| bdbdbd said: @Greenmedic: Look, Sony isn't making loss with the Cell itself, but the application it's using the processor. If Sony would start selling PS3 at a profit, it would be profiting from the Cell. But every Cell sold "outside" is making money for Sony (and Toshiba and IBM). Sony was hoping for a fullhouse, but it looks like they'll only be able to get a pair. |
Currently, they're buying the CPUs from Toshiba or IBM, or whoever is manufacturing them since they sold their CBE manufacturing facility back to Toshiba about a year ago. Before that, they were essentially selling the chips to themselves.
The CBE itself (65nm process) currently only costs about $60 per CPU. The 90nm was about $89 per unit.
But the loss in hardware still comes from the overall production cost per PS3 unit, regardless of how cheap the CBE is being bought for.
So unless Sony receives royalties as a part of the consortium responsible for the R&D of the CBE, the only money they'd be making from processor sales, would be those they sold themselves (which they can't do since they don't produce them anymore).
Sony should be able to sell the PS3 at a small profit with the next hardware revision based upon the 45nm CBE/RSX, even with an MSRP price cut. The die shrinks alone would cut off maybe $50 per unit, without even counting the cost reduction in other components. But again, that has no bearing on whether Sony is directly making money from CBE sales since they don't sell the chips as vendors.
