| What OS runs inside the Xbox 360? |
May 13, 2005
 Microsoft officially unveiled its next generation Xbox "game and entertainment system" yesterday, rolling it out on MTV amid the aura of celebrities, professional athletes, and musicians. Given the Xbox 360's all-new PowerPC-based embedded architecture, the question arises: "What operating system is embedded inside the Xbox 360?"
(Click for larger view of the Xbox 360)
 The earlier Xbox (shown at right) is based on a Pentium-family processor and is rumored to run a variant of Windows 2000. But the Xbox 360 has a completely different architecture, based on a custom triple-core IBM PowerPC processor along with other specialty silicon including a custom graphics processor made by ATI, plus 512MB of system DRAM (see table of specs, below). So, since Windows hasn't supported the PowerPC architecture since Windows NT 4.0 SP3, and Windows CE also doesn't support PowerPC, we find ourselves wondering . . . - Has Microsoft ported Windows XP to the PowerPC for the Xbox 360? Or, Windows CE?
- Does the Xbox 360 run a version of some off-the-shelf embedded OS, perhaps a variant of BSD UNIX? (we won't bother to suggest the "L-word")
- Or, does the Xbox 360 run a completely new embedded software platform developed specifically for Xbox use?
Why does it matter?
Bear in mind, Microsoft has big plans for the home -- plans that include media center PCs, family entertainment centers, TV set-top boxes, portable media players, mobile phones, and, of course, gaming devices.
Considering that the Xbox 360 represents a powerful new computing platform that will be finding its way into tens of millions of homes, it seems likely that Microsoft will attempt to leverage the device to extend its reach throughout the home, offering a wide range of capabilities and services. As a case in point, Microsoft already offers an upgrade kit that turns the earlier version of the Xbox into a Media Center Extender in support of Media Center PCs.
Hence, the Xbox 360 appears likely to become a hardware/software platform that will host a multitude of Microsoft and third-party upgrades, add-ons, and applications -- consisting of both software and hardware products.
Name that OS
Although Microsoft did not immediately respond to our request for details regarding the Xbox 360's embedded software platform, we'll let you know what we learn. In the mean time, we invite our readers to comment or speculate on our Xbox 360 OS question, using the following talkback thread in our discussion forum:
Talkback here
A summary of Xbox 360 specs
Hardware specs -- Xbox 360 compared to Xbox
| Xbox 360 | Xbox | | CPU | Custom-designed IBM PowerPC-based CPU with 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2Ghz each; 2 hardware threads per core and 6 hardware threads total | Intel 733MHz Pentium III; one hardware thread | | CPU Floating Point Performance | 115.2 GFLOPS | 1.466 GFLOPS | | Graphics Processor | 500 MHz custom-designed chip, developed by Microsoft and ATI; 48 parallel processing units (at 24 times total power) | 233 MHz custom-designed chip, developed by Microsoft and Nvidia; 4 parallel processing units | | Total Memory | 512MB GDDR3 RAM | 64MB | | Memory Bandwidth | Main memory: 22.4GB/sec; EDRAM rendering memory; 256GB/sec; frontside bus: 21.6GB/sec | Main memory: 6.4GB/sec; EDRAM rendering memory: N/A; frontside bus: 1GB/sec | | Polygon Performance | 500 million/sec | 116.5 million/sec | | Simultaneous Textures | 16; bilinear filtering | 4 | | Pixel Fill Rate | 16G/sec | 3.7G/sec | | Compressed Textures | DXT1-5 | 6:1 | | Input / Output | Wireless game controllers (support for up to 4); 3 USB 2.0 ports; 2 memory unit slots; Ethernet port | Game controllers (x4); Ethernet port | | Audio Channels | More than 256 | 256 | | Audio Support | 3D audio; Dolby Digital 5.1 | 3D audio; Dolby Digital 5.1 | | HDTV Support | 16:9; 720p and 1080i standard | 16:9; 720p and 1080i supported | | Software Format | DVD | DVD | | Size | 3.27 x 10.16 x 12.17 in. | 3.5 x 10.25 x 12.75 in. | | Weight | 7 lbs., 11 oz. | 8 lbs., 11oz. |
To learn more about the Xbox 360, read this comprehensive "first look" review by 1UP.com:
Microsoft fires the first shot in the next-generation wars
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