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Xbox 360 built around PlayStation 3 Cell technology

Posted Jan 4, 2009 at 2:25AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: PS3, Xbox 360 Tags: IBM, Microsoft, Philips, Sony, Toshiba, Wall Street Journal

Report: Sony's Cell Dev Cost $400 Million, Aided Microsoft Tech - Image 1

Some people describe the Xbox 360 as a watered down version of the PlayStation 3. Those people are more right than they imagined.

A new book, entitled "The Race For A New Game Machine" reveals that the Xbox 360's tech was built around the technology of the PS3's Cell processor. The book was written by David Shippy and Mickie Philips, two major figures behind the design of the Cell.

The book reveals that back in 2001, Sony partnered with Toshiba and IBM to make the Cell chip. During its development, Microsoft approached IBM to have their own chip built around components of the Cell chip. From Wall Street Journal:

All three of the original partners had agreed that IBM would eventually sell the Cell to other clients. But it does not seem to have occurred to Sony that IBM would sell key parts of the Cell before it was complete and to Sony's primary videogame-console competitor.The result was that Sony's R&D money was spent creating a component for Microsoft to use against it.

Mr. Shippy and Ms. Phipps detail the resulting absurdity: IBM employees hiding their work from Sony and Toshiba engineers in the cubicles next to them; the Xbox chip being tested a few floors above the Cell design teams.

Mr. Shippy says that he felt "contaminated" as he sat down with the Microsoft engineers, helping them to sketch out their architectural requirements with lessons learned from his earlier work on Playstation.

You may be wondering, if they both had the same tech, how did the Xbox 360 get to the market first? Explains WSJ:

Both designs were delivered on time to IBM's manufacturing division, but there was a problem with the first chip run. Microsoft had had the foresight to order backup manufacturing capacity from a third party. Sony did not and had to wait another six weeks to get their first chips.

So Microsoft actually got the chip that Sony helped design before Sony did. In the end, Microsoft's Xbox 360 hit its target launch in November 2005, becoming its own success. Because of various delays, the Playstation 3 was pushed back a full year.

Probably the most painful part for Sony is that they paid US$ 400 million for the technology.

Via Wall Street Journal

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(0)

and that is not what the article says...

"So Microsoft actually got the chip that Sony helped design before Sony did."

if sony's engineers provided knowledge to IBM that helped dev the 360 cpu that is one thing...

claiming they both use the same technology is an entirely different story.

i'm sure he does know more than me... and i'm sure he also has a reason to make these claims (maybe he wants more credit than is due...), that doesn't make it any more factual.

# eh... — landon05 2009-01-04 06:34

Kind of figures. I'm not skeptical or even surprised by business tactics anymore; it's just disappointing. It makes a part of me really hope that this is just sensationalist crap intended to sell a book... but I know that would just be misplaced optimism.

...come on, it's business - the devil's hobby!

# well — BULL3TPR00F 2009-01-04 06:58

thats exactly how microsoft got to where it is lol, by stealing.

first from apple, now from sony

lol

(watch all the fanboys start screaming "stfu ms didnt steal anythign from $ony" lol)

# yea windows was the only good thing — bradman4 2009-01-04 07:08

and not just any windows only windows xp vista sucks and so do all the others. ps3 is just to good

# You have to wonder... — Diablith 2009-01-04 07:18

Okay in the last console run IBM designed the CPU for the Gamecube and ATI did the GPU for it. You have to wonder what secrets IBM employed from the Gamecube CPU to make CPU's for this consoles run. Also this tactic from IBM is understandable (underhanded none the less), they don't want to lose and of their clients to Intel (Intel realized by burning Microsoft with the first Xbox and the rest of the industry watching, no one came to them this console round.) They're actually the true winners of this console war. They've got a chip in all three of the consoles! ATI would be the next winner, their in the 360 and the Wii.

# Actually... — Diablith 2009-01-04 07:23

The "Windows" system both employed by Apple and Microsoft was actually developed by Xerox. Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were at the Xerox meeting when they were looking to sell it. Neither Apple of Microsoft actually bought it... How did they get it?

Stealing is the foundation of industry (unfortunately)

# oh wow someone with a clue... — rollypoly 2009-01-04 07:33

you got it about right...

"good artists copy, great artists steal" %u2013 Picasso

mr jobs quoted that one himself...

# well — BULL3TPR00F 2009-01-04 07:34

i recall watching a documentary regarding all this before, maybe im forgetting some things but from what i remember, yes both of them were there, but apple actually worked out an agreement with Xerox and bought DOS.

So apple was then working on DOS, and then Bill Gates came around and since he already knew Steve Jobs and Wosnial n all them, he asked Steve for a job at apple. He then began workin at apple and working on DOS, but he took the code, barely altered it and slapped "MS" onto it.

MS-DOS was born lol.

# erm.. — Dremth 2009-01-04 07:50

wow... rollypoly, you + dumb.... nuff said.

# meh — rollypoly 2009-01-04 08:37

DOS was purchased outright from a smaller software company (who refused to deal with IBM btw) by microsoft, and subsequently licensed to IBM.

what was lifted from Xerox were the mouse and GUI concepts.

microsoft approached apple about doing apps for the mac (as microsoft didn't have it's own GUI OS at the moment), bill did not get a job at apple...

microsoft proceeded to copy (or steal) what apple had already taken from xerox.

# ... — Justingraziano 2009-01-04 08:49

Vista doesnt suck. Vista is great, and the new IE 8 beta looks absolutely great too.

# ... — Justingraziano 2009-01-04 08:51

lol, rollypoly!

# Vista? — NarooN 2009-01-04 08:56

Vista is horrible, Bill Gates himself even joked about how bad it is. He was interviewed and asked a question about what he thought was the best success about the latest OS, and he said "Lol, how about you ask me that in a few more years"

He was referring to the next Microsoft OS. Vista does nothing groundbreaking at all, all it did was just bring a bunch of pointless UI tweaks and incompatibility issues.

# ... — extra2000 2009-01-04 09:05

@rollypoly:

It's just the design. The design of a processor does not only mean the structure and organization of the physical components. The design includes how instructions are fetched, executed and stored. It also covers how buffers are flushed, how caches are cleared, and so on.

# bullsh**! — Aceboogz 2009-01-04 10:04

Who gives a crap?

Xbox360 is the *****.

Enjoy your littlebigplanet ps3*****s.

# Dumb Competitive Pepole — eddynightmare 2009-01-04 10:34

Now I Think Both 360 and PS3 Are The Same.

They Both Have Online.

I Think The In-game XMB Music Sucks On The PS3 and They Messed That Up Thats Why I Might Choose 360.Home On The Other Side Is A Way To Make Alot Of Friends In A Friendly Way. 360 Does Not Have Home.

The Real Reason Why There Diffrent Is The Games And The Games Only

They Get Gears Of War, Halo, and etc.

PS3 Gets: Killzone,God Of War, MGS4, And LittleBigPlanet And etc.

I Have The Taste Of The PS3 Games Thats Why I Choose It.

So Start Being Friendly Pepole This Is Way Too Dumb To Fight About.

# cell big news — Jowga 2009-01-04 10:38

Where is smoke there is fire!!!!!!!!!!!

# now there we go... — rollypoly 2009-01-04 11:05

i don't doubt they may share some methods of operation...

design and operation are two different things...

an inline 4cyl and a v8 have very similar operations, but vary greatly in design...

if it were stated as they operate in a similar manner instead of they are using the same chip or design, my reaction would of been totally different.

# ... — extra2000 2009-01-04 11:18

Have you ever saw an actual design document?

A design covers all aspects. From physical, operation, configuration, quality, performance, and so on. A design is what you need to be able create something. It's not just a sketch, on how they look, it includes how they do things.

# asd — Rhyl 2009-01-04 11:48

I play Halos and GoW @pc

; )

# This is why — Scribe 2009-01-04 12:26

PPC just signifies the command structure, Power PC is a command set not a design spec. Whilst I'm 100% positive a Power5 core has little in common with the CELL PPC, quite possibly the PPCs used in the 360 chip are based on the CELL PPC design in order to be cost effective whilst performing gaming tasks to a high standard. They may also have used ideas taken from the CELL PPC such as an efficient method for the cores to work together, how to page or share memory and so on. The clock speed alone is one indication of shared technology.

# microsoft — timdehaas 2009-01-04 13:55

Dbzking they didnt even get windows on their own they stoll the idea from appke who stole it from xerox who thought it was worthless. Sony should have predicted this sort of thing and got a private deal on the chip.

# read on maxconsole — Aces In The Palm 2009-01-04 14:31

this article seems wrong

shippy never said the xbox uses same tech

he said he felt contaminated working on xbox chip design after what he learn from sony

and the kicker

agreements meant that IBM could not share anything bout the xbox CPU with sony

so xbox could of got "some" cell influences

but to say the tech is the same

sorry no i dont buy it

# i knew there was something fishy bout M$ — houaruto 2009-01-04 15:01

U can copy the real thing, you can act like the real thing, you can do similar things to the real thing, but you will never perform like the real thing M$.....

cloning will cause defects in this case the defects is the RRoD

what a grand example for a great american corporation.....no wonder the rest of the world hates america.

# ..... — Tyrant156 2009-01-04 15:20

The graphics look the same on GTA4 because they are made to look the same...all multiplatform games are made to look the same so saying one game looks better than the other is just pointless to argue about. Games designed specifically for the PS3 look great and 360 games look great that's all that matters. Unless you have stock in MS or Sony what do you care which game sells more for which system?

# Oh, hi Mr. Fanboy! — xploren 2009-01-04 17:45

How's your life doing--oh, I'm sorry, I forgot you don't have one.

Fanboyism is a stupid thing. Why can't fanboys accept both are great in their own right?

# ...? — TomClancy 2009-01-04 18:12

BULL3TPR00F, good riddance you're retarded!

# Haha... — TomClancy 2009-01-04 18:16

HAHA -----> to your ignorant comment.

# Directed to Isaac — avatar76 2009-01-04 19:59

Isaac, if you meant to present this article in a way that started a fanboy flamewar well done.

"Some people describe the Xbox 360 as a watered down version of the PlayStation 3."

What people?? Are you taking lessons from fox news, "Some would say", that's how they got your current dumb 4ss president elected for you.

For god sake people if it was anyone is to blame it's IBM for not specifying a conflict of interest.

Asside from all this this is one component of the machine, and lets face it the CPU of the 360 is alot less grunty then the PS3's, but the 360's GPU on the other hand is much better.

Which means that alot of multi platform releases yes the 360 looks better but that doesn't mean it's a better console. With PS3's bluray storage (albeit slow read speed) and grunty CPU there will be exclusive games that the 360 will never be able to do.

People need to get over fighting each other about which console is better buy which ever console has the exclusives you want and forget about everything else. The reality is you have no control over what MS, Sony or in this case IBM do.

# lulwut — VashioKun 2009-01-04 22:11

Only reason why 360 out numbers the PS3 easily is because of the year start and the price. If they were released same time and same price.. Who knows what would've happened?

Its the same every time something comes out. Parents buy their children the cheapest game/system usually.

# to yamagushi — TouchDaSkeleton 2009-01-04 22:18

burn in hell you jesus killing rotten no good son of a ***** the way you look at the world makes me *****ing sick you mut scumbag piece of ***** i hope satan ram hot metal poker sticks up your ass you no good dont deserve the life devil worshipping dirty mexican ***** *****ing ***** ***** id like to rip out your eyes and spike them on the floor then rip off your head then face your dismembered head towards your body while it gets *****ed by a *****ing moose you scumbag piece of ***** get a life find something better to do you piece of ***** i hope you burn the death you *****ing piece of *****

# lol — TouchDaSkeleton 2009-01-04 22:24

rollypolly you *****ing suck

# if you ask me — TouchDaSkeleton 2009-01-04 22:34

sony should sue these *****ers maybe even kill them and they should alot develop legend of zelda ps3 but nintendo is also a bunch of backstabbing *****s back in the 64 ps1 days no good do nothing bastards is sony the only electronic company in the world that isn't a backstabbing scumbag they seem to be the only company that has any pride say what you want but ***** these scumbags im sick of hearing how they have to pay off their *****ing yacht by stealing someone else's stuff i would like to mail these scumbags bags of ***** then id add seasoning so they can it for breakfast ***** those scumbag bastards

# ... — TouchDaSkeleton 2009-01-04 22:41

*****s jobs, ***** gates, cheap money grubbing *****ing ***** scumbags , buy sony

# Aceboogz — TouchDaSkeleton 2009-01-04 22:45

you *****ing suck

# please TouchDaSkeleton — PS34ME 2009-01-05 00:53

"sony the only electronic company in the world that isn't a backstabbing scumbag they seem to be the only company that has any pride"

by all means support a company you like, but please stop the Sony ass-kissing brown-nosing. :) It's embarrassing. Sony are no angels, they're a business, and are no better or worse in their practices than microsoft, nintendo or any other company.

# @ dbzking — eddib 2009-01-05 02:23

agreed on the windows, but try the windows7 beta that's been floating around. very nice and fast boot times! haven't touched my xp since i got 7 running.

# ... — god0fgod 2009-01-05 02:36

I thought the Xbox 360 used Intel Core Duo chips?

And Sony were stupid to let this happen.

# RE Rhyl — Binary 2009-01-05 09:32

but you cant finish the fight on pc.

# Just *****ing admit it already — Binary 2009-01-05 09:34

PS3 and 360 are both good systems. they both have their Epic Fail ways

# Facking Hell TouchDaSkeleton — Matt-N 2009-01-05 09:36

I'm a PS3 owner, but calm down mate. You'll give yourself an ulcer!!!

# haha — HDRasta 2009-01-05 09:55

to bad M$ didn't wait till the processer was finished because the 360is not as powerful as the PS3

# vista — HDRasta 2009-01-05 10:12

Vista is a cheap rip off of apple's OS e.i. widgets+apple, gadgets+vista

hmm wonder where they got that idea?

# LOL no — avatar76 2009-01-05 12:21

But that would be pretty funny if they did.

You might be getting confused with the xbox1 which used an intel celeron (actualy somewhere between a celeron and a PIII) processor. The reason the 360 has to emulate xbox1 games is because for the 360 they changed over to ibm PPCs (Power Pc Cores). Both the PS3 cell and the xbox360 are based off PPCs. Well I don't think you can blame sony for this, they had to partner with someone to design the chip. While both consoles were still in design stages I was always told when I questioned IBM about this that they were being developed by completely separate teams and there's no way a professional company like IBM would allow for any breach of trust within their company (blah blah blah). So yeah I imagine Sony and MS were told the same too, neither had any reason to suspect any "contamination". Admitedly both are based off PPCs so obviously there will be alot of similarities. The major differences I've always seen between the 360 and the PS3 CPUs is they the PPCs can be accessed. 7 of the PS3's can only be used for floating point calculations (calculations involving a decimal point) (where it gets it's 1.~ terraflops from), leaving the one remaining PPC for anything integer based (no decimal point). The 360 CPU doesn't limit devs in this way in fact devs can use the 3 x 360 PPCs in any way that they see fit. Now I don't know who came up with that idea, was it MS or was it IBM who learned from the mistakes they made with the Cell design? If it was IBM who came up with that in light of this book I can see it winding up in an antitrust lawsuit against IBM from sony.

# special olimpics — gr8t.g 2009-01-05 12:59

its allot of things that we dont know maybe sony is going to sue them after they have read the book lol. and maybe they just forgot a hole in a contract with IBM that they can use it after sony has gotten it. but they cheated so maybe sony found out and made it a little better than the 360 who knows maybe the people who read the book workd on the chips or what ever but if this is true mikrosoft just proves they arent making any progres anymore...and pleas you got to be *****ing kidding me you fight over this while its just a console i have a ps3 and im maybe going to get a 360 but fighting over this is just like the special olimpics no one is going to get the gold medal you all get ´im special´medals....THX

# i totaly forgot — gr8t.g 2009-01-05 13:02

***** I N G-VISTA S UCKS

# DAMN — gr8t.g 2009-01-05 13:08

im so high i keep forgettin mikrosoft paid 1billion for it and sony only 400mil i think that is a good deal ibm couldt refuse

# or... — sycoblast 2009-01-05 16:42

its a cloud of grey powder that solid snake put out to use as a decoy, as he attempts to remove the nanomachines from these companys that leak information

p.s. SNAAAAKEE

# Wow... — Stealth! 2009-01-05 21:39

Talk about an article fanboys will flock to. It doesn't matter. Both system functions slightly different, even though before this we knew both we technically the same except the cores and Blu-ray.

# RE: Wow... — avatar76 2009-01-06 12:37

Yeah my sentiments exactly, it's all in the spin that Isaac put on it Stealth.

I'm starting to think that Isaac may be a PS3 fanboy himself.

Read the original wallstreet journal article it paints a much less fanboy image.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123069467545545011.html

The only way MS were involved in this was that IBM showed MS the designs to the cell and MS said no we don't want that, we want something didderent.

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