Nvidia Walked Away From PS4 Hardware Negotiations

An anonymous reader writes "Tony Tamsai, Nvidia's senior vice president of content and technology, has said that providing hardware for use in the PlayStation 4 was on the table, but they walked away. Having provided chips for use in both the PS3 and the original Xbox, that decision doesn't come without experience. Nvidia didn't want to commit to producing hardware at the cost Sony was willing to pay. They also considered that by accepting a PS4 contract, they wouldn't have the resources to do something else in another sector. In other words, the PS4 is not a lucrative enough platform to consider when high-end graphics cards and the Tegra line of chips hold so much more revenue potential."

Comments

Wonder what they told MS

[Looker_Device]

You can bet MS has approached them on providing chips for Durango too. I wonder if they told *them* to piss off.

Re:Wonder what they told MS

[robthebloke]

I wonder if MS and sony simply decided that going to a single supplier for both the CPU and GPU was cheaper than using two suppliers for each component.

Re:Wonder what they told MS

[MBCook]

Can you? One of the reasons the original XBox was pulled off the market as soon as the 360 came out (and no slim was ever made) was because nVidia reportedly refused to do a die shrink or combine dies, etc. So MS was left with a big, hot, expensive chip while Sony was able to shrink theirs and lower their costs dramatically.

MS might still hold a grudge on that one.

Re:Wonder what they told MS

[rwise2112]

Can you? One of the reasons the original XBox was pulled off the market as soon as the 360 came out (and no slim was ever made) was because nVidia reportedly refused to do a die shrink or combine dies, etc. So MS was left with a big, hot, expensive chip while Sony was able to shrink theirs and lower their costs dramatically.

MS might still hold a grudge on that one.

No sane business holds grudges like that. If MS wants it, it'll be written into the next contract and either nVidia will agree or not get the contract.

Re:Wonder what they told MS

[Anonymous Coward]

No sane business holds grudges like that.

The electronics industry isn't sane, then.

Re:Wonder what they told MS

[BlackSnake112]

No sane business holds grudges like that. If MS wants it, it'll be written into the next contract and either nVidia will agree or not get the contract.

Apple anyone? Rumor was Apple was going with Nvidia. Nvidia announced that had a deal with Apple and then Apple (well Jobs) killed the deal. Why? Apple has to announces things on Apple's schedule i.e. at some hyped Apple event.

Many businesses are run by what many would consider to be not sane people. Sometimes that helps the business and others it hurts the business.

Re:Wonder what they told MS

[am 2k]

Apple anyone? Rumor was Apple was going with Nvidia. Nvidia announced that had a deal with Apple and then Apple (well Jobs) killed the deal.

Major breach of an NDA is a pretty good reason to go with another supplier, not only for Apple.

Re:Wonder what they told MS

[PRMan]

New PS2 games were made for about 5-6 years after the PS3 came out.

Six years after the PS3s release, there is still an occasional game being released for the PS2, such as the Final Fantasy XI expansion Seekers of Adoulin, which will release March 27 of next year.

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/144342-13-years-after-the-playstation-2-changed-the-industry-sony-finally-halts-production

Re:Wonder what they told MS

[UnknowingFool]

From what I remember it wasn't that nVidia announced they had a deal; they also announced hardware specifics. They did so the day before Apple was set to announce it at a major show (and nVidia knew they were going to announce it). You could call it petty for Apple to get pissy about it, but you can also say that Apple was wary of a vendor that couldn't keep their mouths shut for 24 hours.

Re:Wonder what they told MS

[Jthon]

Or you can completely wrong, it was ATI that did this: http://www.zdnet.com/ati-suffers-wrath-of-jobs-3002080337/

Console margins can't be good

[h4rr4r]

You have to provide lots of parts at low cost and they will surely write in a lower price for each continued year of the console. That means you are tying up fab time on something is on an outdated process a few years down the road.

On the other hand AMD had to do this, they need the money so any margin is likely acceptable.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[Anonymous Coward]

Money, yes but possibly also market share. People currently often write and test games only on nvidia hardware and then if it does not beak totally on AMD cards consider it done. With the differences between the cards this will give nvida a performance advantage in all games written this way, although I have no idea how much. AMD just turned the tables for all games written originally for the PS4, quite a win for PC ports of console games too I expect.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[Luthair]

This isn't really true, both the Xbox 360 and the Wii run AMD (well ATI) GPUs

Re:Console margins can't be good

[DarthVain]

If nVidia was this small minded, they deserve whatever they get.

Having all games (and thus their ports) on million and millions of xbox and PS consoles designed and optimized for your specific hardware for the next 10 years is worth money. Any profit they actually get is just icing.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[The Raven]

Developers develop on NVIDIA because their drivers are better. Flat out better. More compliant, reliable, etc. This has been true for a long time... id Software's Carmack wrote about this years ago, and the situation has not improved since then.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[wonkey_monkey]

Having all games (and thus their ports) on million and millions of xbox and PS consoles designed and optimized for your specific hardware for the next 10 years is worth money. Any profit they actually get is just icing.

Quick, better call Nvidia and tell them this before they make a terrible, terrible mistake! Just say you're calling from Slashdot - they'll put you straight through to the CEO.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[Nerdfest]

You're making the assumption that they thought about this. The people involved in the decision probably numbered in the dozens tops, with most of them marketing and finance people. With the way companies seem to be run to realize maximum profits in the short term these days, it's even possible they realized this but turned down the long term gain anyway.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[0123456]

AMD has another advantage in this sort of business. Since they no longer own their own fabrication plants, they can simply contract this out to another fabrication plant if it becomes a constraint on their first choice fabrication vendor.

Uh, they could always have done that. No-one forced them to use thei rown fabs for all their chips.

While flexibility is an advantage, being totally reliant on third-party suppliers is not.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[del_diablo]

| Having all games (and thus their ports) on million and millions of xbox and PS consoles designed and optimized for your specific hardware for the next 10 years is worth money.
The problem is that AMD changed graphic card architecture on the HD 3xxx series, meaning that free console optmization only exists on the 1xxx and 2xxx series.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[Anonymous Coward]

Developers develop on NVIDIA because their drivers are more tolerant of stupid programming mistakes.

Fixed.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[CanHasDIY]

... the Wii run[s] AMD (well ATI) GPUs

Being rather generous, aren't we?

If anything, I'd say the Wii 'casually strolls' the GPU. 'Run' is taking it a bit far.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[dnahelicase]

You're making the assumption that they thought about this. The people involved in the decision probably numbered in the dozens tops, with most of them marketing and finance people. With the way companies seem to be run to realize maximum profits in the short term these days, it's even possible they realized this but turned down the long term gain anyway.

Given the fact that we're talking about AMD and Nvidia, my guess is that it was a thoughtful decision.

The fact that they have walked away before, that AMD is in previous consoles, and that everyone is continuously crying (from the tech world and wall street alike) that AMD is near it's end (even though it's not), it sounds like they might have made a good decision.

AMD is going to spend a lot of time making a low margin product that is going to be outdated next year but one that they have to keep spending resources and time on for years. Nvidia is going to be spending their time on supercomputer applications, drivers, and pushing their image as a higher end card.

Sometimes you walk away from a business deal because you want your competitor to win it.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[wonkey_monkey]

You're making the assumption that they thought about this.

More specifically, I'm making the assumption that Nvidia, the multi-billion dollar company, have thought about this deal harder and for longer than the kind of Slashdotter who likes to chip in on these stories a few more minutes after reading about it.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[BlackSnake112]

Which is why I usually stay one generation behind on video cards when I am looking for a new one. For what I play I do not need the latest card. I have the specs on what I need. A range of cards meet that spec. Also drivers usually have worked out the bugs by then.

Then again I left the epenis waving contest a long time ago. I have found that stability goes a long way to good gaming. I also no longer play fps games. Maybe today's fps games need the latest card to run well. My newest card is a AMD 6950 2GB model not the latest card. Runs everything great and runs cool (38 C idle 50 C under game load. It drops back to 38 C in a minute or two). I play with people that say I need to have a Nvidia card n order to play. Yet I have no issues with all the eye candy turned to the highest settings. They still crash from time to time. They blame the game. I blame their setup. You don't overclock unless you have enough cooling for it. More then just the CPU and GPU coolers are involved in the cooling setup. having one case fan doesn't cut it. Using that small cramped desktop case will make things run hotter as well. At the very least you should replace the stock GPU cooler thermal compound with a better one. They don't and over clock the GPU. Their GPU runs around 70 C. Which is too high in my book. Then again their CPU is around 65 C. That is also too high in my book. Mine hits 40 C under game load and idles around 28 C. My mid tower case has room in it. It uses three 120 MM intake fans (one blows right at the video card), 120 MM and 140 MM exhaust fans. Add in the 120 MM fan on the CPU and 120 in the power supply. The loudest fan is the GPU fan which is set at 100%. If I set the GPU fan at 70% I head the hard drive over the fans.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[travisco_nabisco]

How old was the Radeon chip when you bought your motherboard?
Did you buy a cheap motherboard with an ancient GPU on it to start with?

I am not saying that AMD didn't screw you over, it just seems that without the full back story your statement doesn't hold a lot of credence.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[robthebloke]

Someone mod this anon to 11. He's so right. The drivers fail to report GL errors correctly (unlike ATI/intel), hell, you can even link shaders without having compiled them (just setting the source is good enough). Nvidia drivers are the bain of my life.

Re:Console margins can't be good

[robthebloke]

I didn't read his comment as class warfare, I read it as the difference between being a student, and being an adult.

A couple of years ago, we had an intern join us at work. Towards the end of the internship (computer animation), she asked me what home build PC I'd recommend for about £700. I wrote a spec that was something along the lines of:
- a decent 24" monitor
- a £35 case + soundproofing
- a mid-range modular PSU (supported SLI if she needed it)
- 120mm heatsink + fan
- a pair of HDD's (for RAID0 - SSD's were too small, and too expensive at the time)
- 8Gb DDR3 1600 Mhz (I'd have gone for 1866, but it was too expensive)
- An asus motherboard
- AMD Althon X4
- A graphics card for about £100.
She posted the spec on facebook, and suddenly a small army of 20 year old students responded with: ZOMG! That CPU is SHIT! You're wasting your moeny! Get an i7! You don't need to buy a heatsink, you get one with the CPU! Why are you spending *that* much on a case and PSU, you can get both of them here for £25!! You can buy cheaper RAM than that! You can get a cheap 24" monitor for £100, what are you thinking!!! etc, etc.

She asked other people at work for their opinions (all people in their 30's), and they all pretty much said the same thing as me. Invest money in the stuff you're going to live with for years (monitor, case, psu, etc), and skimp on the stuff that is easy to replace (CPU/GPU). I think she kinda trusted our opinion a bit more than her class mates, so eventually she went with that system.

A couple of weeks later, I went to help her build it, and that was absolutely hilarious. The same students who'd been suggesting that she was wasting her money, all came out with things like "That computer is so quiet! My computer sounds like an airplane taking off!", or "Jesus! That thing boots so much faster than my i7!". Last time I spoke to her, she'd just upgraded it to an 8 core AMD chip for a little over £80.

Cheap components are a good thing, but PC builds that compromise on quality are not.

His name is Tony Tamasi, not Tamsai...

[GrosTuba]

Just sayin'...

dem Economics

[puddingebola]

The only thing I can take from this is that the potential growth in mobile platforms far outstrips the costs associated with developing hardware for another game console platform. Like a previous comment asked, I wonder if they told Microsoft to go away as well. If they did, what does this mean in the bigger picture? Is the future of gaming on tablets?

Re:dem Economics

[David_Hart]

The only thing I can take from this is that the potential growth in mobile platforms far outstrips the costs associated with developing hardware for another game console platform. Like a previous comment asked, I wonder if they told Microsoft to go away as well. If they did, what does this mean in the bigger picture? Is the future of gaming on tablets?

My thought is that tablets will allow us to extend games and make them portable. For example, I would have loved to have been able to play Skyrim on the PS3 and the Tablet: The PS3 at home and the Tablet when on the road. Saved games would be synched to the cloud, similar to what Steam does today, and downloaded to the tablet so that you could pick up where you left the game. The capabilities of tablets would have to improve quite a bit before this happens, but it is coming...

Re:dem Economics

[dnahelicase]

My thought is that tablets will allow us to extend games and make them portable. For example, I would have loved to have been able to play Skyrim on the PS3 and the Tablet: The PS3 at home and the Tablet when on the road. Saved games would be synched to the cloud, similar to what Steam does today, and downloaded to the tablet so that you could pick up where you left the game. The capabilities of tablets would have to improve quite a bit before this happens, but it is coming...

I was thinking the same things as I was playing sim city the other day....man it would be nice if this game was synched to the cloud...

Hmm...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I wonder how much of the 'opportunity cost/things we could have been working on instead' factor has to do with the fact that AMD is simply in a tighter spot than Nvidia, and how much it has to do with the fact that AMD already makes CPU/GPU combination packages(and seems interested in making more), while Nvidia has nothing of that sort except their 'Tegra', which might be a snappy mobile part; but is fundamentally punching in a different weight class(if nothing else, Sony's plans for 8GBs of RAM get a lot uglier on a 32-bit architecture. Yes, ARM also has something PAE-like; but PAE is mostly a hack that makes running multiple independent programs on a 32 bit system with more than 4GB of RAM palatable, not something you'd want to design a game engine around.)

This isn't to say that Nvidia couldn't have done it(heck, what would buying VIA cost these days?); but Nvidia would need, essentially, an entire new flavor of product line for this job, while AMD, whether they call it this or not, is punching out a modestly customized APU, which almost certainly shares substantially with the ones that they sell for PCs.

Public Relations....

[Luthair]

Why are people running a blatent self-serving PR story?

We lost but... we didn't really want to win it anyway!

Re:Public Relations....

[Kjella]

Why are people running a blatent self-serving PR story?

We lost but... we didn't really want to win it anyway!

Yeah, that was what I was thinking too, of course they say that. And if they'd won instead they'd say the exact opposite and we'd hear this drivel from AMD. It's not like Sony and Microsoft had a lot of other options, who should they have gone to? Intel? VIA? PowerVR? No, if both AMD and nVidia had told them to buzz off they'd come back with a better offer. I doubt AMD sold themselves that cheap, since they knew nVidia wouldn't do that either. Just cheap enough to win, keep their volume up and live to fight another day.

Allegedly

[Thanshin]

They, Allegedly, walked away.

Without video proof, we can't be sure they didn't strolled, strutted or even rambled away.

Re:Allegedly

[Narishma]

Not to mention, with phrases like "I'm sure there was a negotiation that went on," the guy just seems to be speculating about what happened, instead of, you know, being there during the negotiations.

Re:Allegedly

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps they moseyed.

Re:Allegedly

[gman003]

Observers from the Ministry of Silly Walks have confirmed (to their disappointment) that their walk was one of the most serious ever recorded, and that they did not amble, dawdle, gambol, hustle, limp, meander, mosey, march, ramble, sashay, saunter, scamper, scurry, sidle, skulk, slink, slog, skip, stroll, stomp, strut, swagger, tiptoe, traipse. They did not even do a forward aerial half turn every alternate step with the left leg, which itself is hardly a silly walk at all.

Re:In other news...

[limaCAT76]

I'm guessing there was a non-competitive clause in there which would have stopped nvidia from selling to Valve for the ValveBox.

Then why didn't Sony put a non-competitive clause to AMD for stopping AMD from selling to Microsoft for Durango?

Re:Good Move.

[Thanshin]

I recently read a comment in slashdot that had a bizarre structure. The author gave his opinion by telling a story about how he gave that same opinion to a friend of his.

Bullshit

[DarthVain]

Considering AMD are producing the CPU chips for both platforms, and the the GPU as well, it isn't surprising that nVidia "walked" away. This is the eventual benefit of AMD buying ATI, in that they can produce both now. I have no doubt that AMD either have special consideration or simply could offer a better bid than nVidia could.

Regardless of the profit, this would be a big feather in AMD's cap. AKA "We produce both the CPU and GPU of all modern game consoles, don't you want to buy our chips?". Also in the bigger scheme of things, if you get game developers in such numbers making games for YOUR video card on millions and millions of consoles for all games, which are ported to say PC, what do you think those games will be optimized for? AMD. Which will look better? AMD. This is something that is going to change things in a pretty large way over the next 10 years.

nVidia should have paid money to be a part of this if only to prevent their rival in AMD from doing so. Perhaps they didn't have the money. More likely they think they have something that will make a difference. I doubt it.

I'm not fired, I quit is the sentiment I feel about nVidia's statement...

Re:Bullshit

[Enderandrew]

This. I'm shocked no one else saw what was obvious here.

AMD is providing a unified CPU/GPU on a single die that shares the same memory and bandwidth. For Nvidia to provide a separate GPU to compete at the same performance and price would be really difficult, if not impossible.

Re:Bullshit

[citizenr]

if you get game developers in such numbers making games for YOUR video card on millions and millions of consoles for all games, which are ported to say PC, what do you think those games will be optimized for?

Forget GPU and think the end of Intel IPC ruling the CPU market. AMD just won CPU race in Gaming market sector. Games will be written for AMD 8 core arch from the grounds up, using every possible x86 extension AMD has to offer, and compiled with something other than Intel 'let me check if you run this on Genuine Intel so I can decide if Ill slow down the code" compiler.

Also think end of PhysX.

Re:Good Move.

[MightyYar]

This one time, at band camp, I stuffed a Slashdot comment up my flute.

Saving Face

[abigsmurf]

60million units doesn't have revenue potential?

Not only that, the tech they came up with could likely be used for new laptops and set top boxes.

I suspect it was more likely because they didn't have the level of tech needed. ATI had their APU systems lined up already and with tweaking, they're perfect for a console. I'm not sure that NVidia had anything approaching the power of these APUs drawn up (their focus has been on desktop graphics and tablet).

Rumours suggest that the 3DS was going to use NVidia tegra based tech but they couldn't keep the heat down so Nintendo went with the as-seen-in-every-bargain-bucket-chinese-tablet Mali+arm combination.

The Man Who Said No To Sony

[Stavr0]

There seems to be a lot of similarities to the Snapper Lawnmower story.

"Jim Wier believed that Snapper's health -- indeed, its very long-term survival -- required that it not do business with Wal-Mart. "

Re:Good Move.

[Enderandrew]

BTW, see today's news as a further example of why Apple is having difficult moving away from Samsung.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/03/apple-hit-with-class-action-lawsuit-over-defective-retina-displays/

I expect the two to continue to partner for some time.

no brain decision

[onyxruby]

Low profit plus opportunity cost equals a bad decision. Nvidia made the right business choice. That capacity can now be used for more profitable products.

Re:Revenue is not the important bit

[UnknowingFool]

And if they only made $0.50 per chip in profit, yes that's $30 million dollars but that if that ties up half of the engineers for a company that makes $4B in revenue and $500M in profit, it's not worth it is it? For a console or consumer, the chips (even the CPU) are on thin margins as it is.