Sony may be ever so quietly exiting the console race according to some recently released financial data.
According to news reports, Sony plans to sell manufacturing lines that make the Cell processor to Toshiba for slightly less than Y100 billion. The move follows Sony’s announcement last year that it intends to reduce spending on the next-generation chip to succeed the Cell, which is used in Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.’s PlayStation 3 video game console. Under a strategy of selectively consolidating its semiconductor operations,Sony plans to beef up its image sensor business while jettisoning the Cell.
What does all this mean in English?
It means that Sony for some reason or another will be selling the manufacturing lines that make the cell chip. However the biggest nugget of information to take away from this post is that Sony is now reducing its spending on the “next generation chip that will succeed the Cell presumably for Playstation 4. With the added competition that Sony now has in Microsoft and Nintendo, the last thing in world Sony would want to do is be technologically behind it competitors on the next hardware cycle unless planning to bow out of the hardware race.
Sony plans to beef up its image sensor business while jettisoning the Cell.
Yeah, with Sony’s experience in installing root kits, it’s just natural step for them to get into the surveillance industry and provide big brother with better equipment so that they can fully monitor your every step. 😉
I thought Sony abandoned the console business when it released the playstation 3. Ha!
“the last thing in world Sony would want to do is be technologically behind it competitors on the next hardware cycle”
Nintendo is technologically behind its competitors and it’s kicking those competitors’ asses. Maybe Sony recognizes it’s not about tech but is about fun.
The Cell processor was a technological feat but an utter market failure. There is little interest at all in the current Cell processor, much less the ‘next generation’ of Cell processor. Few companies want to write code for The current processor. The tools that are needed for writing code for a multiprocessor of this type never materialized, making the system too difficult and costly to program. Power uses like supercomputers and super-simulators never even got started.
It makes NO sense for Sony to spend gazillions on developing the next generation of Cell processor if it’s only market will be for consoles.
Basically Sony is “Gettin’ out while the gettin’ is still (kinda) good”
In the end, Sony will lose 100’s of millions of dollars on the brilliant yet ill conceived Cell processor and the Playstation 3 system.
Jerk-Face is right.Nintendo has gotten even the old farts interested in games.The bowling is a blast and I don’t have to breath smoke and beer farts at the alley.
What is interesting, but most people would never dream of, is that Sony make the vast percentage of their profits through their Financial Services division, nothing to do with electronics at all!
The lukewarm reception of the cell and a lot of their electronics gear in general has paved the way for sony to not only stop with the console market, but perhaps ALL of their electronics portion as well. After all, the profits made by those areas accounted for well less than even 10% last year and yet suck up a HUGE amount of R&D.
Jerk-Face stole my thunder. Nintendo is doing just fine without a bleeding edge processor. It only makes sense for Sony to try to do more with less if they intend to remain a contender.
I’m not saying SONY wouldn’t do it, or even that there are some good reasons for it, but IMO it would be the single dumbest thing they’ve done in this whole PS3 debacle.
First of all, the PS3 is not expensive b/c of the Cell CPU – it’s high price comes from the BluRay player they put in it. You take out that, and the PS3 becomes no more expensive than the 360. So, since SONY only adopted BluRay as a means of pushing yet another proprietary std on the world, and since optical discs are going to be elicpsed by cheap flash long before this Holy War with HDDVD is resolved, the more rational move to cut costs on future consoles is to drop BluRay (besides, from what I’ve read it’s price/performance ratio vis a vis HDDVD is so bad, it’s probably going to lose to that std anyway).
Second, Cell is a fantastically powerful CPU. SONY would need to do little more for a PS4 than have IBM make the Pwr core a bit more capable (this would solve a lot of the coding probs, plus it neds more integer performance for A.I.) and put it thru a die shrink. At 45nm they could speed it up a tad and the power requirements will still be less than now – win win. The thing is, while the world wasn’t quite ready for Cell when it came out, by the time a PS4 is ready to debut there will be a lot more expertise built up around harnessing it. As it stands, even with the incomplete coding tools, a Cell-based game today totally rocks, stacking up well with 360 games. With more time to “marinade”, a second gen Cell should be able to kick major ass, with very little investment.
Third, Cell can be used in more than just a game console. Toshiba is going to put it in TVs and other media devices. Can you imagine the power of a Bravia HDTV with a Cell processor?? What couldn’t it do? SONY planned this sort of strategy from the start – they would be absolutely insane to not pursue the possibilities now, and it would certainly be cheaper to use their own CPUs than to buy them from Toshiba.
What it all comes down to is that SONY spent a butt load on developing both technologies – Cell & BluRay – but they are losing a butt load and a half on PS3 because of the costs of MANUFACTURING the latter, not the former. Those in the industry are saying BluRay hardware will always be more expensive than HDDVD stuff, simply b/c HDDVD isn’t a ground up design like BluRay – HDDVD discs are stamped on old DVD lines, and the hardware is just about the same as DVD except for the blue laser. The Cell on the other hand will benefit from die shrinks and process improvements going forward, just as all CPUs do.
So SONY needs to look at which technology in PS3 has the most legs. Especially when one considers HD discs are ultimately never going to be as big as DVD has been, it’s obvious that BluRay is the real dead end – Cell would be a very solid building block for the future.
With all of the low-power, triple- & quad-core chips coming out now – let alone what will be available if the PS4 is ever designed – why spend any more money on an exotic chipset, when technology of the “boring” chipsets will do just fine?
Sony plans to beef up its image sensor business
Makes sense… Sony’s A700 dSLR – with a Sony sensor – coming soon.
Nikon’s D300 dSLR is coming soon – and Sony worked with Nikon on the sensor.
Who knows how many non-dSLR cameras use Sony sensors??
maybe you’re reading too much from the info… maybe they’re not abandoning the console market, maybe they’re abandoning the cell architecture
*** ahem *** Uh, I mean, ARRRR!
The PS3 can be used for Folding@Home.
Where’s the CrankyGeeks team???
How do we know that they haven’t improved yields on the existing productions lines improved enough that they have excess production lines? So why not sell off the excess? As for the Cell being a flop I think you need to look at the supercomputer market a bit more there a some huge cell computers being built.
#12 MacBandit –
“…I think you need to look at the supercomputer market a bit more there a some huge cell computers being built.”
Examples please?
And don’t forget to do comparisons with other architectures if you want your point to have ANY credibility.
(Telling us to Google it ourselves just means that you can’t backup your statement yourself, so you hope to take the easy way out)
#2 – In all seriousness, they just started to treat the segment as theirs… and they lost their control of it in the process.
The same scenario has played out with the walkman and TVs, so we shouldn’t be surprised. The question is if they can maintain enough of a profit margin (as they do in other areas) to justify continued production. My guess is yes.
I still remember when Sony came to the console market with the PS one. I remember thinking, what? Another console? These guys are gonna get their a$$es whipped…Remember, those days Nintendo was huge and SEGA was the king…
Two years later they were the most sold console, and by the launch of the PS2 they were the king, and SEGA was gone…and Nintendo was shaky (if not for the gameboy and the ds they’d sunk too).
Never underestimate Sony’s powerful arm in marketing (not clever, but powerful…)
#13
I googled it up and here’s a link:
http://www.hpcwire.com/hpc/967146.html
#16
In the end it’s all Cyclical, Nintendo, then Sega, then Sony; God forbids if M$ becomes the next Console king. APPLE TRIED BUT THEY ONLY MANAGED TO SELL 5000 PIPPIN CONSOLES.