Didn't an Xbox game actually set it up so the entire processor would reboot and just appear to be loading a level?

That was also Morrowind. I believe they said it happened when the console was running low on memory, they would just reboot when you transition between areas. You would get the dreaded 'long loading screen' which was the console rebooting in disguise.

You could set an image to display while the console rebooted, so they put up a loading screen and rebooted the console. When the console rebooted, the game knew it was in a "loading" screen, and picked up from there.

I love that they did it, and I love that Microsoft knew it could happen and built in a custom image feature for reboots.

Modern problems require modern solutions, indeed.

The real snazzy way would have been to use an older chip in the HDMI processing pipeline somewhere, and let you play an older game on that chip. I believe Nintendo has used older generation chips as sub-chips now and then.

> HDMI processing pipeline somewhere

The original xbox didn't even have an HDMI port.

Plus, I believe at that time Namco owned the patent on "games during loading screens".

This was a fairly common technique in the 8 but days with disk based games, and Exile even did it on the cassette version - you loaded the game menu, loaded your saved fame, and then loaded the game.