In recent months senior Apple developers have met with various game developers according to our sources. They have also started hiring executives with gaming, graphic and processing experience.
Among those hired by Apple are Bob Drebin who was the chief technology officer of the Graphics Products Group with AMD, former ATI executive Raja Koduri and former IBM executive Mark Papermaster who was one of the architects being the Power PC processor as well as the Cell Processor now found in the Sony PS3 and the Xbox 360.
In the late 90's Papermaster was one of the main architects of the PowerPC chip. He likely had lots of interaction with Apple at this point as they were the PowerPC platform's biggest customer. The PowerPC 630 (or Power3) was ultimately used in IBM mainframe computers. Since then, he has authored many papers on chip design and is generally regarded as one of the leaders in the chip design field.
We have been told that Apple is keen to launch a device that interfaces with an Apple gaming network, however a key objective with the Apple design teams, is gaming across multiple devices including notebooks, iPhones and a gaming specific iPod.
There is also talk of a gaming monitor with full network access and an OLED screen, manufactured by LG Display. The monitor could act as the gaming device with the processor built into the screen.
