MS teaming up with ATI for the next xbox?

[bbot]

This is what a MS road rep said on the teamxbox forum :


I've heard a rumor, can't say from where (outside of the industry, so take it for what it's worth), that there's a pre-Xbox2 running around with a Radion 9700 vid card and "the biggest ass hard drive I've ever seen" in a briefcase styled box. This is coming from a person who regularly works with multiple 200+GB hard drives, so I'm thinking dev kit and 500 GB of space? Oh yeah, and three years to bump those specs UP. For right now, if they can do Splinter Cell and Halo 2 and DOOM III on the Xbox, then the Xbox has PLENTY.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

Very possible, being thier relationship with Nvidia is shot all to hell

 

[Qroach]

I don't beleive this being true. Few reasons actually.

1. MS has already said they are using Nvidia in Xbox 2.

2. If they had any sort of pre xbox 2, it wouldn't be capable of running any of the current games, since there's quite a difference in architecture between the two companies. Small difference that would be enough to make it difficult to switch. Even if the 9700 is faster and has more features, when you make calls to features other companies don't support, you'll run into troubles. Stuff like the bounding box rejection or other features exposed only in the Xbox version of DX/drivers

3. They couldn't do this without Nvidia being invloved.

4. MS planned to start showing what the next gen of hardware is capable once NV30 has arrived. Either late this year or early next year.

 

[PC-Engine]

If that were the case, then the probable reasons are leverage against Nvidia's pricing.

 

[Qroach]

Captain howdy, perhaps you should stay away from all post regarding Nvidia or xbox, becuase you clearly don't keep up on things. The situation is hardly "shot to hell" and they already mentioned working with each other on Xbox 2 publically.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

Captain howdy, perhaps you should stay away from all post regarding Nvidia or xbox, becuase you clearly don't keep up on things. The situation is hardly "shot to hell" and they already mentioned working with each other on Xbox 2 publically.

Maybe you should
A) stop being a big bitch about everything and
B) dont tell me what to do

it was not long after the Xbox 2 announcement that Nvidia and MS went to court over the deal, and Nvidia was forced by the courts to continue as is with MS on the Xbox, so a rumor of MS shopping elsewhere is no suprising.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Xbox is fine. Xbox 2 is even finer. Nothing to see here.

Captain should go play his Cube. I've been playing mine all weekend (rented Super Monkey Ball and Pikmin), since I lent my Xbox to my Little Brother.

Since it's so fun to give advice to Captainhowdy:

1) Go play your Cube.
2) Stop bitching about MS/Xbox.

Seriously, you'll have a better life dude. 8)

 

[CaptainHowdy]

Xbox is fine. Xbox 2 is even finer. Nothing to see here.

Captain should go play his Cube. I've been playing mine all weekend (rented Super Monkey Ball and Pikmin), since I lent my Xbox to my Little Brother.

Since it's so fun to give advice to Captainhowdy:

1) Go play your Cube.
2) Stop bitching about MS/Xbox.

Seriously, you'll have a better life dude. 8)

and why dont you have a nice tall glass of shut the @#$% up
I never bitched about the Xbox, Quincey Poon is the only one bitching(and then of course, you coming along like his little gimp to back him up not even aware of whats being discussed, do you guys shower together too?), all I said was, seems likely(and being the new ATI Chipset is amazing, that is a GOOD THING!!

get off your friggen high horse, you have to argue EVERYTHING that doesnt go right along with your rosey image of the world.

 

[duffer]

Getting back to the topic.

I bet MS is talking to all the graphics companies about Xbox 2-- they need the best technology at the best price in order to compete with PS3.

If they just meekly go with NVIDIA, they have no bargaining power, and they leave themselves open to having to pay way too much money for the Xbox 2 GPU.

It's also less clear that NVIDIA is the technology leader this time around. ATI's been looking pretty good lately.

And MS has lots more time to plan the Xbox 2 than they did the last time around. They could even develop their own graphics capability if they wanted to.

Hey, if MS goes with ATI, and Nintendo exits the console hardware business, maybe the Xbox 2 will be upwards compatable with GameCube games as well as Xbox games. Stranger things have happened.

 

[CaptainHowdy]

the last "Rumor" I had heard, was that MS was developing thier own GPU, which would be a good thing, enabling them to make the power they want, without losing a lot of money on it.

 

[Dave Baumann]

1. MS has already said they are using Nvidia in Xbox 2.

Quincy – where on earth did that come from?

Last I heard on the subject was from NVIDIA saying that MS have not decided they will work with NVIDIA.

I bet MS is talking to all the graphics companies about Xbox 2-- they need the best technology at the best price in order to compete with PS3.

Yes. AFAIK, they have put asked for tenders from all the companies. They have a target specification in mind and they have put it out to everyone to make proposals, should they wish to.

the last "Rumor" I had heard, was that MS was developing thier own GPU, which would be a good thing, enabling them to make the power they want, without losing a lot of money on it.

I have heard this as well, but rumors this early can also get a little confused. IMO what the rumor may have been trying to indicate is that MS are keen to fab the chips themselves (or have control over the fabbing) – this way they have more control over the costs of the chip and any changes they may wish to make for it (security, smaller die changes, integrating multiple chips onto single smaller dies etc). So, what I personally think is that they are looking for a deal where they can license the core, rather than pay for full chips.

 

[Magnum PI]

ATI, nvidia...

why not powervr ? so they could license the technology but control the fabbind.

 

[PC-Engine]

They would still have to pay for a fab partner, unless they've been fabbing chips secretly at Area 51

 

[bbot]

Some time back, there was an article published by redherring.com about MS making a xbox/ultimatetv(digital video recorder) combo. Could the large hard disk drive be part of that?

 

[Qroach]

Dave,

Quincy – where on earth did that come from?
Last I heard on the subject was from NVIDIA saying that MS have not decided they will work with NVIDIA.

There was a article about this on some financial website a while back. To be honest i think the article was more focused on MS than Nvidia. Inside it they talked about continuing the partnership with Nvidia despite the court case over chip costs. They also said something about demonstrating some early Xbox 2 hardware either this fall or next year (I can't remember which).

I don't think MS is going to change thier partner in this area. Certainly not change the GPU vendor based on the release of only DX9 hardware. Nvidia has shown MS thier road map for years ahead so they know what they are getting.

Here's another thing I'll throw out. This isn't a rumor but just something that's been in the back of my head. I can forsee Nvidia purchasing AMD and MS purchasing both both companies down the road. MS appears to want to get in to the hardware business alittle more each year IMO.

 

[Qroach]

Cyber,

and why dont you have a nice tall glass of shut the @#$% up
I never bitched about the Xbox, Quincey Poon is the only one bitching(and then of course, you coming along like his little gimp to back him up not even aware of whats being discussed, do you guys shower together too?), all I said was, seems likely(and being the new ATI Chipset is amazing, that is a GOOD THING!!

get off your friggen high horse, you have to argue EVERYTHING that doesnt go right along with your rosey image of the world.

Funny, how the world is only "rosey" in Nintendo land. Comments like this are why you need to grow up a little. Or atleast play more games instead of bickering.

 

[Vince]

I'm going to have to side with Quincy yet again;

There is too many microarchitectural diffrences when going between competing IHV's. Everyones underlying architecture is diffrent in how the logic blocks fit together, even when running the same fucntions. They're way to many places where an IHV will 'Optimise' the logic for a certain function - that *may* produce a similar effect, but will reak havok on a closed system where developers are now coding to nVidia's routines.

The only function ATi would play is one similar to that of GigaPixel - competition = lower costs.

They also said something about demonstrating some early Xbox 2 hardware either this fall or next year (I can't remember which).

Correct, considering a 2005 launch - specs for Xbox2 will need to be locked in early 2004 - only a year or so away. nVidia's new Cinefx architecture will be the base (about time they dumped the TNTx legacy) and will probobly belong to the NV3x generation. Perhaps Dev kits with NV30/35, and a shipping NV3A -esque devise.

So, what I personally think is that they are looking for a deal where they can license the core, rather than pay for full chips.

Interesting idea, but whats nVidia's incentive? Regardless of the current rumors, Microsoft needs nVidia and has a decent relationship with them (look to current inveriews and financial statements). The thought of XBox2 being non-nVidia powered is stretching it; saying nVidia will just liecense the core over is pushing it.

Not only do you enter the problem of IP (et al), but whose going to do the remasking/spining, security fixes, and other things that nVidia is now getting docked with? nVidia gets much out of being in the 'box from the point that developers are working and familiarizing themselves with nVidia hardware, but they retaint he advantage wether or not they produce or liecense the core - I see only downfalls for nvidia.

Nice to see ya in the Console forum Dave

 

[KnightBreed]

Interesting idea, but whats nVidia's incentive? Regardless of the current rumors, Microsoft needs nVidia and has a decent relationship with them (look to current inveriews and financial statements). The thought of XBox2 being non-nVidia powered is stretching it; saying nVidia will just liecense the core over is pushing it.

Why exactly would MS need nVidia? We're talking about next generation technology. MS can go with whomever they wish to design the next GPU. Backward compatibility isn't a concern.

 

[Steve Dave Part Deux]

Duffer-
Nintendo is working with NEC, Panasonic, and Hitachi on their next console. It is rumored to be a departure from Nintendo's traditional hardware, a "digital hub" if you will, with features similar to what Microsoft and Sony are planning to offer. Nintendo will no longer develop and manufacture their own hardware, they will simply lend software support and their name to a machine produced by their technology partners(they've been moving in this direction for a while). Given that Nintendo's name will certainly be used to market the machine I expect them to maintain the same quality standards as they have in the past.

 

[Ooh-videogames]

I don't see Nintendo going with Hitachi and I hope not because this is the same company that designed the Sega Saturn Gpu and it was to hard to develope for, causing a lot of problems for them and developers and you know what happend to Sega.