a little r’n'r

So Intel are raving about their new Core 2 product line (Core 2 Duo, and Core 2 Extreme) along with their roadmap of leapfrog releasing their chips every 2 years, and it leads me to wonder: if the forthcoming Intel Core 2 Extreme is supposed to be the “ultimate gamer’s CPU”, and also the brains inside the forthcoming Apple desktop machines (replacement for PowerMac G5’s)… could Apple be preparing an entry to the Console industry in the most unlikely of ways?

Bare with me here. For the first time ever, none of the 3 major consoles (xbox, playstation, nintendo) have intel cpu’s in them: they are all IBM chips. Intel is brushing off this market “defeat” with the claim that actually PC’s are the 4th console, bigger and faster than the 3 dedicated consoles.

It’s no secret that Apple are Intel’s new favorite client. Here’s a company that’s innovating with their software, innovating with their hardware, and making Intel look fantastic in the process (not to mention that Apple have a nice little portfolio of hardware chip development tricks too). To date, however, Macintosh has been the antithesis of gaming.

Once the new desktop Macs come out however, using Intel’s best and brightest chips (including Core 2 Extreme, we assume) then what are the barriers? Software of course. PC games are written for Windows.

But then there’s BootCamp. And then there’s “Yellow Box” (running Windows apps in a virtual machine, minus the Windows operating system). And then there’s Intel’s support for Virtual Machines in hardware (ie. the Core chips).

So what do we think the odds are that Apple releases BootCamp v.2.0 which allows you to boot your machine into “Gaming Mode” where you can run all your happy PC Game code minus the overhead of a full Windows install?

Add to that some stunning speed from Intel, and next time you go to the shop, your choice might not be between a Windows PC or a Mac, it might very well be between a games console or a Mac.

A windows what?