The Official XBOX360 topic

[privateer]

Xbox 360 Buys Backwards Compatibility Rights From Nvidia

 

http://gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=9562

 

Microsoft has signed a deal with NVIDIA to license the company's technology in order to enable backwards compatibility in the Xbox 360, which uses an ATI graphics chipset that isn't natively compatible with Xbox titles.

 

The question of how to get Xbox 360 - which uses a radically different architecture to the Xbox - to play Xbox titles has been a major problem for Microsoft, and it's rumoured that backwards compatibility wasn't actually part of the original specification of the console.

 

Indeed, it wasn't even confirmed that the system would be able to play Xbox games until E3 this year, when Microsoft announced that "best-selling" Xbox titles would work on the Xbox 360 - a curious piece of double-speak which the software giant refused to clarify fully.

 

Following the announcement, sources close to the company indicated that a form of recompilation (known as "transcompilation") would be required to make Xbox games work on the 360, with the resulting patched executables being shipped on the system's hard drive for certain popular games, and patched versions of other games gradually being added over the Xbox Live network.

 

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz at the time, Microsoft Xbox PR manager Michael Wolf denied that games would need to be recompiled, and assured us that the company had no intention of charging for updates to the backward compatibility service. However, he refused to answer further questions about how the process will work.

 

Now a report on US website 1up confirms that Microsoft has in fact licensed parts of NVIDIA's technology from the Xbox to allow it to emulate the chipset in Xbox 360, a deal which will see Microsoft continuing to make payments to NVIDIA for several years.

 

The company apparently plans to emulate the Xbox' Intel CPU on the 360's multiple IBM PowerPC cores, and will now be able to emulate the NVIDIA chip to some extent on the ATI graphics chip in the 360 - but it would appear that many games will still not work without some modification.

 

Patches for some popular games - or "emulation profiles" - will ship on the Xbox hard drive, and those games will as a result work out of the box. Microsoft is expected to work to get emulation working for other games over time, and will distribute further emulation profiles over the Xbox Live service.

 

What's not clear is how users without Xbox Live access - around 90 per cent of users on the current generation Xbox, for reference - will be able to update those profiles, and whether Microsoft will ever get the full range of Xbox software working on the new console.

 

Wolf declined to answer the first of those questions when we put it to him last month, but was more positive on the second issue, telling us that "our goal is to make ALL Xbox games play on Xbox 360, and at launch we'll have a selection of the top selling that will be tested and confirmed to work."

[Slay]

bre paidia lathos agglika xero? to artho sto kotaku (poy einai copy apo to gamesindustry btw) leei oti den skeftontai na to kanoyn port giati tha apaitoyse keyboard mouse kai ayta den einai standard stis konsoles.

What about the next-generation consoles? Final Fantasy XI is going to Xbox 360 - surely Microsoft must have talked to you about bringing World of Warcraft over as well?

 

We've been in contact with Microsoft... World of Warcraft was really built with a focus on PC, and while I think it certainly could get to Xbox, it's not something that at this moment we've decided to do.

 

We're exploring any variety of possibilities, as you can imagine, and as it relates to [Xbox 360], it would require certain input devices - you know, a keyboard or a mouse. Those are things that are not standard, they're peripherals, and peripherals have historically not done well for any of the console companies unless you're talking about additional controllers or memory cards. Other than that, when you look at other peripherals, they historically haven't done so well - so for us, we're exploring it, we're listening, we're talking, however, we've not made any decision to go that direction at this point.

[privateer]

Image of the chip package for the Xenos graphics processor:

 

 

The parent/daughter die is quite clearly evident on the same package from this image. While the 232M transistor figure for the parent was given to us by ATI we are still trying to establish a more official figure for the daughter (even though these things are very much estimates). We've speculated that the 150M figure that appeared when XBOX 360 was first announced may just relate to daughter die, however another figure that has arisen is 100M - judging from the die sizes the daughter die doesnʼt have more than half the area of the parent, which would give indications towards the 100M side although 80M of those transistors are DRAM which may be more dense than the logic circuitry that will dominate the parent die. We are trying to get further clarification.

 

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?topic=24076&forum=9

[Angeldust]

Egw auto pou blepw pantws einai oti sto topic tou XBOX360 yparxei poly pio megalh kinitikotita ap'oti sto topic tou PS3 kai auto deixnei to megalytero endiaferon pou yparxei (toulaxiston apo tous insomniacs) gia to XBOX360.

[epote]

Egw auto pou blepw pantws einai oti sto topic tou XBOX360 yparxei poly pio megalh kinitikotita ap'oti sto topic tou PS3 kai auto deixnei to megalytero endiaferon pou yparxei (toulaxiston apo tous insomniacs) gia to XBOX360.

 

pithanon na eprepe na kopseis to pcp mate:p

 

diavase ta post kai bgale ksana ta simperasmata sou

[kallair]

@angeldust: i antiparathesi den ginetai na einai kai sta 2 topics... etsi einai sto topic tou xbox opou fernei kai tin megaliteri dixognomia gia ta xaraktiristika tou.

[jimbrav]

@angeldust: i antiparathesi den ginetai na einai kai sta 2 topics... etsi einai sto topic tou xbox opou fernei kai tin megaliteri dixognomia gia ta xaraktiristika tou.

 

eno me ta xaraktiristika toy ps3(katse na kykloforisei opos to perigrafoyn!!!!)

eimaste ok?

[Slay]

Opoios exei kapoio sxolio, h aporia sxetika me to ps3 mporei na to kanei sto antistoixo thread kaneis den toy to apagoreyei, arkei na exei na pei kati, giati edo bghke oloklhro arthro 19 selides gia thh GPU toy 360 kai mono ego kai o epote eixame kati na poyme pano sto thema, ego tha protimoysa na eixe ginei arketh syzhthsh pano se ayto alla den egine, thes giati to arthro htan poly texniko thes giati kapoioi barioyntai sxolio apo kapoion xbox fan (thetiko,arnhtiko,aporia) den eida pantos.

[jimbrav]

Opoios exei kapoio sxolio, h aporia sxetika me to ps3 mporei na to kanei sto antistoixo thread kaneis den toy to apagoreyei, arkei na exei na pei kati, giati edo bghke oloklhro arthro 19 selides gia thh GPU toy 360 kai mono ego kai o epote eixame kati na poyme pano sto thema, ego tha protimoysa na eixe ginei arketh syzhthsh pano se ayto alla den egine, thes giati to arthro htan poly texniko thes giati kapoioi barioyntai sxolio apo kapoion xbox fan (thetiko,arnhtiko,aporia) den eida pantos.

 

pisteyo oti isos telika koyrazei ton poio poli kosmo mia toso eksidikeymeni

sizitisi gia tin cpu toy xbox i tin arxtektonikh toy xbox.

isos na pirxe ena allo topic gia ayto.

vevea tha to itheles poio texniko to thema alla pisteyo oti endiaferei ligoys .

ego pali tha to ithela poio poli enhmerotikou xaraktira.

sigoyra o kathenas exei tis dikes toy protimiseis.

[Stormwatch]

Συνεντευξη του Richard Huddy της ΑΤΙ σε γερμανικο site για το 360

 

http://www.gamestar.de/magazin/specials/hardware/26071/

[Slay]

Mia proth sygkrish ton 2 konsolon (xbox 360, PS3) apo to Anandtech, poly kalo arthro apo mia poly kalh phgh opos einai to en logo site http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2453&p=1

[privateer]

Todd Holmdahl of Microsoft talking about the Xbox 360 hardware

http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/1190/Xbox-360-Interview-Todd-Holmdahl/p1/

[Panathinaikara]

Ρε παιδιά, αναφερόμαστε στο hardware αλλά δε λέμε και πολλά για τα επερχόμενα παιχνίδια του xbox που στην τελική αυτά είναι που θα καθορίσουν την έκβαση του κονσολικού πολέμου. ΆΚουσα ότι το Ninja GAiden 2 θα είναι exclusive στο ps3. ΑΛηθεύει κάτι τέτοιο; Επίσης το ότι η Microsoft έχασε τις αποκλειστικότητες των Kotor μάλλον είναι κακό. Βέβαια πήρε και Final Fantasy αλλά....

Τεσπα, ξέρετε ποιοι τίτλοι θα είναι το πρώτα μεγάλα hits της νέας κονσόλας;

[Slay]

Gia to Ninja Gaiden 2 den alitheyei ayto poy les, eixe akoystei fhmh oti pithanon na mhn einai exclusive sto 360 alla ayto xoris na shmainei oti den tha bgei kai giayto, apla tha ebgaine kai gia ta 2, alla pote den eipothike oti tha einai mono sto ps3, pantos akoma den exei xekatharisei h katastash me NG2, pio pithana theoro ta senaria, h na einai kai pali exclusive sto 360, h na bgei kai sta 2 alla me kathysterhsh sto ps3, oso gia to Kotor pote den htan xbox exclusive, kathos yparxei kai gia pc, ontos eixe akoystei kati tetoio prin thn E3 alla apo tote den exei akoystei tipota epishmo.

[Panathinaikara]

Εννοώ exclusive όταν δεν είναι στο ps3 και revolution που είναι οι άμεσοι ανταγωνιστές. Άλλα παιχνίδια που πιστεύετε θα κάνουν τη διαφορά;