ATI WON'T BE making R500 chips for Microsoft's Xbox 360. ATI's job was to design those chips and to give the designs back to Microsoft to get them produced.
ATI would have had to help Microsoft with tape outs and with design tweaking, as those guys at ATI designed the R500 Xbox 360 GPU. But developers are now getting the "Real" hardware still based on G5 MACs but this time with real R500 graphic cards inside. This means that R500 chip is taped out and that it is working but we don’t know whether this is the final chip that Microsoft plans to ship at later date.
Microsoft plans to ship hundreds of thousands if not even millions of Xbox 360 consoles world wide from October, so it has to have at least that many R500 chips to power those consoles.
We heard few times that Microsoft will get both R500 and CPUs from IBM’s Fishkill factory in New York. We cannot confirm this at this date but it sounds very likely to us.
It’s interesting to note that ATI might work with the people who were not so successful in bringing Nvidia’s NV30 chip, as this chip was made at IBM’s Fishkill Fab. We should not blame IBM’s factory as it was Nvidia’s fault mostly - but still we find Microsoft's choice of Fab quite interesting.
We think the Vole knows what its doing as it really wants half of the console market. It has a nasty competitor called Sony and its Playstation 3 as you probably know by now.
We already wrote that Nvidia and Sony will get RSX GPUs from Sony's Nagasaki Fab2 facility as well as at OTSS.
Halo. Perhaps the most important launch title of all time. You could easily argue that there have been better console launch titles, but it’s hard to discount how important Halo has been to the success of the Xbox. Face it - launch titles can make or break a console. Launch titles also set the tone for the system, giving gamers a pretty good glimpse at what to expect in the future. Put a bad taste in a gamer’s mouth with a paltry, unimpressive launch lineup, and hear them all mutter “Dreamcast 2” under their breath.
Reports out of the US suggest 360 pre-orders have already drained stocks - before they're even on the shelves.
Stocks of Xbox 360 consoles are already critically low because of rampant pre-ordering, according to reports emanating from US retailers.
The reports, which remain speculation at this point, suggest that numerous large US retailers including EB Games and Gamestop have already exhausted their early stock allocations.
It seems that the demand for Microsoft's next-gen machine has been so great that a huge number of customers have pre-ordered their Xbox 360s - possibly resulting in empty store shelves when the console actually launches in November.
The news will cause distress for Microsoft, which was hit by severe Xbox stock shortages in the run-up to last Christmas. Also, potential Xbox 360 shortages could complicate the console's planned worldwide launch - it's expected to release in the US, Europe and Asia within weeks of each other in November.
But the Redmond-based giant seemed unphased by the reports when we contacted it for comment. "Excitement for Xbox 360 is running high," said a spokesperson, "and we're working with our manufacturing partners to ensure we meet worldwide demand for Xbox 360 this Christmas."
Paul Thurrott got the chance to visit Microsoft's campus and interview Jeff Henshaw, the Executive Producer for Xbox Digital Entertainment. The first part of the interview, which you can find here, takes a look deep inside Xbox 360 while the second part focuses on the Xbox 360 Dashboard, the Marketplace, the new Xbox Live and the media experiences user will enjoy with the Xbox 360.
Tomonobu Itagaki, head of Team Ninja is voiceing concerns about the future of Xbox Media. He is saying that each xbox disc only hold 9GB, which may not be enough for HD video. Saying that DoA4 Video scenes, after rendered in HD, are a total of 2Gb, leaving 7Gb for game space- which he says is fine for Dead or Alive, but Microsoft should increase disc size, some developers may require aloft more space for theres games than expected.