

Will the Xbox 720 run Windows 8? - primatage
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/89740-will-the-xbox-720-run-windows-8

======
mrcharles
This goofy stuff shows up every time there's a new Microsoft console (or
console Microsoft is involved in.)

It won't happen.

The whole point of a gaming console is that developers know exactly what they
have available in terms of processing power and memory. As soon as you let a
general purpose OS run behind the scenes, you give up that control, and with
it, the ease of use and quality user experience that comes from (in theory)
never having to worry about a game running out of memory and crashing, or
running sluggish because of background processes.

Multitasking outside of the gaming processes is something that will always be
kept to a minimum in order to keep the experience as flawless as possible for
the user. Right now, you can do the bare minimum required for the basics of
today's gaming environment, which is downloads, voice chat, friends lists,
etc. These processes use minimal known CPU, and a finite but known amount of
memory, and that's why it's a console and not just a Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo
branded computer.

~~~
jerf
"As soon as you let a general purpose OS run behind the scenes, you give up
that control"

That's less true than it used to be. The PS3 certainly reserves resources for
the top-level OS, I assume the XBox360 does too. The next generation could
easily carve out resources dedicated at the hardware level for the top-level
OS while exposing constant hardware resources for the games, and with the
further progression of Moore's Law they could definitely have a usable top-
level OS without starving the game level.

(Theoretically this reservation could be done by a software hypervisor, but I
suspect that if you're actually designing this in from scratch, it's easier to
"secure" the system with actual dedicated hardware.)

~~~
mrcharles
It's still true, because the PS4/Xbox720/Whatever run limited hardware specs
that basically wouldn't allow enough ram/cpu available for a general purpose
OS running at the same time to come even close to replicating the speed of an
actual desktop system. On top of that, the processors these game systems use
suck for desktop style applications.

Right now, the PS3/360 reserves somewhere between 30-50mb of system ram, and
only requires that game processes yield occasionally on one of their multiple
processors. That's a far cry from having full desktop power available at the
beck and call of the OS.

The price point of consoles will limit the ability for that to happen all by
itself. You aren't going to see 4gb of ram in the next consoles, frankly I'll
be happy if they even allow 2gb, but I've been hearing it probably won't even
be that high.

~~~
jerf
"It's still true, because the PS4/Xbox720/Whatever run limited hardware specs
that basically wouldn't allow enough ram/cpu available for a general purpose
OS running at the same time to come even close to replicating the speed of an
actual desktop system."

Nonsense. You don't need quad-core 3GHz machines with 4 GB of RAM to run a
general-purpose OS. You don't need anything close to it, and you certainly
don't need anything close to that when you're running things that, even if
written for a "general-purpose OS", will still at least have an optimized mode
for this very common case. You're not going to run an unmodified Firefox 2
with its GBs of memory use on these things. Carving out resources equivalent
to a 2011 mid-grade smartphone on a machine that won't exist for at least one
more year and probably two won't be that hard.

Even "Windows" doesn't have to be that hard to run, if it isn't running every
service a desktop needs and the vast swathes of reverse-compatibility code.

How quickly people forget what you can do with even just 256MB of RAM, half-a-
gigahertz, and some hardware graphics acceleration.

~~~
mrcharles
We're talking about putting a consumer OS on a console, here. We're not
talking about 'what can be done' with limited hardware, we're talking about
the viability of a consumer using an OS on limited hardware as if it's full
hardware. We're not talking about making a custom version of firefox, we're
talking about _actually using Firefox_.

~~~
jerf
I didn't say Firefox, I said Firefox _2_ , the memory leaking piece of crap.
There's no reason that you won't be able to run Firefox 7 or whatever on the
XBox 720. People have forgotten that you don't need huge machines to run this
stuff. _Anything_ you see running on a tablet or smart phone today is
perfectly feasible on a carved-out, hardware-dedicated element XBox 720, proof
by observation (it exists!). Moreover, it's not like I'm hypothesizing the
existence of a Microsoft mobile OS... it exists.

In fact this makes the whole Windows Mobile play make sense in a way that it
doesn't in any other way; on its own it stands 0 chance of taking over the
phone market. Oh, I get it now! Microsoft hasn't let go of a unified OS
running on desktops, tablets, consoles, and cell phones. They just realized
that they can't just slap the desktop OS on a cell phone and call it a day,
but in fact they need to go the other way; take their tech base, build the
mobile OS, then extend it for the desktop case for desktop uses.

Hey, that could work.

~~~
mrcharles
You realize that even tiny netbook computers have a gig of ram in them, right?
I mean, I don't want to keep this argument going forever, I just think you are
woefully overestimating the slice of power that could be spared from a console
without making the whole venture kind of pointless.

------
upthedale
This is something I've been musing about for a couple of years now... ever
since I wondered what the next-gen consoles might be like, given their
convergence with PCs.

What I would really like to see is the reverse of the title - for Windows 8 to
run XBox 720. I'd like to see the 720 become a software platform, which could
run on both dedicated console hardware and a more traditional PC. The software
platform could define a very strict minimum-hardware specification, which
would set a consistent base-line for everyone.

And by minimum-hardware specification, I'm thinking much like the strategy
with Windows Phone 7. Whilst there is a choice in handsets from different
manufacturers, there are some very strict minimum-requirements. Manufacturers
are allowed to go above and beyond these requirements, but at least there is a
consistent base-line, leading to a very well done development experience
(contrast with the 'fragmentation' of Android, or the current Windows
development experience, where you have no idea what to expect, except for
maybe the little bit of expectation you have from hardware supporting a given
version of DirectX).

So Microsoft could continue to produce their own dedicated hardware units that
meet the minimum spec, but anyone with a PC that meets the 720 spec could also
play the same games and use the same peripherals.

Of course PC hardware would continue to improve with time, but the 720 minimum
requirements will be static, so a game should run the same on all Xbox 720
hardware implementations.

(Potentially, game developers could be allowed to make use of the better
hardware when it is available to improve graphics, but only as an optional
extra where available, and only if the game will still run on the minimum 720
spec. This could be dangerous though if things became too inconsistent, from
the gamer's point of view).

So what I'm saying is that games would be certified to run on the 720
platform, regardless of what form that platform takes (so long as it meets the
requirements).

Then maybe 2 or 3 years down the line (whenever the next-next-gen 'Xbox 1080'
comes around), all that would need to happen is for a new minimum-hardware
requirement be defined, with a new Xbox 1080 certification for games.
Backwards compatibility with the 720 would be trivial.

Of course, this is just my idea. As good an idea as I think it is, maybe I'm
missing something

~~~
Zev
How is what you described any different than a PC, with the exception that
Microsoft is producing the hardware in addition to HP/Acer/etc?

~~~
upthedale
With PCs as they are now, there's no base-line, no consistency in what the
hardware can do. Sure, games might have minimum and recommended specs, but
they're not perfect, and its often a blurry area.

What I was getting at would make it black and white. Either my Win8 PC could
play Xbox 720 games, or it wouldn't. So A Win8 tablet, probably not, but a
powerful Win8 gaming rig, sure.

------
mikemaccana
Contrary to the other posters, I think this may actually happen: a little
research will show that the xbox 360 OS is based on Xbox OS. Some people say
this is a fork of Windows 2000, some people say it is from scratch.

If it's true it's based on Win2K, given the current Windows code base is still
very portable - we knows x64 and MIPS are maintained already - it makes sense
to have a unified code base and update the NextBox.

------
dromidas
Wouldn't it be more according to the pattern to call it Xbox 360360 rather
than Xbox 720? It went from "Xbox" to "Xbox" + "360" not xbox 180 to xbox
360... so it stands to reason the next release would be "Xbox 360360" or since
it is Microsoft we're talking about maybe "XBox 360 R2 Professional Gamer
Edition X10"

~~~
wwrap
Xbox 0 * 360

Xbox 1 * 360

Xbox 2 * 360

...etc

------
KeyBoardG
Likely not, but if at all I would expect a stripped down version. It will more
likely be an iteration on the current xbox OS.

------
ghurlman
Short answer: no

Long answer: They will keep the UI convergence moving in the same direction,
but the underlying kernel will most definitely be Xbox specific.

~~~
zokier
Actually I believe quite the opposite: kernel will _continue_ to be NT based,
but the shell will be completely different.

