Neowin

Microsoft may be downplaying the fact that AMD helped to create the processor and system-on-a-chip design for its upcoming Xbox One console, but it's certainly worth a lot of money to AMD. One former executive for the chip maker claims that the Xbox One hardware project may be worth more than previously thought.

Bob Feldstein, who is currently the Vice President of Technology Licensing at NVIDIA, posted word on his LinkedIn page about the projects he was a part of while he worked at AMD, While access to his Linkedin profile is limited, Gamechup has lifted what Feldstein has posted on the page.

Feldstein stated that while he worked as the corporate vice president of business development at AMD, he was in charge of "business management and supply agreement negotiations" concerning the Xbox One project. He added:

This required the coordination of multiple functional teams within AMD, as well as regular customer meetings with leadership teams responsible for handling the challenges of complex, muti-year deals. This project is valued at $3+B.

Yep, that's a valuation of over $3 billion for AMD. Feldstein also worked on the project that brought a similar processor to Sony's upcoming PlayStation 4 console, although he doesn't state how much that was worth to the company.

AMD may not appreciate its former VP revealing some financial numbers about the Xbox One processor. Indeed, several months after Feldstein departed AMD for NVIDIA in July 2012, AMD filed a lawsuit against him and three other former employees. AMD claims they stole over 100,000 secret documents from the company.

Source: Gamechup

Great deal. I imagine the Sony deal is similarly priced.

Wasn't R&D for the Cell processor alone in the Billions of dollars? LOL

cell = 500 million dollars

It's hard to believe, because 1,2 TFLOP is so underwhelming for 3 billion...

3+ years of R&D and 7+ years of royalties with MS projecting 30%+ higher sales over this generation. Yup $3b sounds about right, if not a little on the low side. Not really gonna mean much for AMD's bottom line tho sadly.

Yea well fact is Sony's is Better who cares how much it costs!

This user has been warned for this post - yo_john117

This is awesome for AMD. They need it too.

Apparently NVIDIA still says..."lul, so not worth it"

It might not be, especially after hearing this. This could be "just another rumor," but if true, I doubt a company that has been in the PC busines for decades would invest 3 billion into something like this and only have it coming off second best. They would have been better off going with a weaker APU and putting the price of the Xbox ONE down instead to be more competitive/under-cut Sony further that case. There are rumors and nothing has been 100% confirmed. Best wait till E3 or later before we make those,  "my APU is better than yours" talks.

It was $400m but the CELL was just a CPU tho, and that was just the R&D budget not including the licensing costs over the life of the console. An APU with CPU and GPU (and custom memory system with ESRAM, etc) plus licensing over the life of the console is of course going to cost a lot more than just R&D of a CPU. 

id still go with what i said remember what AMD said and they also said Ps4 will be the most powerful of its kind but even so i say it is better than the xbox!