Digital Trends
Sometimes the timing of corporate announcements can make you blink. Immediately in the wake of Toshiba killing off its HD DVD high-definition disc format, the company has finalized a deal with Sony that will have it acquiring a chip-making facility in western Japan for some ¥90 billion (about $835 million). The move is part of Sony’s effort to focus on its core businesses, which the company now believes does not include manufacturing its own microprocessors and custom chips.
Electronics giants Sony and Toshiba have announced (Japanese) have announced they will form a joint partnership—60 percent owned by Toshiba—that will take over manufacture of the Cell processor and graphics processing unit used in Sony’s PlayStation 3 game console, and possibly other high-performance chips. The deal will also have Sony selling Toshiba two of its chip fabrication plants, on in Nagasaki and another in Oita, essentially taking Sony out of the semiconductor business as an integrated device manufacturer.
The companies are reportedly still working out details, but reports from Reuters and other sources put the price for the chip fabrication facilities around $900 million, The partnership is currently slated to begin operations on April 1, 2008.
Both companies are jointly developing a custom graphics processing unit (GPU) incorporating NVIDIA’s next-generation GeForce and SCEI’s system solutions for next-generation computer entertainmentsystems featuring the Cell* processor.
This collaboration is made under a broad, multi-year, royalty-bearing agreement. The powerful custom GPU will be the graphics and image processing foundation for a broad range of applications from computer entertainment to broadband applications. The agreement will encompass future Sony digital consumer electronics products.
Speaking in an interview with Japanese journalists, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has pinned down 2006 as the year when a successor to the Xbox will be released – a time frame which could see Xbox 2 being the last of the next generation consoles to appear.
Ballmer acknowledged that sales of the Xbox in Japan have been sluggish (it’d take quite a poker face to claim otherwise, after all), but stated that Microsoft would stick to its long term goals in the region.
Arguably the first shot in the next generation console war has been fired, with Sony pumping
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