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Senior industry sources, speaking to gamesindustry.biz over the weekend, have indicated that it is extremely likely that Xbox 2 - currently codenamed Xenon - will be unveiled during Bill Gates' keynote address at the International Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas on January 5th, 2005. Gates, MS chairman and chief-software-architect, was unveiled as the keynote speaker by the Consumer Electronics Association late last week, prompting speculation that MS would use the platform to unveil Xbox 2. However, high-level talk amongst industry insiders, including analysts and publishers, suggests that there's more to this particular rumour than idle gossip. MS has so far declined to comment, taking the line that it does not respond to "rumour and speculation", but has not issued a denial.

(August 9 17:45 GMT+1) -

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GS: Are there any decisions you wish you could make over again? PM: Yes, but I’m not going to tell you! [Laughs]. As you know, this industry is a fast-paced industry, and we make decisions whether to maintain content or kill content, whether to do marketing campaigns or not do campaigns, and how to do them. So you’re making 20 to 30 decisions a day. Therefore, they’re not all correct. But you’ve got to make them. And I've got to say that it is incredibly motivating to work for a company like MS that is not afraid of making large investments very quickly. All the way to the top, from both Bill [Gates] and Steve Ballmer, [both men] are very engaged in the Xbox business. I was with Bill yesterday talking about where we’re at and where we’re going in the future, and he is incredibly enthused. He can’t wait to play Halo 2! GS: For the record, has MS made an attempt to acquire BioWare? That seemed to be part of the pre-E3 buzz this year. PM: If we did, I’m not going to tell you [laughs]. We have a great relationship with BioWare, so let’s leave it at that. GS: Lastly, Xbox Next. What’s the word? PM: We won’t be beaten to market by our competition. That’s about all I can say right now. The Xbox, right now, is doing so well, and there are a lot of legs in Xbox before we need to worry about the next gen.

Go read the whole interview on GameSpot.com
(August 19 05:16 GMT+1) -

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MS TOLD me today at the ECTS show in London's Earls Court that it is preparing plans to make a common code base for PC games and for the Xbox, a shift from its past strategy. Whether this means that the Xbox II and future PCs will use the same code base is still unclear, however. MS, with the first iteration of its Xbox machine, made things so that it could sell different products on its hardware, although the usual protests were heard that it was just attempting to milk consumers. It appears that MS has listened to such plaints, and is considering a different direction in the future.

Thanks to Gamester17 and Dom W. for the news.
(September 3 02:43 GMT+1)

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Speaking at the Smith Barney Citigroup 2004 Technology Conference, Nickerson made a short comment about the firm's involvement with next-generation console development for both Nintendo and MS. "The other one that's starting to become, I think, a factor when you're looking at it from an investment point of view, are game consoles," he told the conference. "We're actually winding down development on some of the MS product. Both Nintendo and MS will be royalties." While the comment is arguably open to different interpretations, the most likely meaning is that the design of the graphics part which will be used by the next Xbox console is almost complete, and is ready to pass off to the manufacturer - where, of course, a whole new set of challenges will have to be dealt with before the system actually enters production. This would tie in with the expected schedule for the launch of Xbox 2, which is expected to hit retail well before the end of 2005 in North America at least. It also suggests that developers, who are currently developing Xbox 2 titles on prototype development kits based on PowerMac G5 systems, could start seeing more advanced Xenon development hardware around the start of next year, if not sooner.

(September 8 17:44 GMT+1)

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An online petition to convince MS of implementing backwards compatibility into its next generation Xbox is quickly growing popularity. More than 21,000 Internet users have already signed the petition. MS (according to a gamesindustry.biz report ) seems reluctant to give in to the users demand, even though recent leaks on the Xbox 2 (Codename: Xenon, aka Xbox Next) CPU specs reveal that contradictory to earlier beliefs the next Xbox WILL BE MORE THAN powerful enough to emulate its predecessor in software. MS has as of yet not given a public statement to confirm of deny these claims...

Tom's Hardware has also an article about it. http://www.tomshardw...907_101432.html
If you didn't sign the petition yet: http://www.petitiono...2/petition.html
(September 8 17:55 GMT+1)

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MS will announce Media Center 2005 one month from today. If you want to be surprised just go away, otherwise, read on. It seems evolutionary, not revolutionary, with one big exception. The biggest thing they added was the concept of media center extenders, or specifically one of them called XBox. Yes, with a kit, the XBox becomes an extension of your media center PC. If you thought we were joking when we said MS doesn't care about games with the XBox, here is your proof. They want to own your entertainment, it just so happens that the easiest way is through a console. Sony should be very very afraid. What it does is let you take an XBox and play back all your MCPC media on the screen the console is connected to. One thing the XBox does not support though is HD content, anything you have on the full MCPC will be downgraded to normal quality for XBox playback, but it should occur seamlessly on the fly.

Read more on theinquirer.net.
http://www.theinquir.../?article=18385

(September 12 14:36 GMT+1)

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A Silicon Valley startup claims to have cracked one of most elusive goals of the software industry: a near-universal emulator that allows software developed for one platform to run on any other, with almost no performance hit. Transitive Corp. of Los Gatos, California, claims its QuickTransit software allows applications to run "transparently" on multiple hardware platforms, including Macs, PCs, and numerous servers and mainframes. The company claimed QuickTransit eliminates the need to port software from one platform to another. Software applications written for one platform will run on almost any other, without any modifications to the underlying program. For example, Wiederhold - president and CEO - said QuickTransit will allow the next-generation Xbox (which will have a Mac-like PowerPC chip) to run first-generation Xbox software (which was written for an Intel chip). In demonstrations to press and analysts, the company has shown a graphically demanding game -- a Linux version of Quake III -- running on an Apple PowerBook. "One of the key breakthroughs is performance," Wiederhold said. "You can't tell the difference between a translated application and a native application." Transitive launched the software on Monday with versions for Itanium, Opteron, x86 and Power/PowerPC chips.

Read the whole article on wired.com. http://www.wired.com...2,64914,00.html
Official Site: http://www.transitive.com  http://www.transitiv...uicktransit.htm
Thanks to Todd and Brad for the news/link.

While this news is not confirmed by MS and it might have only been used as 'example' of what the software could do, it does looks like this company is working for MS to bring a software solution to make the Xbox Next (Xbox2 codename Xenon) backward compatible with the current Xbox.
On this page they show their services for game platforms. They don't mention the Xbox there, but they show a x86 system emulated on a powerpc based system...
(September 13 18:48 GMT+1)

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According to Gamestar.de, the graphics core is finalised and it may be used by both XboX 2 and a future Nintendo console. It seems that both MS and Nintendo will license the same marchitecture and it's possible we will end up with the same graphic chip for both consoles. Knowing MS, I don’t see this happening and I would imagine that Nintendo might flee from ATI due to the nature of the MS–ATI deal. I don’t think that MS would be happy knowing that Nintendo would have the same core. Last time I head, this chip was codenamed R500, not the R520 that will be used for graphic cards only and will be directly derived from the R520 "Fudo" chip. We can expect at least Shader 3.0+ compatibility but we are not sure about the chip's specification. You can find the original story, here.

Thanks to Gamester17 for the news.
(September 14 17:10 CEST

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The company today announced a new spin on the idea to take advantage of existing system memory rather then increasing on-board memory which recently reached 256 MByte on some cards - one reason being that the data transfer between the visual processor and the CPU was not fast enough for real-time graphics applications. HyperMemory, according to ATI, gives the company the option to deliver cards with less on-board memory and instead use system memory to handle the graphics storage requirements. The company's aid that the technology uses "intelligent memory allocation algorithms" to optimize the use of available local memory and ensure critical components are placed in fast local memory when required. Optimal assignment of data to local or system storage is determined dynamically to ensure the best user experience. HyperMemory also increases the performance of system bus data transfers, making accessing system memory faster than before, ATI claims.

Note by Gamester17:
"Not direcly Xbox related but maybe indirecly releated to Xbox 2 as it's very easy to come to the conclusion and speculate that since ATI is highly involved in the chipset and grahpic structure of the Xbox 2 this new 'HyperMemory' shared memory technology will be used in the Xbox 2, maybe even ATI came up with the idea when they where researching and developing shared memory for usage in the Xbox 2 (and Nintendo's GameCube 2)."

It's very plausible ATI will use this technique in the Xbox Next. From internal documents we already knew MS plans to include a min of 256MB shared memory in the Xbox2.

Thanks to Gamester17 for the news.
(September 18 16:09 CEST) -

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Recently, GameSpot sat down Windows Graphics and Gaming general manager Dean Lester and discussed the current status of Longhorn, MS's next PC operating system, due in 2006. MS is already working with major hardware manufacturers such as Nvidia, ATI, and Intel (along with OEM manufacturers) to create pre-packaged PCs with varying levels of mid-range to high-end hardware, with appropriately varying price points. Under such a plan, pre-packaged PCs with certain processor speeds, amounts of RAM, and certain types of video card would be given a simple classification or "level." In essence, this system would let newer PC game players be able to quickly and easily determine that they need a computer of at least "level 5 or higher" to play a game with certain specific requirements, rather than trying to figure out exactly how much RAM they have. Longhorn will natively support the XNA development system, and Longhorn-based PCs will directly benefit from this. "Xbox 2 peripherals will all work on PC," said Lester, clarifying that Xbox controllers, steering wheels, and other console-related peripheral functionality will all be brought into Longhorn's portfolio, as will Xbox Live functionality. For game players, this will make for, if nothing else, an added convenience, since playing a game on their PC or their Xbox will [ideally] come down to little more than unplugging the controller from one, and plugging it into the other. For game developers, MS hopes that the introduction of XNA will help standardize development on both platforms, ideally to an extent that "you won't have to choose between Xbox or PC" to develop games...and ideally, so that players won't have to choose between the two platforms to play them. Then we asked Lester one final question: Considering how the next version of DirectX released with Longhorn will essentially be a new development platform similar to a new console release, would Xbox 2 be based on Longhorn? Unfortunately--but unsurprisingly--Lester declined to comment.

Read more on GameSpot.com. http://www.gamespot....ws_6108247.html
(September 23 18:28 CEST) -

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RUMOR #5: The Xbox 2 will use Virtual PC 7 for backwards compatibility for original Xbox games. Source: Self-explanatory site Geek.com. The official story: MS reps said they would "track down" the source of the rumor, but had not as of press time. What we heard: According to Geek.com's Apple Insider subsection, the reason for the delay of the latest version of Virtual PC 7 is that "MS has given this project exclusively to the Xbox team." Why would they do such a thing? "Because the next Xbox will include an IBM PowerPC 970, and current Xbox game developers are shipped G5 PowerMacs," says Geek.com. While not confirmed by MS, it sounds like a much more plausible scenario than last week's Xbox 2-backwards-compatiblity rumor, which had a Silicon Valley startup providing universal emulator middleware for the next-gen console. Bogus or not bogus?: Probably not bogus.

(September 26 20:16 CEST)

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The Xenon lives, thanks to a job posting on MS’s website, with an advert for a software engineer confirming the development name for the Xbox successor for the first time. “Want to help create a new feature for Xenon not available on any other platform? MS Game Studios Publishing is looking for an SDET with server experience to ” Cool. And there’s more dumplings in the stew, with all manner of revelations emerging. Check this – the successful applicant will create, “a spectator mode for many Xenon games, Xbox TV - with tickers at the bottom of the screen featuring recent high scores and game highlights, a tournament system, and tradable trophies.” Meaning that the Xbox 2, or Xenon, or whatever it will be called when it finally rolls onto shelves, will have a load of cool online features on an uprated Live service.

Read the whole article on spong.com. http://spong.com/det... revealed by MS
You can see the job offering on MS.com http://www.MS.com/ca...66-317b3b9a5918
(September 28 15:54 CEST) -

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ATI Technologies is expected to roll out a new GPU, codenamed R500, for the Xbox 2 in the first quarter of next year, according to market sources. The R500 will be built using a 90nm process at Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and will deliver performance similar to ATI's next-generation high-end graphics chip, the R520, the sources said.

Read the whole article on digitimes.com http://www.digitimes...40930A7056.html
(September 30 07:48 CEST) -

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BERKELEY, Calif.--MS Chairman Bill Gates on Friday started out a busy day in the Bay Area by talking to college students about a range of topics, from open-source software to malaria to the next Xbox. Asked about MS's biggest contribution, Gates said it is the creation of the software industry that came with the PC. But he also said the Tablet PC--a pet project of his--is pretty neat, too, as will be the next version of the Xbox. The next Xbox "may not be good for productivity, but it will be fun," he said. While not offering too many details on the device, he said communications will play a bigger part in the gadget, as will the idea of having an audience in addition to just players. "It's not just one person sitting there shooting at artifacts," Gates said.

Read the whole article on news.com http://news.com.com/...ml?tag=nefd.top
(October 2 00:02 EST) -

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1UP has a decent ol' article up that features 11 industry types chipping in on 8 pre-chosen areas that will supposedly help drive the Xbox Next to victory over the Playstation 3 in the next-generation console wars.

* Lesson One: Strike First, Strike Hard, and Look Good Doing It
* Lesson Two: Design Matters Matter
* Lesson Three: Quality Always Trumps Quantity
* Lesson Four: the Harder They Come...
* Lesson Five: There's No Such Thing as a Free Videogame Console
* Lesson Six: Stay Focused
* Lesson Seven: the Sun Still Rises in the East
* Lesson Eight: Find Your Cool--And Keep It
Go read the whole article on 1up.com http://www.1up.com/d...ure?cId=3135080
(October 2 17:05 EST)