I heard that it makes it easier for people to hack (that could be wrong, I don't really understand that),
No. Trying to use DRM in which the box contains the information needed to hack it makes it easier to hack. x86 might add a few more holes, but if you made it only support x86_64, and customized the MMU a bit, I'm sure all that could be taken care of, making it about as hackable as a current-gen console.
Really, IMO, they need to get their heads out of their asses, and realize that all they need to protect from hacks are their multiplayer software systems. Hell, document the whole console, and release those docs for free. But, add a memory locking feature that allows the hardware to verify CRCs, prevent further writing to that memory, and do a full-on SSH/SSL connection, to verify those numbers with the server, as you log on. Easy? No. Cheap? Not too much. But, it would make it much harder to hack, and if the HW was exposed, overall, it would also reduce the need and desire for hacking. They need secure monetary transactions, and a fair multiplayer environment. Nothing else needs to be closed, at least for the gaming side of things.
The PS2 is emulated pretty well, the GC fine, and the only reason nulldc hasn't caught up yet is because the developers are taking quite some time to make the DX11 plugin.
So, what are all possible disadvantage and advantages of using an x86 based CPU in a console?
Neither AMD nor Intel can yet give you a CPU for it. Intel is closer, and both AMD and Intel are headed towards customized CPUs and SoCs, but they aren't there, yet. IBM has been there for a couple decades, to the point that they've been making customized CPUs for customers, not just customized SoCs.
The Xbox360 is a great example. I'm not sure why they did three cores, instead of four, but they used plain in-order cores, apparently power-efficiency-tweaked precursors to the current Power, gave them SMT*, the ability to use cache as scratch space, and a few other goodies. The performance was alright out of the gate, including .NET, with plenty of room for improvements, which got taken advantage of.
Can AMD or Intel just take a chunk of a CPU, and swap it out with another kind? Where is the low-space/low-power in-order Core i int execution unit?
...and that's why they're all IBM. ARM has some promise, and is a shoe-in for hand-helds, but it seems that IBM can offer more of what the console makers want and need, right now.
* which makes a lot more sense for an in-order CPU that is likely to be cache-starved, and have limited or no re-ordering ability, than your typical high-performance x86 CPU
I thought they had. The only article I can find on the matter was from 2010 reporting a single quarter gain of $165 million from 360 sales.
Nah. If they do make money from it, they will spend it all making the next gen even more badass. Gaming is incidental. Everybody knows that eventually the desktop PC will not be used by normal people for normal things. Nobody knows how this will happen, or when it will happen, though. Netflix on gaming consoles would be a good example of a first tentative step towards this. MS wants a box in your living room, a box in your pocket, and a tablet in your hand, when it finally does happen, so that they can adapt and capitalize on it. As long as Server and Office make enough money to subsidize gaming, they have no need to make money from it. When and if that scenario finally begins, having a high quality multiplatform software development environment will allow MS to do...whatever, to keep people making software for their systems.
People laugh at this idea, but then go use their phone and Wii for what they used to use their computer for
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