Anandtech.com got a little suspicious of the XBox 360 demos on display at Microsoft's E3 booth, because they didn't look all that great for a next-generation console and the controllers used wires. So they had a closer look at the kiosks housing the demos and discovered that the XBox 360's were only for show, and the demos were being powered by Powermac G5's:
A pair of Apple Powermac G5 systems were actually running the Xbox 360 demos, not the 360 console. The consoles in the kiosks weren't actually running, they were just for show - now you know why all the controllers were wired.
Because the G5 systems can only use a GeForce 6800 Ultra or an ATI Radeon X800 XT, developers had to significantly reduce the image quality of their demos - which explains their lack luster appearance. Anti-aliasing wasn't enabled on any of the demos, while the final Xbox 360 console will have 4X AA enabled on all titles.
We are disappointed that all of Microsoft's Xbox 360 kiosks were running G5 systems as we wanted to see real hardware in action, not behind glass, but Apple should be quite happy.
AnandTech: E3 2005 - Day 1: The Xbox 360 Update via GamingStation.com
Xbox 360 Movie Collection
XBox 360 PSP/iPod Compatible
Xbox 360 confirmed as backwards compatible
Xbox 360 designs that never made the cut
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