Sony scaling back R&D on next-gen CPU for PlayStation4 or even exiting console race?

[airraid]

Sony scaling back R&D on next-gen CELL or CELL's successor for PlayStation4. or possibly even exiting the console race ?!



http://www.hdgamenews.com/2007/09/playstat...ly-exiting.html

Playstation 4: Is Sony quietly exiting the console race?

Sony may be ever so quietly exiting the console race according to some recently released financial data. ( Raw financial data often more than not is a primary indicator, long before mainstream media gets the news, of a company's projected road map. )

According to recent reports TOKYO (Nikkei)--Sony Corp. shares have fallen 26% since hitting a year-to-date high in late May, as investors have become wary of the company's inward-looking business stance, The Nikkei Financial Daily reported in its Wednesday edition.

Sony's stock ended lower Tuesday, with reports that it plans to sell a
cutting-edge chipmaking facility to Toshiba Corp. as early as next spring failing to impress investors.

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.

"All we've heard from Sony recently are plans to quit something," said Eiichi Katayama, an analyst at Nomura Securities Co. "The company hasn't presented us with any new growth strategies."

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 may be looking to pull a Sega and go multi-platform software only.

Is this the first signs that the Playstation Brand is on its way out? Only time will tell for sure.

could be game-over for Sony.

I hope not though. I don't want Microsoft and Nintendo to be the only console providers. competition is good you know.

I believe there will be a PS4, but it might not be the monster that it
(and the original concept of PS3) was supposed to be.

[koster]

I don't think Sony is exiting the console race just yet. They may just feel that rolling their own custom CPU isn't worth the expense and are better off with something more mainstream (like Microsoft and Nintendo). Potential good news for IBM, I guess...

[Iron Draggon]

this quote from the comments on the article is hilarious:

"The Games Industry is worth billions and is growing each year - when you have a huge games development resource, own one of the biggest brands in the industry, and are only one of three major players - why would anyone with even a GCSE in Business Studies decide it would be a good idea to pull out if it?"

by that logic, Sega should never have given up on the Dreamcast, and they should never have gotten out of the hardware business, despite the fact that they were going bankrupt... who needs cash flow when you have a huge games development resource, and are only one of 4 major players? by this guy's logic, that should've been no reason for them to pull out... especially when they did it right after all the other major players, including the newest one, had just arrived on the scene... they gave up the war without a fight, as soon as they fired the first shot to begin the next generation battles!

[wufners]

I don't think Sony is exiting the console race just yet. They may just feel that rolling their own custom CPU isn't worth the expense and are better off with something more mainstream (like Microsoft and Nintendo). Potential good news for IBM, I guess...

That's my take as well. Let someone else pay for the R&D and then license the technology.

[Nick Goracke]

The PlayStation 4 will be a repackaged PlayStation 3 with motion controls.

Seriously though, terrible analysis. PlayStation is one of the strongest brands in the world; it is NOT on the way out. And why would "the last thing in world Sony would want to do is be technologically behind it competitors on the next hardware cycle" when they did just that, and dominated, the previous 2 hardware generations?

Bad, bad article.

[studvicious]

To me this article just means that in order to cut costs as a company (which is something they desperately need to do) they are just going to use someone else's CPU in the PS4. I'm sure it will be custom tailored and all that jazz but to say they're closing shop on the hardware business is laughable.

[Borman]

Or, better yet, if the Cell is as good as they say, just increase the speed. No reason to fall back onto totally new technology, it would allow decent backwards compatibility with PS3 games, plus it could be x amount quicker (I dont know the theoretical limits of the Cell processor so)

[otaku]

yeah I don't think they'll quit but outsourcing/scaling some things back is probably a good idea. I wouldn't mind them leaving but only if sega came back and took their place

[jajaja]

Its important to read that this is nothing that has been done yet, its not sure that Sony will sell the factory. Even if they do, i dont see how it will have any impact on PS3. Eventho they sell it, Cell CPU will still produced, they wont disapear.

[swlovinist]

Sony is not going anywhere for a while. They may have lost the battle, but they will just come back with something else.

[Hawksmoor]

by that logic, Sega should never have given up on the Dreamcast, and they should never have gotten out of the hardware business, despite the fact that they were going bankrupt... who needs cash flow when you have a huge games development resource, and are only one of 4 major players? by this guy's logic, that should've been no reason for them to pull out... especially when they did it right after all the other major players, including the newest one, had just arrived on the scene... they gave up the war without a fight, as soon as they fired the first shot to begin the next generation battles!

There's one problem with your logic here. Sony and Sega aren't really comparable companies. Sega was/is a gaming company, pure and simple. Just as Nintendo is. Sony has many divisions that make an assortment of different products. They can't simply funnel all their resources into gaming, as Sega and Nintendo can.

As for the general gist of the article and the insinuation that Sony may be abandoning gaming and the PlayStation brand, I think that's utterly absurd. Sony may well have to rethink their approach and try to be a bit more fiscally conservative, but there is absolutely no way that they are going to pull a Sega and simply make games for other companies platforms.

[GameDeals.ca]

Sony already released their next next gen console, it's called the PS3 and they released it 5 years early. By the time they gain a decent market share, it'll be time for Nintendo & Microsoft to release new consoles, of course by that time, the PS3 will be cheap and will have a nice library of games so people won't be as inclined to update to another new generation for Microsoft, but everyone will jump on the WiiHD.

It's a shame they blew this holiday season after their poor showing at the TGS (look at all the cool shit we will have next year some time).

[AMG]

To me this article just means that in order to cut costs as a company (which is something they desperately need to do) they are just going to use someone else's CPU in the PS4. I'm sure it will be custom tailored and all that jazz but to say they're closing shop on the hardware business is laughable.

I agree with this.

[neogamer]

Once again:

Sony is a consumer electronics (hardware) company in the saoftware business.

Microsoft is a software company in the hardware business.

What will happen, only time will tell. However, analysts data (which due to my job, I happen to read a lot of) shows that Sony has no plans to exit the video game hardware business any time soon.

Micrsosoft on the other hand...

is more likely to leave the hardware business, believe it or not!

according to all the reports I have read so far!