1. Thats an assumption. All the Nvidia CEO was talking about was royalties. Quite likely Sony had to do that work themselves or pay someone else to do it. They were after all fabbing them in Toshiba fabs IIRC.

2. Its likely they paid a lot/most/all of it as a per unit basis. They possibly have to state the shipment numbers in the financial reports for royalty purposes as they aren't allowed to fudge those numbers. Microsoft probably has paid a lot of royalties to both ATI / NEC corporation for their GPU technology. However as we don't have the terms handy all we can do is speculate.

3. Numbers like that only come from one place. Only someone familiar with the processes and who could give an adequate estimation on yields could come up with numbers which had any resemblence to reality.

4. Revenue.

1. Sony hired the people, or Nvidia hired them. Either way they are working on the RSX. I saw announcement documents revolving around this ages ago when I worked for PlayStation Universe. The deal with mutually beneficial for both Nvidia and Sony. Can't quote exact details as its been like 4 years but I do know I saw the full press release with excerpts of the contractual details.

2. This is very easily speculated upon. The GPU the 360 has in it has base DX10 capabilities and had these features before any other GPU on the market. Just the basic R&D to make the GPU somewhat compatible so that some DX10 features can fit Microsoft's DX software specs had to cost a lot. It cost a lot.

3. Using iSuppli data from over the years, fairly easy to get these estimates.

4. Yep, more specifically gross revenue.

1. They probably already have them as employees. Sony is and was one of the biggest semi conductor companies in the world. Do you remember if there was talk of up front vs per unit royalties? Thats the biggie right there.

2. Yes speculated upon. I won't say that Xenos is cheaper and I won't say than Xenos is more expensive. Simply because I cannot say. Logically I would assume that the costs are similar, plus or minus about 30% either way.

3. iSuppli has been proved to be full of hot air a number of times.

4. How gross.

1. I dont believe it was per unit. I think it was upfront.

2. Based off the knowledge of the Xenos's tech, I'd say more expensive. But even the RSX received some 8xxx upgrades before launch so who knows.

3. True, but they do have some interesting sources that have some clue on tech costs. They aren't accurate, but they can point theories on costs in the right direction.

4. Since the fusion of the game division into the networked devices we lose a sense of what is being made so we might as well use the overall gross amount of the entire division. Also gross revenue includes membership fees like the PSN services versus the base definition of revenue which only covers interest, dividends or royalties paid to them.

1. Actually yes, it was a bad contract (that ran out last year). Industry rumours, as I have written in various threads before, say that Sony was pulled over the table by NVidia. We can certainly assume that the new contract (signed last year) is better now for Sony. In general, customers do not pay for R&D on die shrinks. It is up to every fab (or the company behind the fab) to stay competitive by increasing yields and doing research. If you don't, the customer walks away. You the customer implicitly pay that research if you order product from a fab (as a rough estimate, you pay $6000 wholesale for a wafer which guarantees you a certain number of working chips if you follow the fab's design rules more or less).

2. There won't be any more die shrinks. Sub 30nm fabs will be mass manufacturing sometimes late 2012, this is far too late in the life cycle for current chips. The very few fabs in operation will be used for state of the art chips, there simply will be no capacity to use them for old stuff.

1. actually I disagree, I believe even if Nvidia was better off here, the proved they are loyal to Sony by providing shrink and driver support unlike what they did for Microsoft with the Xbox.

2. Considering that the RSX is at 40nm there should be a shrink to 32nm and afterward 28nm. Even the Cell, now PPC8, has a future with 28, 22, and 12nm.

Wake me when we talk gross profit ...

It doesn't seem Sony networking division is making too much money since the PS3 project began.

Doesn;t look like Microsoft should even be in the video game business at all based on those loses.

It depends. Maybe MS is doing so so Sony doesn't erode their OS business. You know, their cashcow.