Nvidia lands new Sony design contract

[VG Aficionado]

Nvidia lands new Sony design contract

Published on ZDNet News: March 23, 2006, 4:03 PM PT

Graphics chipmaker Nvidia said on Thursday it has a new design contract with Sony that will pay more than it earned for creating the graphics processor for the upcoming PlayStation 3 video game console.

Sony paid Nvidia about $30 million for designing the PS3's graphics chip, a fee that was paid out gradually as work on the processor was completed, said Marv Burkett, Nvidia's chief financial officer.

"We had anticipated that (contract revenue) would drop off, but that's not going to happen," Burkett told financial analysts. "We have new contracts with Sony to do some further designs." Revenue from the new contract would be "probably slightly more" than the first and would continue into 2007, Burkett said. Burkett declined to reveal what the design work was for.

"We have a contract to do engineering work for them," Burkett said. "I don't think I should discuss what that product is." Nvidia is expected to have revenue of about $2.8 billion this year, so the new design work would be just a small slice of its overall business.

In the case of the PS3, the engineering contract is the smallest of three revenue streams Nvidia collects. It also gets a licensing fee paid out each quarter until mid-2009 and collects a royalty on each chip Sony makes.

Nvidia's chief competitor is ATI Technologies of Canada, which makes the graphics chips for Microsoft's Xbox 360 game console, which went on sale last November. Link: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-6053413.html

[LaLiLuLeLo]

PS4! Oh noes!
Or PSP2? Or...or....
*head a-splode*

[casualkiss]

My guess is either PSP2 or a PS3 GPU-CPU combined product to lower cost.

[LiquidEagle]

My guess is either PSP2 or a PS3 GPU-CPU combined product to lower cost.

I'd be very surprised if A) Work had already begun on such a thing and B) Sony was having Nvidia do it rather than do it themselves. Of course I'm not an insider or somebody "in the know" so you very well could be right :-p

When it comes to Sony though, the sky's the limit so this could really be anything :-D

[Z]

the article says nothoing about PS systems. the deal with nVidia extends to everything that has a GPU from TVs to Vaios to PC to portable media players.

there is no reason why they won't work on future PS models, but that is not the only possiblity.

[jaxmkii]

Nvida is probly happy there not getting shit on like they did with M$

[Z]

they actually got buckets of money from MS. why do you think MS is eager to end Box and went with ATI? ;)

Sony is much more demanding and protective of anything with their name on it. still, nVidia is doing good business with them and both are very happy.

hope they show RSX at E3...

[Freeman_JI]

they actually got buckets of money from MS. why do you think MS is eager to end Box and went with ATI? ;)

Sony is much more demanding and protective of anything with their name on it. still, nVidia is doing good business with them and both are very happy.

hope they show RSX at E3...
Ya the Geforce 3.5 was at one point the most expensive part, and for sure the single most expensive chip /part in the console, MS did as jaxmkii put it shit on Nvidia as they dropped the price of the xbox and I'm sure that cut Nvida :emo:

[xbdestroya]

Ya the Geforce 3.5 was at one point the most expensive part, and for sure the single most expensive chip /part in the console, MS did as jaxmkii put it shit on Nvidia as they dropped the price of the xbox and I'm sure that cut Nvida :emo:

Yo you guys are talking crazy - that's not the situation at all.

If anything, it was NVidia that was wrecking MS. The chipset/GPU price was one of the reasons that MS has taken such a bath financially with the XBox. Meanwhile, NVidia has been raking in the dollars with it's XBox chipset sales (after a bumpy start).

Please remember that NVidia makes the same amount of money per chipset sold regardless of what Microsoft charges for the console at retail.

[NeoPlayStation]

Some G80 features in RSX?

[Z]

this is not strange at all. we already know that the SOny/nVidia deal will last for a few years. I think they even extended a bit more.
that is why this doesn't necessarily have to be PS3 related- or even gaming for that matter.

*edited thread title*

by that, this should go to the general ony section, but I'll leave it here for now. I don't think we'll learn anything more on it anyway.

[cliffbo]

"We had anticipated that (contract revenue) would drop off, but that's not going to happen," Burkett told financial analysts. "We have new contracts with Sony to do some further designs." Revenue from the new contract would be "probably slightly more" than the first and would continue into 2007, Burkett said. Burkett declined to reveal what the design work was for.

early 2008 i expect to see the new cell/nvidia based PSP2!

[jaxmkii]

^^^ Whaaa Hooo!

[xbdestroya]

I wouldn't be surprised if this was for PSP2 either...

[DofD]

Another option is that Nvidia could be doing some chip designs for the Cell Server that Sony has mentioned.

[cliffbo]

Earlier this week NVIDIA made quite a splash with their announcement that they were partnering with Havok to bring physics acceleration to their latest GeForce 6/7 GPUs. According to the PR, through Havok’s GPU-accelerated “effects physics” SDK dubbed Havok FX, Havok plans to use Shader Model 3.0 GPUs to simulate “the interactions of thousands of colliding rigid bodies, a fundamental technique of physics computation seen in today's latest games. It's now possible to compute the components of friction, collisions, gravity, mass, and velocity, that form the basis of rigid body physics.” NVIDIA made it pretty clear that Havok FX won’t affect gameplay objects, rather objects in the environment that don’t affect gameplay.

Say for instance, you toss a grenade into a room and it explodes. With Havok FX, the GPU will simulate the collisions of thousands of objects within the room once the grenade explodes (shards of glass, boxes, papers, etc).

What wasn’t as clear was ATI’s position on the technology. With this in mind, we inquired to the powers that be at ATI earlier this week for their thoughts on GPU-accelerated physics. If you recall, ATI first demonstrated physics acceleration during the R520 (Radeon X1800) launch last year. ATI’s Will Willis gladly agreed to answer our questions. The following is the complete text of our email exchange, which has taken place over the course of the past few days with Will at GDC:

FiringSquad: In light of NVIDIA’s announcement with Havok today on using HavokFX with GeForce cards, we were wondering if you guys had a response to NVIDIA? Is ATI working with Havok on getting Havok FX working with ATI’s shader model 3.0 Radeon X1K line? Have you looked into running this with CrossFire? Will you be working with Havok on getting Radeon support integrated into Havok FX, or do you plan on going your own way?

Will Willis: Regarding Havok, while we’re not making any announcements at the show, I can tell you that ATI will support all major physics engines. The beauty of ATI’s X1K architecture is that it gives game developers unmatched processing power for physics – it’s got everything you need to push parallel processing hard: powerful MIMD multithreaded engine, strong performance in dynamic branching, and low latency. All that gives developers the creative freedom to push the limits of realistic physics in their games. So we’re supporting the big players, and we’re delivering superior performance. As for specific cards and CrossFire, you can bet that we’re exploring all the options when it comes to physics on the GPU.

Havok itself has said that they’re a cross-platform software provider and that they don’t want to lock developers into any one specific hardware choice. They also recognize the strength in using the GPU to handle game physics. So all that said, you can probably see where this is going, but right now ATI isn’t announcing anything specific.

We will be talking about physics on the GPU behind closed doors at GDC, and if you’d like I can send that presentation to you later this week. It goes into more detail on the differences hardware can make in driving physics performance, and where ATI is aiming to take this market going forward. I’ll also make sure to get in touch as we get ready to make some announcements on this stuff down the road.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_physics/

[Z]

early 2008 i expect to see the new cell/nvidia based PSP2!
not so fast Sally :troutslap

you are getting way ahead of yourself. do you really expect the next handheld will appear before at least five years of PSP being in the market? we are talking about a capable console here. heck, I would like to see anything coming close to its power, price and size in the next two years.

what I do expect them to be working on is shrinkng RSX and possibly planning a one chip Cell/RSX. they will also try to shrink PSP's parts to make them cheaper to produce. this of course, does not necessarily mean a redesing of the syste,. PS2 went through about five internal redesigns but only had one noticeable change in the outter look. (there was the model with the IR port, minus iLink and quiter fan. but that isn't anything serious)

[cliffbo]

not so fast Sally :troutslap

you are getting way ahead of yourself. do you really expect the next handheld will appear before at least five years of PSP being in the market? we are talking about a capable console here. heck, I would like to see anything coming close to its power, price and size in the next two years.

what I do expect them to be working on is shrinkng RSX and possibly planning a one chip Cell/RSX. they will also try to shrink PSP's parts to make them cheaper to produce. this of course, does not necessarily mean a redesing of the syste,. PS2 went through about five internal redesigns but only had one noticeable change in the outter look. (there was the model with the IR port, minus iLink and quiter fan. but that isn't anything serious)

the handheld is different market to the console market. they may follow Nintendos phillosophy here. after all it works for them.

[Helios]

I keep hearing all this hubub about grandose Cell/nVidia based PSP2's. But the PSP's battery life is already very bad, wouldnt any cell based product sapp power that much more quickly? Cause lets face it lithium batteries are not changing a whole lot in the next few years.

[xbdestroya]

I keep hearing all this hubub about grandose Cell/nVidia based PSP2's. But the PSP's battery life is already very bad, wouldnt any cell based product sapp power that much more quickly? Cause lets face it lithium batteries are not changing a whole lot in the next few years.

Sony actually has some new batteries they're working on with much better life, but even that aside, Cell in and of itself is not a high-power chip. Obviously teh Cell inside a PSP2 would be at 65nm - at least - run at a very low voltage and clockspeed, have reduced SPE counts probably, and thus ultimately consume very little power. Probably less than the current chip even. Better doesn't necessarily mean more power hungry, or at least it doesn't have to. It's all in the implementation.

[Z]

Sony actually has some new batteries they're working on with much better life,
their Vaio laptop batteries are amazing. they have a model which lasts for 10 hours or more!
But the PSP's battery life is already very bad
I wouldn't say they were 'really bad'. having to play around 5 hours with full brightness and withough head phones in that quality is nothing short of amazing. also, there are 3rd party batteries which last even longer.
the handheld is different market to the console market. they may follow Nintendos phillosophy here. after all it works for them.
ah, that is one of the things I love about Sony; they don't just make something or enter a market with a normal product. they bring something with them. this reminds me of the 'disruptive policy' Ninty is talking about. ironic huh?

PSP isn't your normal handheld. far from it. with that much power, capabilities, flexibility, and production cost, expect PSP to be treated as a home console.
Ninty doesn't make a new handheld every 2 years. they only bring something new if there is a competitor about to release his own handheld. other than that, they keep remodeling it and making the dark screens brighter. how many next-step handhelds has Ninty made since the original Game Boy launched in the 80s? 4?

also, about PSP, even with all its unique aspect like the ones I mentioned, why would you release another model if it is a best seller, and the competition is years behind you in the tech race? you know there won't be a technical equivilant to your handheld and you are selling like made. why cut your own hand?

PSP is Sony's fastes selling product to date! it will eclips Box or Cube's market share by next year ;)

[yoshaw]

PSP2 baby, without a doubt. My instinct tells me that Sony must've heard the rumors about Xbox portable, so they thought it might be a wise move to hire Nvidia for the next Sony portable.

Imagine the possibilities, backwards compatible, h.264 playback possibility, PS2 level graphics(maybe more), heck even play downloadable PS2 games :P.

Rumors ahoy!

[cliffbo]

PSP2 baby, without a doubt. My instinct tells me that Sony must've heard the rumors about Xbox portable, so they thought it might be a wise move to hire Nvidia for the next Sony portable.

Imagine the possibilities, backwards compatible, h.264 playback possibility, PS2 level graphics(maybe more), heck even play downloadable PS2 games :P.

Rumors ahoy!

your right about the PSP2, but to suggest Sony would sign a another contract with nvidia just because MS has announced a handheld is way off. they don't react, they lead.