http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php? [...] 0&Itemid=1

Interesting times, indeed.

Intel sure seems like they're trying to be a good old fashioned monopoly.

IMO this doesn't make much sense shorter term, but would make more sense longer term.

Currently M$ is the keeper of DX, and Intel's plans upset that dominance with their Ray-tracing view of the future.

Eventually M$ mmay go that route but it doesn't seem that it would be before 2011+ if 2010 is set to be all about DX11.

I would suspect that the other two conteders are better suited for Larabee than M$.

It could make porting games (in both directions) easier. With that in mind, it make sense for MS to adopt it as soon as possible.

However for M$ of all people they already have very easy porting using XNA (especially compared to the problems for the Wii and PS3), so I don't think that the loss of their HLSL and DirectX fiefedoms would be a good motivation to simply make cross-platform development a little easier for... anyone using intel.... but not necessarily M$. This would also open the door for other compilers and other apps further challenging M$' role.

It would be like intel adopting someone else's processor IP as a basis and giving up on their X86 dominance, instead of keeping your dominance while forcefully moulding the future.

I see it as a long term potential for M$, however abandoning their DX domination so easily on platforms they control doesn't make much sense, and to me it makes more sense for those that see M$ & DX as a barrier to entry to open up to Larrabee. Considering the talk of 8-10 year lifecycles for the consoles, perhaps this is talk about the future of the future, and thus a 2012 and beyond idea.

With the massive, uncanny and unstopable momentum that Nintendo has right now, I think they would be the ideal participant. It could serve as a "told you so" for both companies. Intel proving they can deliver on graphics on a non-"**** onboard" method, and Nintendo proving to the world that it can still deliver a console with top tier HD graphics. Throw refined Wii controls version 2 in there and you got some money.

Cool stuff. Larrabee is promising.

Nothing stops them from using Larrabee AND sticking with DX. Actually they could use that to build a strong DX base for Larrabee which would reinforce their position on the PC market. MS has absolute control over all things that are released for the Xbox. Absolute.

looks like this upcoming console war in 2 years will be bigger than most... Playstation will have a lot to prove... it better have a better game line up this time or it won't take off

COMPARED to the 360... the playstation 3 had very respectable sales and even out sold the 360 in the last quarter... but it pales in comparison to the overall sales of the 360

Yeah, but that to me is why it would be the LONG Term strategy. There I agree, and that's where I think it would work well, but IMO that means either that A) This X720 is 3-4 years off, or B) They are talking about the succesor to the succesor if anything is about to be released. Either way IMO we're talking about a mature Larrabee part after the spread of DX11. There is little chance that M$ will support Larrabee and a turn away from DX11 before either launches. Right now like I said, it makes more sense for M$ to weild their mono-power and shape the Larrabee future, whereas jumping into it right now would jeopardize their position and put all the power in intel's hands.

IMO, this is probably a rumour of the type that hapens when someone asks;
"Hello MS, are you going to replace the Power PC core of the X360 with something more adaptable, scalable and more multi-cored than the current 3HT?"
MS - Probably somethig similar cutting edge of the time.
"What about intergrating Larrabee?"
MS - We are considering everything, all options are open at this point


"Hello intel, what are you plans for Larrabee outside of desktop computing/graphics?"
intel - Well we're loking at server applications and thin clients, and any other opportunity that we thiink would be a good match for our solution(s).
"What about in in consumer appliance area, like media players, or game consoles?"
intel - Sure we are open to any opportunities that present themselves to us.
"Even something like an Xbox 720"
intel - Certainly, if there is a role for our product in that area we would definitely be willing to explore that opportunity.

Etc....

Right now I'd say it's something talking about gen 2 Larabee solution and a console product way off into the future.

+1 for TGGA.

This is a no-brainer. M$ wont migrate to a GPGPU or any other hardware that only runs well on "his" propietary code, and just cuts backwards compatibility. This of course knowing that M$ develops DX. Thinking Larrabee for the next gen of Xboxs is just wrong in too many ways.

I might see Sony doing it faster than MS. Cell is cool, but it is horrible to code for it.

Yeah, short term Larrabee to me would work against the benefits of XNA not for it. To me M$ jumping into Larrabee before seing a functioning first gen actually do some real gaming is questionable.

Even if you consider the Xenos as a radical design departure it's still using the traditional components and developed by a company with the proven expertise, whereas intel still has yet to prove that Larrabee isn't more than just an interesting idea. It's not overly radical and has a good fallback strategy, but where you want to get maximum performance out of a smalll efficient package, it's not looking like a good solution. Larrabee is slated to be more power consumptive than a GTX or HD4KX2, but that's no good for a console. They can't have them running 500W and hot like a PC, they've learned that from the X360 / PS3 problems.

On so many levels it seems to simply be a strange choice near term.

An offshot product that is more Fusion combining parts of Larrabee with with multicore terascale stuff, that has variable loading options, does make sense for a far future product from both production (reduce costs, shrink all parts per refresh) and flexability issues, but that's one future the PC starts preparing and maturing the software in the near term.

Yeah, X360 sales are slowing, but when you have such a huge lead that's not as much an issue. 350,000 vs 300,000 sale doesn't meant much if overall you're 10 vs 3 million. Install base is still huge.

The most surprising of course is the incredible success of the Wii, which has outdone both competitors in both areas.

I always thought they would have good sales as most people's "Second cheap console" bought for legacy and quirky 'feel good' reasons (like Mario,Zelda,etc fans), but what surprised the heck out of me was sales of the Wii as people's only console.

The only negative if you had to look for one on the Wii seems to be the low game purchase rate on Wiis where people buy a few specific titles, but nowhere near as many per console as the X360 & PS3.

I agree though, next time around the tables have totally turned (except a little less so for M$ who's still in the Middle IMO), Nintendo has this massive hit that they can be proud about despite lower specs, and never need to justify their spec choice again, nor do they need to worry about selling on specs either. M$ is once again in the position of returning competant #2 player with solid specs and a growing solid cred in the market. Sony this time takes on the role of trying to bring out a console to restore their name in gaming (selling it as a cheap BluRay player doesn't convince people you're serious about gaming), Sony is in Nintendo's role from last time, where they underwhelmed, have loyal fans, but really need to recapture those old fans and also make something compelling to get people interested in their product and games again. Overall I'd say this puts all 3 in a very balanced situation for the next console battle, and while the X360/PS3 speculation was incredible last time, it's likely to be worse this time since the rules and roles have changed considerably.

Agreed. Buying something that is not mature and not tested does not seem smart. I've a feeling though that Larrabee will implement DirectX with a "simple" driver and with that all intel needs to do is show MS their cards. I don't know how likely that is, since Larrabee is their "secret" weapon right now. It could make the difference though and i could actually see intel selling them for cheap just to get a greater foothold into the graphics market. That's all speculative though.

Crucially, 360 gamers buy a far higher nummber of games on average, something like 7 per console.

PS3 and Wii average around only 3. I have a massive 3 for my own PS3.

I dont think there are more than 3 games for the PS3.

SURE THERE ARE.... but only if you have the PS3 with the hardware compatability chip for PS-One/PS2 games.

Let's see Larrabee first.
Nowadays, I'm now trying to get the second HD 2600XT on my computer to work on Ray Tracking! It does, indeed. Given the scene isn't very complicated and the resolution isn't more than 1024x768. I know it's a little low but hey, my card is also low!

PS. I got the CTM, stream processing SDK for ATi/AMD! CUDA is sleeker. Let's see Larrabee, when it comes.