MacRumors.com

Microsoft announced the Xbox 360 on Thursday as widely anticipated.

Of most interest to Apple fans are the specs provided of the upcoming Microsoft gaming machine. Common to both Macs and the upcoming Xbox are IBM PowerPC processors.

In this case, the Xbox is expected to provide three symmetrical cores running at 3.2GHz each along with a VMX-128 vector unit per core (3 total).

The Xbox 360 is expected to be available for purchase by Christmas 2005, assuring adequate processor supplies for the console in the same timeframe. Eyes have been on Apple's PowerMac upgrades after a bold comment by Steve Jobs predicted 3.0GHz PowerMac G5s by August 2004. Since that time, Apple has been able to bump PowerMac speeds to 2.7GHz -- most recently introduced April 27, 2005.