Will Microsoft call the next Xbox, XboxNext?

They believe that early evidence points to the next console being called XboxNext - and say Microsoft recently put down a stake in the ground for the xboxnext.com domain.

Sure enough -- a search on whois shows that xboxnext.com is registered to the Vole.

The terms Microsoft are dictating to any supplier of a graphics engine for the next machine, whatever it's called, will be "extremely tough", the report adds, with very low royalty rates.

You'll recall that Nvidia has a bit of a beef with Microsoft about the amount of money it's paying.

Dundee says that the terms would be hard for either Nvidia or ATI to accept, and say they believe the "GPU suppliers have already expressed dismay at the prospective terms".

But Microsoft needs to make a decision on the silicon suppliers in the first half of this year, Dundee says in the report.

Dundee estimates that the Xbox gives Nvidia a profit of about $5 a console, while the ATI Nintendo deal only rakes in the Canadian firm about $2.25.

The interesting thing is that Intel's Paul Otellini, when asked about the contribution the Xbox made to revenues in a conference call last night, more or less said it made no impact at all.

Dundee also claims that ATI has wrested away, from Nvidia, a chunk of desktop business from big German PC firm Medion. MSI is producing the products for Medion, the analysts say. This firm may be relatively unknown in the US but it supplies a number of large multinational retail chains.

Dundee adds in the same report that the Medion order is a good win for ATI, and says that Nvidia must get the NV31 to market in the first half of this year.

It estimates Nvidia will start shipping large numbers of the GeForce FX in late February, March.

The analysts said they talked to ATI at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week, and it said it would ship more .13µ (micron) products in the spring of 2003 than Nvidia. The RV350 is a TSMC produced .13µ part that ATI is expected to release in spring this year. µ

See Also
Microsoft promotes ATI as Nvidia Xbox 2 replacement
Playstation 3 architecture revealed