ABSTRACT
The major contenders for Xbox CPU were Intel and AMD, although Rick Thompson says that Philips was also trying to pitch Microsoft on a custom CPU. Initially, Microsoft chose to use an AMD chip, in part because it had better performance than the current Intel chip and also because they couldn’t come to agreement on the price with Intel. The issue with Intel was that Microsoft wanted them to promise a more powerful chip, one that would equal or exceed the performance of AMD’s chip. Negotiations began long before Microsoft had planned to reveal the project to the public, but word had leaked out somehow, and it made negotiations more difficult. George T. Haber is certainly not a major character in the Microsoft saga, but his story is worth telling, if only because Microsoft almost made him a multi-billionaire. The next logical step was to go up to Microsoft and offer to do some presentations.
