A further add btw...
Quote: "Sony has bragged about the mini-supercomputer at the heart of its next machine for a couple of years now, a custom chip designed by IBM. It'll truly be a one-of-a-kind, unique gaming experience.
Unless you own an X-Box 2.0. IBM, it turns out, is making a similar chip for Microsoft's next machine. Oh, did I mention that IBM is also doing the chip for Nintendo's next?
The three companies hired to do the graphics processors for the machines are, in order, ATI, ATI and ATI. "
Playstation3 TX81-Based 128bit Processor (not PowerPC)
Xenon (X-Box2) X86 64bit Processor (2nd Generation)
GameCube Advance PowerPC 64bit 604 Processor (64bit version of what they're currently using)
although it is true that IBM are the ones developing and producing them (damn these guys are gonna have a good 5years), all the processors are actually completely different designs.
further more Sony are still using an inhouse GPU designed by IBM (who have access to nvidia and radeon 9-series technology), however thier psp will feature an Imageon.
Microsoft have already cracked the deal for the R400, the original design for the X800 (Radeon 10K) which is around 2/3rd the speed.
Nintendo on the other hand, will not say who they are using; ATI was not looking favourable due to thier lead developers,
Sega, Squaresoft (the game designer studio) and Capcom have all said that development took far longer than they had planned causing budgets to be stretched.
I have a feeling that IBM might be swaying to produce a version of the 6800 for it, considering they have a reported 60% of thier production and budget going into producing and redeveloping these processors. Nintendo are thier main customer (and have been for over a decade)
But that's probably wishful thinking and they might go with another Radeon, but i doubt it... Nintendo want thier game system to be state of the art to push games to thier limits, that is why they chose the Radeon 9700 over the Geforce 4 in the first place; Because it was technologically better.
We'll see though eh.
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