With each xbox 360 revision having its own codename ie: xenon, zephyr, jasper etc, can anyone shed any light on how these names are chosen. Feel free to discuss actual console names also, i know the xbox was originally something like 'DirectX Box' before being shortened. I'm sure there are a few interesting stories behind the names.
Usually development teams use a certain theme as codenames for hardware in development at about the same time, like Atari's cats (Lynx, Panther, Jaguar) or Sega's planets (Mars, Neptune, Saturn). The 360 codenames AFAIK don't follow any sort of pattern.
They did kinda in the beginning of the 360's life. They had beta Readon boards to test out hardware, then Xenon. In its early days it was all the noble gases, then just random
Some of the Dreamcast's first codenames were Blackbelt, Dural, and Katana. The Dreamcast's VMU has the codename "potato" written on one of the PCBs.
If I remember right one of the names for the 360 was Xbox NeXt. I could be wrong but I believe that was one of the many.
PlayStation has the most used codename, PSX (PlayStation Xperiment) Commom ones know were CGB (Color GameBoy), AGB (Advanced GameBoy) and Dolphin (GameCube), Mars (32X) Wasn't N64 called "Project Reality" at some point?
Yeah thats what it was called when they anounced the partnership with "Silicon Graphics inc" at the end of '93
Don't forget "Star Cube" (Gamecube). I also remember they copyrighted the name "Star Road" for their online service. Or was that just a rumour?
it was Project Reality, by SGI's definition, even back when they wanted to sell the concept to SEGA I think. It later followed the "Super" prefix to become the Nintendo "Ultra" Sixty-four (NUS serial number prefix on products). The DS was of course, project Nitro, hence Nitro Development Kits. The original GB was DMG, Dot Matrix Game or something to that avail.
Star Cube was announced and retracted the next day, it was apparently some sort of publication error as I have never seen a StarCube logo - despite having seen early GameCube and Dolphin logos for example. on nintendo consoles the best indication as to the internal project name is the serial number prefix. The GC's is "DOL" for example, the N64's is "NUS", the GBA "AGB", the Wii "RVL" (short of revolution naturally) etc.
Project Reality was used early on when Nintendo and SGI anounced it at a press conference in San Francisco. The name came from the "MIPS Technology's" RISC processor Which both Nintendo and SGI refered to as "Reality Immersion Technology".
Im pretty sure it was that and the widely known 'Ultra Nintendo 64' possibly following on from Super Nintendo ?
And anyway, the name Project Reality came way before Ultra 64, when the whole thing was just a few demonstrations by SGI. Didn't the arcade version of Killer Instinct, and probably Cruisin' USA too, have Ultra 64 logos in attract mode?
The arcade version of Killer Instinct didnt run on 'Ultra 64' hardware, though it was indeed advertised as coming to the hardware or something along those lines
Aparently Nintendo were forced to admit that Crusin' USA and Killer Instinct were not actually running on the "Ultra 64" Hardware at E3 '94. The games shown were actually running on a Williams Proprietory Chipset. The plan was to port them over when the final hardware was ready, Anyone know why this never happened?
