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NVidia Eyes Playstation 3?

Posted by simoniker on from the last-girl-in-the-bar-looks-promising dept.

Thanks to CNN for their article discussing nVidia's possible overtures to Sony regarding the PS3. The piece points out that "ATI beat out nVidia earlier this month for the right to provide the graphics chip for Microsoft's next game machine. That followed ATI's March announcement that it had struck a technology development deal with Nintendo." It then quotes analyst Erach Dasai as suggesting: "The reality is nVidia is not sitting in a vacuum. They are in discussions with Sony for the PS3", although elsewhere, the article cites "...cost concerns [for developing graphics chips out-of-house], combined with Sony's do-it-ourself history, that has some other analysts a bit more skeptical that nVidia will be able to win a PS3 contract."

12 of 30 comments (clear)

  1. Done deal, actually. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It's a done deal. Unlike the Xbox arrangement however, Sony aren't licensing the entire core. They're interested in the rasterizing hardware, including the pixel shaders and the combiners. Geometry ("vertex shaders" and "T&L" in the higher level graphic world) for PS3 will still be done with proprietary Sony silicon. This lowers the procurement cost and allows for better integration with the cell architecture.

    Tell them a little birdy told you.

  2. A few things. by Acidic_Diarrhea · · Score: 3, Funny
    Why would Sony want to share the wealth? In-house development, as they've done in the past, must be more profitable. This got me thinking...(cue music)

    Why did Microsoft strike a deal with ATI and not just buy the company? Also, which company is larger (based on profit and liquid assets), Sony or Microsoft. It seems that if Sony can develop their graphics cards in-house, Microsoft should be large enough to do the same.

    --
    I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
    1. Re:A few things. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Graphics technology is advanting at a scary rate; the R&D costs are HUGE. Any company would avoid taking on that burden (and risk!) if they could license the technology for a reasonable price.

      Microsoft is taking manufacturing in house for the majority of the Xbox 2 components however. For the more straightforward parts, all the commodity hardware markup has been eating them alive. Xbox has been a significant money loser to date.

    2. Re:A few things. by NanoGator · · Score: 3, Insightful

      "Why did Microsoft strike a deal with ATI and not just buy the company?"

      Why spend the extra money instead of just licensing a new chip? Microsoft is a business trying to make money, they're not the Borg.

      --
      "Derp de derp."
    3. Re:A few things. by kzadot · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It seems that if Sony can develop their graphics cards in-house, Microsoft should be large enough to do the same.

      Its very little to do with size. Sony have had a long tradition of circuit design, they were one of the first licensees of the transistor, and that was back in the 40s I think. Microsoft have been writing software for a few years now, but their hardware experience is limited to mice and keyboards and only recently the x-box.

    4. Re:A few things. by Babbster · · Score: 2, Interesting
      You're going to get burned as a heretic if you're not careful.

      Seriously, though, it's a common misconception that Microsoft wants to buy every company. The truth is that they mainly buy companies that they think they can get for a song and parlay into multi-thousand percent gains on their investment. ATI isn't such a company, particularly since they've not only just about owned the OEM video card market for years but in fact are in the lead (slim though it may be) in the technology race over Nvidia at the moment.

      Even more on-topic, I would question in a PR sense a Sony decision to partner with Nvidia at this stage. To the casual observer, it could be interpreted as scooping up Microsoft's scraps..."How good could Nvidia be if Microsoft threw them overboard?"

    5. Re:A few things. by Kibo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think gamers in particular are resistant to that sort of marketing. Not that there isn't brand loyalty, but for gamers where it appears it seems to be a particularly intense zealotry. In the form of "Brand X can do no wrong. Your ACME brand games & console, and your mother all eat my bung! PS -- You might not recognize your mom, I shaved her back."

      And the gamers who don't pitch their tent in any specific camp, seem to go by what looks best/plays best/or has the best story. I'm sure this is related to building a new game library from scratch with every new generation (yes I know about the playstation, but the people I know with sony gear, don't really play the older titles, and in fact tend to sell them or trade them in.)

      --
      --Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
  3. gpu? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    What? Their magical "100 times more powerful than a 2.5 GHz Pentium 4 CPU" cell chip won't be enough to handle all the graphics?

    1. Re:gpu? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You don't usually use a general purpose CPU for rasterizing. The simplest dedicated rasterizer can beat the pants off of a general purpose CPU while consuming a fraction of the power or throwing off all that heat.

  4. Hmm by dafoomie · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Does this mean anti-aliasing will work this time?

  5. Benchmarking PS2s? by Babbster · · Score: 3, Funny

    Only if all games use the same filenames.

  6. So.. OpenGL by noselasd · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Might that imply we can use OpenGL for developing on PS3 ? ...drool..