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What’s in the box?
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24/11/2006
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It is probably fair to say that Nick Baker has taken a few knocks in his engineering career since graduating from London’s Imperial College.
There was his work at Apple on its Touchstone digital graphics technology that emerged alongside Quick Time. “The first real time video compression engine,” he noted. Then, there were his contributions to the 3DO consoles. “I hear Matsushita took the [unlaunched second generation] M2 [technology] and sold it into a million or so Pachinko machines in Japan.”
More recently, Baker found himself a member of the internet enabled Ultimate TV group at Microsoft. “But that was cancelled at the end of 2001.” However, any serious gamer will tell you that you have to get splatted plenty of times before you deserve to reach the final level – and, in Baker’s case, the analogy is appropriate.
No sooner had Microsoft closed down the Ultimate TV project than its core design members were told to report for work in January 2002 on the company’s then unnamed second generation Xbox. Baker was named director of its console architecture group.
This time, it is probably fair to say, Baker and his cohorts have emerged as winners. At time of writing, Sony’s rival PlayStation3 (PS3) will not be seen in Europe until next March and Nintendo’s Wii is threatening to steal a few headlines of its own. By contrast, the Xbox 360 has been on High Street shelves for a year.
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Author
Paul Dempsey
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