Games Thirst – Amazing Life
“It’s clearly not a technology thing.”
Nvidia, the company that worked on cell technology for PS3 and the Xbox 360′s chip, is now saying that it’s not a loss for them that they didn’t get to work with Sony on PS4, because the deal wasn’t worth the cost.
Speaking to Gamespot, Tony Tamasi, Senior VP of content and technology at Nvidia said ”I’m sure there was a negotiation that went on, and we came to the conclusion that we didn’t want to do the business at the price those guys were willing to pay.”
He added: “Having been through the original Xbox and PS3, we understand the economics of [console development] and the tradeoffs.”
PlayStation 4 is powered by Nvidia’s arch rival chip-maker AMD. The same company is also rumored to be behind the hardware of the next Xbox, however Nvidia shrugs off the loss.
“We’re building a whole bunch of stuff,” Tamasi assured, “and we had to look at console business as an opportunity cost. If we say, did a console, what other piece of our business would we put on hold to chase after that?
“In the end, you only have so many engineers and so much capability, and if you’re going to go off and do chips for Sony or Microsoft, then that’s probably a chip that you’re not doing for some other portion of your business. And at least in the case of Sony and Nvidia, in terms of PS4, AMD has the business and Nvidia doesn’t. We’ll see how that plays out from a business perspective I guess. It’s clearly not a technology thing.”
AMD took a risk with PS4 and the next Xbox, then, a risk it’s hoping will pay off. Just this week AMD sold its Austin-based HQ for $164 million to raise cash. Here’s to hoping it all works out.
This also means that Sony might have been able to negotiate a pretty decent deal with the firm, so PS4 shouldn’t be ludicrously expensive. And since AMD’s working with Microsoft, too, the next Xbox should be priced decently.
Did Nvidia lose by not signing a deal with Sony and Microsoft to build the tech for the upcoming consoles? Share your thoughts.
