would last time...

 

[PC-Engine]

Nice find MD.