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Console Consolation (5/12/99)
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Poor PowerPC-- it's such a lovely chip architecture, and yet the processor itself is horribly underutilized in high-profile computing products. Sure, they're beating at the heart of every Mac sold in the past several years, but let's face it; there are a lot more Pentiums out there slogging through day-to-day computing tasks. Motorola seems to see the PowerPC's big future as being in "embedded systems," which we take to mean using the PowerPC in smart appliances more than in actual computers. IBM, on the other hand, has seemed content to stick the PowerPC into high-end servers instead of desktop computers. That is, until now...
As faithful viewer Robert Fernando points out, IBM has apparently inked a billion-dollar deal with Nintendo to provide PowerPC processors to drive future game console systems. If you think the N64 is cool now, imagine what Nintendo will be able to come up with based on a custom 400 MHz PowerPC, scheduled to ship in the new systems in about a year and a half. A New York Times article has more on this intriguing development. The thing is, game consoles are evolving into much more than just game consoles; with the PowerPC at its core, Nintendo's next system may well be a full-fledged electronic entertainment unit, providing "Internet communications and music and video entertainment." Sounds like an all-around home computing appliance, doesn't it? Which means that Apple might one day be competing with Nintendo and the other console manufacturers in the consumer market. (Personally, we're not all that worried; a year and a half is almost forever in the computer world, and even trying to imagine what the iMac will be like in the fall of 2000 makes our collective head hurt.)
There are two things we want to say about this situation. First of all, isn't it interesting that two of the big next-generation game consoles are planning to use technology currently used by Apple in shipping Mac systems? In addition to Nintendo embracing the PowerPC, Sony's next PlayStation spec apparently includes FireWire connectivity. Secondly, just when we're getting used to Apple no longer being saddled with the word "beleaguered," now it looks like the PowerPC has inherited that title-- the Times article uses the adjective twice to describe our beloved chipset. Ah, well-- we'll see how beleaguered the PowerPC is when the G4's start shipping.
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SceneLink (1527)
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And Now For A Word From Our Sponsors |
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 5/12/99 episode: May 12, 1999: The mysterious Mac OS 8.6 phone number kicks up a king-sized ruckus. Meanwhile, IBM leaps into the game console fray and agrees to make PowerPC chips for Nintendo's next game system, and Apple's costs in dealing with the year 2000 just went up...
Other scenes from that episode: 1526: Flooding Our Lines (5/12/99) Okay, it's like this: we don't actually keep formal tabs on such statistics, but we're quite sure that yesterday's speculation about the mysterious "phone number" in Mac OS 8.6's disk image Get Info comments box generated more feedback than any other single item in AtAT's nineteen months on the air... 1528: The Clock Is Ticking (5/12/99) So as a Mac owner, have you gotten smug about the Y2K problem yet? Oh, don't worry-- a certain smugness is probably justified; after all, the Mac itself has been just fine with the concept of a year greater than 1999 ever since it first rolled off the lines fifteen years ago...
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