Nvidia Walked Away From PS4 Hardware Negotiations 255
An anonymous reader writes "Tony Tamsai, Nvidia's senior vice president of content and technology, has said that providing hardware for use in the PlayStation 4 was on the table, but they walked away. Having provided chips for use in both the PS3 and the original Xbox, that decision doesn't come without experience. Nvidia didn't want to commit to producing hardware at the cost Sony was willing to pay. They also considered that by accepting a PS4 contract, they wouldn't have the resources to do something else in another sector. In other words, the PS4 is not a lucrative enough platform to consider when high-end graphics cards and the Tegra line of chips hold so much more revenue potential."
Console margins can't be good (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to provide lots of parts at low cost and they will surely write in a lower price for each continued year of the console. That means you are tying up fab time on something is on an outdated process a few years down the road.
On the other hand AMD had to do this, they need the money so any margin is likely acceptable.
Public Relations.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are people running a blatent self-serving PR story?
We lost but... we didn't really want to win it anyway!
Re:Console margins can't be good (Score:5, Insightful)
Money, yes but possibly also market share. People currently often write and test games only on nvidia hardware and then if it does not beak totally on AMD cards consider it done. With the differences between the cards this will give nvida a performance advantage in all games written this way, although I have no idea how much. AMD just turned the tables for all games written originally for the PS4, quite a win for PC ports of console games too I expect.
Re:Console margins can't be good (Score:2, Insightful)
yea but that optimization only lasts a few months before its totally outdated, usually before the console hits the stores. The embedded solutions on the other hand have a much higher rate of product rotation meaning you can get the latest n greatest out to customers without holding up fab on a 10 year old design for systems that usually only have high sales within the first couple of years.
Re:Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
This. I'm shocked no one else saw what was obvious here.
AMD is providing a unified CPU/GPU on a single die that shares the same memory and bandwidth. For Nvidia to provide a separate GPU to compete at the same performance and price would be really difficult, if not impossible.
Re:Console margins can't be good (Score:5, Insightful)
You're making the assumption that they thought about this. The people involved in the decision probably numbered in the dozens tops, with most of them marketing and finance people. With the way companies seem to be run to realize maximum profits in the short term these days, it's even possible they realized this but turned down the long term gain anyway.
Re:Console margins can't be good (Score:2, Insightful)
Fixed.
Re:Wonder what they told MS (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you? One of the reasons the original XBox was pulled off the market as soon as the 360 came out (and no slim was ever made) was because nVidia reportedly refused to do a die shrink or combine dies, etc. So MS was left with a big, hot, expensive chip while Sony was able to shrink theirs and lower their costs dramatically.
MS might still hold a grudge on that one.
No sane business holds grudges like that. If MS wants it, it'll be written into the next contract and either nVidia will agree or not get the contract.
Re:Wonder what they told MS (Score:2, Insightful)
No sane business holds grudges like that.
The electronics industry isn't sane, then.
Re:Console margins can't be good (Score:5, Insightful)
You're making the assumption that they thought about this. The people involved in the decision probably numbered in the dozens tops, with most of them marketing and finance people. With the way companies seem to be run to realize maximum profits in the short term these days, it's even possible they realized this but turned down the long term gain anyway.
Given the fact that we're talking about AMD and Nvidia, my guess is that it was a thoughtful decision.
The fact that they have walked away before, that AMD is in previous consoles, and that everyone is continuously crying (from the tech world and wall street alike) that AMD is near it's end (even though it's not), it sounds like they might have made a good decision.
AMD is going to spend a lot of time making a low margin product that is going to be outdated next year but one that they have to keep spending resources and time on for years. Nvidia is going to be spending their time on supercomputer applications, drivers, and pushing their image as a higher end card.
Sometimes you walk away from a business deal because you want your competitor to win it.