Hey, so you're all probably sick to death and beyond of that old standby plot element of Michael Dell's insane obsession with copying Steve Jobs's every move, right? Well, don't worry, we're not dragging that old chestnut out again. Instead, just for variety's sake, we thought we'd go for something even older and more clichéd-- like, say, the fact that Bill Gates is copying Steve's every move. And before you ask, why, yes-- we do be kickin' it old school.

As you all know, Bill's Stevulation usually stands in sharp contrast to Mr. Dell's because it's generally done on a business level (e.g. that whole little thing about Windows kindasorta trying to be a low-rent version of the Mac GUI) and not a personal one. In other words, it's typically more of a "Microsoft copies Apple" thing than a "Bill copies Steve" deal, although there are notable exceptions, like that time Bill wore a black turtleneck for a keynote address, or when he totally stole the whole digital hub concept for another keynote. This time around, though, the copycat move seems to split the difference: faithful viewer James Topoleski notes that, according to the Mercury News, Microsoft's sequel to the Xbox game console will be dubbed the "Xbox Next" and will pack three G5 processors under the hood.

Now, before we get into the whole thing about how NeXT was Steve's post-Apple company that got bought by Apple, we should probably mention that while everyone and his grandmother is reporting that the Xbox Next will use G5 processors, the Merc doesn't exactly say that. The actual article states that the console will have "three IBM-designed 64-bit microprocessors" and that "earlier versions of these PowerPC chips are used in Apple Computer's high-end G5 Power Mac machines now." Maybe we're being overly cautious, here, but to us, that just says that the Xbox Next will use some sort of PowerPC (probably a custom-designed specialty chip kind of like the PowerPC variant in Nintendo's GameCube), and not necessarily a G5 like the ones Apple is shipping today. So don't go all nutzoid about how Microsoft is going to ship a triple-processor G5 system at probably a tenth of the current price of Apple's dual-processor Power Macs. (Unless, of course, you really want to.)

Still, the Xbox Next will use some sort of PowerPC, which is enough for make a case for blatant Microsoft copycatism. (And oh, yeah-- don't forget that NeXT was Steve's post-Apple company that got bought by Apple. We promised we'd mention that.) One might take this as a ringing Redmond endorsement of IBM's PowerPC architecture over Intel's so-old-it's-begging-for-death x86 platform. On a related note, James also made an interesting point: since the current Xbox is x86-based, the real reason why Microsoft bought Virtual PC might have been so the PowerPC-based Xbox Next can retain backwards compatibility with existing Xbox games. That's not a given, yet, but it makes sense to us. And while we'd like to think that the Xbox Next being PowerPC-based might make the prospect of an emulator for the Mac a possibility, we haven't exactly been flooded with GameCube emulators, so whatever.

What's more, the Merc also reports that "Microsoft has begun developing game prototypes, and it is using G5 systems to do so." And you wondered what all those Microsoft-bound G5s (the ones that got that photographer fired) were for. See? The age-old practice of ripping off Apple's moves is alive and well in Redmond. And that'll just have to hold you until Mike Dell announces the Digital Jukebox mini, available in five colors and totally lacking in shame.