Is a XBOX 360 PC Add-On Feasable?

[Clownzilla]

I ask this because I remember towards the end of the life of the 3DO, there was a PC CD drive with some 3DO circuitry in the drive itself and the rest of the circuitry was up to the PC itself. It was legal and sold through the third party licensing that 3DO was known for. Well, isn't an XBOX 360 essentially a PC? I know it won't happen, but I can see Microsoft kicking a$$ if they were able to pull off a PC add-on like this (probably a special video card). There would finally be a true unified network of gamers through their Live network.

[Steve W]

No, the Xbox 360 isn't a PC. It uses PowerPC processors rather than Intel-based ones. Essentially, it's closest in hardware to a Mac, not a PC. And considering the amount of physical hardware in a 360, you probably wouldn't be able to squeeze all of the technology into a modern PC. And the 360 boards in your PC would probably overheat and reduce your PC tower to molten slag.

"Fesbale"? Did you mean 'feasable'?

[Clownzilla]

It would not have to be the entire system. It would use the PC for many of it's parts. The system RAM, CPU(multi core), DVD drive, etc. on a high end PC could easily perform the same functions as a 360. Come to think of it, with the proper software, Microsoft would not have to build hardware at all. Just an off the shelf program. This would be an interesting alternative to continue profiting on the 360 when the post 360 Microsoft system come out. I guess it would just be a licensed emulator at that point, but there is no reason why they couldn't do it.

[Jorpho]

I ask this because I remember towards the end of the life of the 3DO, there was a PC CD drive with some 3DO circuitry in the drive itself and the rest of the circuitry was up to the PC itself. It was legal and sold through the third party licensing that 3DO was known for.

That would be the 3DO Blaster, and as the name implies, it was sold (or marketed or something) by Creative Labs. Assembler had a little writeup about it on its old site; I'm not sure where that writeup is these days. Apparently it was a rather rare piece of kit. I don't think the drive itself was particularly special, except that it was the only particular model that worked with the add-on ISA card, where the real guts were.


There would finally be a true unified network of gamers through their Live network.

Games for Windows Live is already taking care of that, I think.


This would be an interesting alternative to continue profiting on the 360 when the post 360 Microsoft system come out.

I don't really see how that's supposed to work. Why would Microsoft continue manufacturing old 360 games for an audience that would be dwindling even if the games could be run on the PC with some expensive gadget? I suspect most 360 games people would be interested in playing on the PC already get ported anyway.

[ProgrammingAce]

Bill Gates ordered the xbox division to create a 3rd SKU for the launch of the 360, code named helium. Helium was to be a PC that ran vista, but could also run 360 games. The project was canceled well before launch.

I'm not sure if there's a direct connection between Windows Live and Helium...

[j_factor]

Sure, it would be possible. The 360 doesn't have tons of specialized hardware. They could make some sort of daughterboard with a PowerPC processor on it.

[ProgrammingAce]

Sure, it would be possible. The 360 doesn't have tons of specialized hardware. They could make some sort of daughterboard with a PowerPC processor on it.

Aside from, you know... the CPU, and the GPU, and the encoder chip, and the DVD drive, and the northbridge, and the hard drive, and the controller chip, and the controller antenna...

[Clownzilla]

Aside from, you know... the CPU, and the GPU, and the encoder chip, and the DVD drive, and the northbridge, and the hard drive, and the controller chip, and the controller antenna...

That's the good part of the idea. All of those parts could easily be substituted by parts in a high end PC. I know for a fact that the newer high end video cards ,processors, RAM, etc. could easily keep up (and out run) the 360. Now, don't get me wrong, the 360 is a fine gaming machine. I want one myself (got to convince the wife though,lol), but a high end PC could extend it's life indefinably once the 360 is gone.

[Jorpho]

a high end PC could extend it's life indefinably once the 360 is gone.

I say again: why exactly would it be in Microsoft's interests to extend the 360's life one it is gone, "indefinably" or otherwise?

[Borman]

I dont think that the 360's processor is anywhere near being a stock PowerPC, so basically, you cant just take off the shelf parts to create a 360-game compatible computer. Everything would have to be rewritten. And the fastest consumer PPC processors were G5s I think, which, while they worked for Alpha dev kits, arent exactly suitable now.

[Iron Draggon]

I don't really see how that's supposed to work. Why would Microsoft continue manufacturing old 360 games for an audience that would be dwindling even if the games could be run on the PC with some expensive gadget? I suspect most 360 games people would be interested in playing on the PC already get ported anyway.

yeah, we do get most of the best 360 games, but the ports usually suck ass

I love the idea, but the main reason it would never work is because most PC gamers would never pay 360 prices for games... I'd love to be able to start collecting 360 games to play on my PC, but not at full price... I'm used to paying only $10 - $20 for most PC games, so why would I wanna pay more?

a better idea would be for MS to develop some sort of 360 decoder for the PC that would let you pop a 360 game into your DVD drive and have the system write a port of it to your hard drive... but of course that will never happen either, cause everyone would be whining and crying about piracy

but there is a solution... buy a 360 and hook it up to your PC monitor LOL

[Niku-Sama]

the thing about running 360 on your PC games is the bandwidth, in the 360 its got its own set up which is pretty wicked fast bandwidth between the gpu, cpu, hard drive and memory (system and video) a pc now would have issues with that because its, oh about half that. 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM is pretty freakin fast!

on the other hand the games are direct x based (like a modified version) so i wouldnt be supprised if the bandwidth only affected the loading times and ingame processing (like the cip range) as the GPU isnt so super fancy at the same time

[ConsoleFreek]

yeah, we do get most of the best 360 games, but the ports usually suck ass

I love the idea, but the main reason it would never work is because most PC gamers would never pay 360 prices for games... I'd love to be able to start collecting 360 games to play on my PC, but not at full price... I'm used to paying only $10 - $20 for most PC games, so why would I wanna pay more?

but there is a solution... buy a 360 and hook it up to your PC monitor LOL

I like your thinking.

The reason I collect xbox and N64 games is that they are cheap.

[Jehuty]

Why not just fuse a pc board to the 360 and have the box have a button that switches from one to the other like that Sega Megadrive pc so both can run at the same time.