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Originally Posted by black_dante
xbox as well, it seems, is rumored to also have three(?) power pc cpus. programming games for smp is certainly possible, but b/c of its increased technical difficulty/complexity, it requires much more people (and thus money---> which especially hits pc devs).
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only is difficult if you constantly re-invent the wheel. Most games are not built off of custom engines (and most custom engines aren't so custom). Games are increasingly trending towards a much more mature development model where the majority of a game studios resources are spent on the actual game and no in developing the technologies to power the game.
For example, no one does in house physics anymore. They license an external physics engine, because it is cheap, easier, and more powerful than what they could do internally.
Most of these off the shelf middlewares and engines are cross platform between PC and Xbox at a minimum. The PC is along for the ride (well not really, the PC is the development playground for a lot of the technologies.).