In an announcement made around the midnight hour earlier this morning, Sony Computer Entertainment and NVIDIA Corporation jointly confirmed that they have teamed up to create the graphics chip for Sony's next videogame console. Though the system has not yet been given an official name, the highly anticipated PlayStation 2 follow-up (known in most circles as the PS3) will certainly have some powerful hardware behind it -- as the SCEI/NVIDIA collaboration will incorporate the next-generation GeForce technology as well as Sony's system solutions for Cell Processor-enabled consoles.

 The collaboration itself has been made with a multi-year royalty-driven agreement in mind, with the custom GPU serving as the foundation for the PS3's graphics and image processing functions. Interestingly enough, this agreement will go beyond the confines of just the PS3, however, and will also apply to future Sony digital electronic products as well. The custom graphics chip will be manufactured by Sony's Nagasaki Fab2 group in addition to OTSS -- a joint fabrication facility co-run by Toshiba and Sony.

"In the future, the experience of computer entertainment systems and broadband-ready PCs will be fused together to generate and transfer multi-streams of rich content simultaneously. In this sense, we have found the best way to integrate the state-of-the-art technologies from NVIDIA and SCEI," said Ken Kutaragi, executive deputy president and COO, Sony Corporation, and president and Group CEO, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "Our collaboration includes not only the chip development but also a variety of graphics development tools and middleware, essential for efficient content creation."

"We are thrilled to partner with Sony Computer Entertainment to build what will certainly be one of the most important computer entertainment and digital media platforms of the twenty-first century," added Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO, NVIDIA. "Over the past two years NVIDIA has worked closely with Sony Computer Entertainment on their next-generation computer entertainment system. In parallel, we have been designing our next-generation GeForce GPU. The combination of the revolutionary Cell processor and NVIDIA's graphics technologies will enable the creation of breathtaking imagery that will surprise and captivate consumers."