Also, I don’t think it’s surprising at all that Microsoft decided to go with IBM and their PowerPC architecture for the Xbox360. Since the Xbox was their first foray into console gaming they went with what they knew… Intel’s Pentium 3 and Nvidia graphics running basically on a ‘pc-in-a-closed-system’ idea. Now that they have had their experience, the idea of moving towards solutions that aren’t necessarily comfortable might be a way to enhance development and increase profits. Already I’ve heard that they will make money with this console, instead of the giant losses they had on the original xbox hardware.

Also, Nintendo’s Gamecube used an IBM PowerPC processor running around 455mhz and had an ArtX (a company since purchased by ATI) graphics chip with 3MB embedded DRAM. What Microsoft has done here, in my opinion, is basically take what the gamecube had and multiply by a fuckton. And if you’ve seen any of the recent gamecube games (RE4 sticks out in my mind) you will see just how developers crank out the best of that hardware… something I’m sure directly appealed to Microsoft.

I anxiously await Sony and Nintendo’s proposals. It’s rumored that Sony has a Cell processor running at 4ghz with 8 parallel pipes and Nintendo seems to also be working with IBM again on a custom chip to meet it’s needs. I think Microsoft, especially if it launches this year, is going to completely take over this next gen console war. With their hardware, I don’t blame them.