X360 & GC.

[BoomAM]

Found this article:
http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=28
A good read. Part 1 of 3.
Interesting comment here:

Although Microsoft had the financial resources, they lacked Sony’s hardware experience and more so, they lacked the time. Nintendo’s GameCube model on the other hand was much more hands off. The contracted IBM “Gekko” CPU and ATI “Flipper” GPU of the GameCube ended up being quite competitive hardware-wise in spite of its bargain price. The difference was where Microsoft contracted to buy complete chips from NVIDIA and Intel at a set price, Nintendo licensed only the chip designs so they could reduce costs easier by contracting out, taking full advantage of ever decreasing die shrinks. Microsoft loved the model. They loved that the GameCube was fast, and for much of its life, only $99US. In fact they loved it so much they not only stole the hardware model… they also contracted the exact same chip designers of the GameCube for the Xbox Next! And so it began, IBM would design the CPU of the Xbox 360 while ATI would develop the GPU. In many ways the Xbox 360 would become the spiritual successor of Nintendo’s GameCube, at least hardware wise.

 

[Boogle]

Sony have done the exact same as well Well, except they used NV instead of ATI.

Update:
Just finished reading the article, tis very good The BluRay drive is potentially going to cost Sony a lot more money than I thought, and for a LOT longer than I thought too. The X360 DVD drive is also more expensive than I thought it would be, by about $5; but its still early days and I'm sure the cost will come down along with everything else. The ATI chip also seems to grow in power every time I see it. The memory in the PS3 will be cheaper though, it has 256MB fast(ish) memory and 256MB slow memory compared to the X360's 512MB fast memory.

Anyway, I think MS are on to a winner, and I think by the end of the X360's lifespan, MS will have a marketshare that is very close to Sony's. I suppose its even possible that they'll beat it, afterall the PSX thoroughly beat Nintendo and Sega in terms of marketshare.

 

[Wang Computer]

GameCubes's GPU was developed by ArtX; a group of Silicon Graphics employees that had previously worked on the N64's hardware prior to forming their own company.

IIRC, the same people are working on the graphics hardware for the Revolution from within ATI. Where as the 360's hardware is a derived/enhanced version of existing PC GPU technology.

I fail to see the connection, myself. Unlike the 'Cube, the 360 is still a massively expensive, revenue loser for Microsoft at the moment. Although that's no slur on the console’s abilities (don't want thousands of other forum users waving their pitch forks at me)!

 

[Boogle]

GameCubes's GPU was developed by ArtX; a group of Silicon Graphics employees that had previously worked on the N64's hardware prior to forming their own company.

IIRC, the same people are working on the graphics hardware for the Revolution from within ATI. Where as the 360's hardware is a derived/enhanced version of existing PC GPU technology.

I fail to see the connection, myself. Unlike the 'Cube, the 360 is still a massively expensive, revenue loser for Microsoft at the moment. Although that's no slur on the console’s abilities (don't want thousands of other forum users waving their pitch forks at me)!

The 360's GPU is hardly related to PC GPUs. OK it has pipelines, triangle set, ROPS, etc. But if you're saying that makes it a PC GPU, then every 3D accelerator on the planet is a PC GPU. How else are you going to transform triangles into pixels?

The big difference is the daughter chip, that won't be in any PC graphics card, ever. Its both a side-effect of the 360's unified memory architecture (something else that will never go in a PC), as well as the drive for HD with FSAA. It also allows for the ATI chip to do physics calcs as mentioned in the article.

The 360 uses the cube's hardware development model. Nintendo had IBM and ArtX (now part of ATI) custom build both the CPU and GPU for the console, and then provide the spec. From there Nintendo manufactured the hardware themselves, allowing them to cut out the middle man, and benefit from lower cost to manufacture as time goes on. MS have used an almost identical method this time round, using some of the team from both IBM and ArtX. The previous Xbox didn't decrease in cost significantly throughout its lifetime because the contract with Intel & NV specified the price from the outset.