| Cyborg13B said: But more importantly for Sony - it means they do not have to invest $2 billion in factories to build the GPUs and CPUs - like it did with Playstation 3. That's why they sustained much losses. They certainly paid $1 billion for the Cell factory - and probably something like that for the GPU factory, which is similarly sized. Also - they did not have to pay $400 million to design the CPU - like they did with Cell. Thus - $2.4 billion immediately saved by Sony in this deal. Xbox 3 - something like that too. |
One advantage of the Cell though was that Sony co-owned the technology so the licensing/royalties would be reduced. But the customized based on off the shelf components* from AMD definitely have their advantages.
*oxymoron
Sony did buy back the Japanese PS3 chip plant that produced the Cell from Toshiba in late 2010/early 2011. - source
They did get the plant back for a steal, would they need the Cell for PS4 backwards compatibility?
NEC also built a $761 million plant in Japan to facilitate the production of the Gamecube GPU.- source
I think the same NEC plant was used for Wii GPU production as well since that GPU was very similar in design? Don't have info as to which plants produce WiiU or X360 components.
It'll be interesting to see what key components stay fabricated in Japan Next-gen, especially for the Sony and Nintendo consoles.
| Soleron said: Edit I'm not reading what Xbit is implying into AMD's words at all. I still think it's royalties. |
Yes the Xbit article does seem to leap to conclusions/make assumptions, but at the same time was an interesting theory to read. It's likely there won't be a model change unless the part where it says AMD "may have no rights to license x86 designs to any third company" is true. Royalties still make more sense for console makers because they would have more control with manufacturing and price.
Does anyone have any insight on how the royalty system currently works with chip makers (AMD,Nvidia,IBM) in relation to the consoles? What's the gist of licensing scheme as it stands now?
The Xbit article also seems to imply that MS/Nintendo also pay a royalty to AMD for each game sold, isn't this false?
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xbitlabs.com said: Considering that due to x86 license agreements with Intel AMD may have no rights to license x86 designs to any third company and has to build-in third-party IP into x86-based SoCs itself, |
As I was saying before I wonder how true this claim is, moreover what does it really mean? What exactly is in the x86 license agreement with Intel and what effect will it have here with regards to AMD's own CPU/APU chips and licensing to 3rd parties?
| Soleron said: Well the reason for licensing is so AMD can't screw them over. See what Nvidia did to MS over the Xbox. |
I remember they ended up in court. It was a disaster for both parties, but especially MS. The original Xbox would never be profitable.
