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Uncharted conquers UK PS3 budget chartSony is selling off its Cell processor fabrication plants to help increase profits and productivity, according to reports from Japan.
The rumoured buyer for the fabs is Toshiba, who will then become Sony's partner in making chips for the PlayStation 3. Having a partner in the process should cut down on the complications that arise in the chips development, and release some capital for Sony to help ease their games divisions loss from last year.
The Cell processor was originally developed by IBM, and by default comes with 8 cores, 2 primary, and 6 satellite. On the PS3, one of the satellites is disabled to increase chip yield, and one of the primaries is used exclusively by the XMB. The Cell is cited as a reason why the PS3 is slightly more expensive then other consoles, due to initial low chip yield (i.e., only a small amount of Cells made worked properly at first), although the Blu-ray drive is a more likely culprit.
Maybe there will be a Sony/Toshiba laptop venture out of this? We can only speculate.
Stay tuned.
Source: The Inquirer
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This is weird!!! Isnt Toshiba one of Sony's biggest rivals in the Format War??? They make HD DVD players not Blu ray players.. And yes I know this article is about the cell but If I were Sony I'd keep a close eye on them..
I thought Cell was a joint venture between Sony, IBM and Toshiba. That's what was said in really, really old news.
On that point, there's something to be said about the Japanese business model. On the one hand, two companies can be really heated when it comes to something--in this case Sony (Blu-Ray) and Toshiba (HD-DVD). On the other hand, they're best friends at the same time--Cell. North American business enterprises should be like that: Just because another company is your rival in one department, doesn't mean you can't be friends in another. There's no reason to hold grudges.
EDIT: I was right on my first paragraph--Tosiba was part of the development of the Cell BE. They called themselves "STI" for Sony, Toshiba, IBM.
I think it's great! It should take a load off Sony's back - what with the "complications" and all.
MehpistoSoze, you drive a good point - I think competitive companies should also be allies in common ventures.
They have to sell stuff off because of all the cry babies talking about the "PS3 is to expensive and we need price cuts" ,I wouldn't be surprised if sony started selling off parts of the Playstation brand all together.Heck maybe Microsoft would like to be part owner of Playstation
Sony and Toshiba might hate each other in some respects, but when a good business deal pops up, why not take it? It'll make the PS3 cheaper, plus it will make for some cheaper and interesting TVs and HDTV Boxes as that was what Toshiba planned on using the CELL for when it was made.
But what confuses me is this bit in the artical above: "by default comes with 8 cores, 2 primary, and 6 satelite." I always thought it was 2 primaries and 8 satelites, not 6.
@ Jarnz: There are 9 in total. 1 PPE and 8 SPE.
Different divisions of the same companies cooperate in different ways, I guess. As long as the joint venture into personal computers doesn't have hd-dvd drives it could be nice. Wouldn't it be weird if all of a sudden Intel and AMD were leap frogged? Probably won't happen any time soon, though.
@ MephistoSoze
I heard that the primary has something like HyperThreading on it, hence why i said 2 primaries. I guess that was a wrong thing to say
@ Jarnz: You're right, the primary does have hyperthreading. They call it Dual Threading, I think. I get your point now. Especially if they do call it "Dual Threading".
That means this article is still wrong, or at the very least it's misleading. On a technical standpoint, it has 10 Cores. On a physical standpoint it has 9. This article only says 8.
psn id: gingo... this should be good for the future of the playstation as Toshiba and Sony will come up with a good chip for gaming
Good news, we need to see more support for Sony's console including maximising the cell and its blu-ray potential.
if toshiba and sony made a laptop, i would buy it in an instant. Also i hope toshiba does some other stuff with sony, i hoe they work on some other projects.
WOW! This IS weird. I see this as a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing is that It should bring some games back and make the process better. BUT the bad thing is that sense Toshiba was(is) sonys biggest rival they could sell the cell to Microsoft and give them TONS of information about sonys plans. Im looking more towerds the bad side of this!
~SONY RULES
it sounds like sony is jettisoning the extra weight. that whole cell processor thing must be wiggity wiggity wiggity wack. heres a little rhyme about it.
made the ps3- to fanfare and glee. but the critics claim- the games are lame. Sony said 'give it time. it'll all be fine.' we gave 'em one yair. all we got was Lair.
and then the chorus is like "slow frame rates, late release dates" it all mixes down over a sample of Madonna's "Material Girl." its hype, with fresh beats.
Hmmm... Interesting... Maybe it will make Toshiba change side to Blu-ray.
And why is the text green?
Toshiba, IBM and Sony developed the Cell, so them selling more factories to Toshiba is understandable and will no way effect BluRay or HD DVD.
The Cell processor has nothing to do with BD/hddvd.
The Cell processor was intended to be installed in numerious electronic devices. PS3 first then everything else. Toshiba knows how to make chips.
Blu-ray is a diffrent story and it ROCKS!!!!!!
Live Blu or Die.
WARHAWK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sony is lossing money thats why they want to sell the cell. That is the nicest joke i have ever heard.
Sony's been bleeding ever since the Bluray dev got started. If you had purchased $10,000 worth of Sony shares in 2000 today your shares would be worth $3,300.
Sony has had all of their engineering resources focused 100% on DRM, Bluray and Cell. This has meant their traditional products have suffered with lack of development resources and it has allowed them to fall too far behind in the portable audio, home audio, television, professional video production sysems and Information storage divisions.
Today their data media business is a fraction of what it once was - DDS, AIT & SAIT products now account for less than 1% marketshare. In portable audio they rank behind even LG in shipments. Sony was forced to close down all of their Television plant & LCD production and as a result they now rely on Samsung to make everything for them (their largest TV rival). They call it a "partnership" or joint venture which is a nicer way to put it. Basicly Samsung owns the factories, the technologies, and simply shares the profits for Bravia TV's that are simply Sony branded.
To get hold of cash management sold the realestate in Japan. Now it is selling their Financial Services business.
The Cell fabrication sale is not the only technology transfer going on - Sony is offering to sell their Robotics & AI divisions and if not sold have indicated that they will be shut down & staff layed off. Guys think about it - Ken's departure from Sony (he was previously an engineer) will make it easier for Sony's to sweep through the gaming division and reduce technical staff head count. Sony is being dumbed down. Everything is for sale. Guys in 2 or 3 years I guarantee you'll all be singing a different tune about Bluray. It was a very very very expensive mistake. It will cost us all our Playstations.
I wish Sony would drop the fixation on Bluray and focus on putting back the Play in Playstation.
Cool.
toshiba,ibm and Sony made the Cell.
NOOOOOO! Sony laptops are much better than Toshiba's. I find this odd though since Toshiba is behind HD DVD while Sony has Blu-Ray.
Kflashin: what the heck are you talking about? You probably don't even have a PS3 cuz YOU ARE that crybaby saying "it's too expensive". They're trying to help out the consumer so shut up.
SHUT UP MUZIKGUY I'll buy and sell you punk,I said the exact same thing the article said but took off the sugar topping.Sony is already practically giving the PS3 away and people still complain about the price.I can't believe I'm defending myself against a 23 year old with no job and probably lives with his parents SMOKE YOU MUZIKGUY
Good,now if toshiba would just let HD-DVD die,and we are all happy.
There was an interesting artical on ARN ( a retailing channel magazine) where the CEO's of IT companies where talking about a mysterious Japanese brand that was loosing money in computers and are trying to sell of its notebook business as it had a very small market share. The company they where talking about (but refused to actually name) looks to be Sony. Id say news will break before the year is out that VAIO business is being discontinued... It might also make sense for Toshiba to buy this too.
Toshiba is putting a lot of money (some $1.8 Billion) into advanced semiconductor technology and fabrication. They can afford to do it as they have good profit and are selling all the NAND memory they can make. They are also coming out with some amazing hard drives using their discrete track recording technology - this allows their hard drives to hold 500GB capacity in a tiny notebook hard drive. That puts them streets ahead of Seagate in the Ultra Portable 1.8" formfactor business. Toshiba are kicking R-ss.