Thanks to Good Morning Silicon Valley for pointing out that it looks like the XBox 2 is not going to have Intel Inside. This statement makes it clear that the snake and mongoose dance that Microsoft and IBM have had for years is getting a bit more interesting. The CPU chip is likely to be the PPC 970, the same machine that powers the Apple Macintosh top end (marketed under the G5 label).
Chip prices are largely driven by volume. XBox's switchover to PPC will likely drive the cost of the Intel's chips up and IBM's chips down. This will put money not only into IBM's pocket but also into the pockets of Apple and Motorola who helped design the 970 via the AIM alliance that manages the PPC line.
This will also change the software world a bit as it will become easier to port XBox games to Apple's Macintosh that shares the same chip as XBox 2 than to Microsoft's own Windows platform which abandoned PPC around the NT4 SP3 patch level.
Posted by TMLutas at November 4, 2003 12:13 PM