NVIDIA Nabs PS3 Graphics Contract

Financial terms for the “broad, multi-year, royalty-bearing agreement” signed by Nvidia and Sony were not made public, but given the way each new generation of PlayStation has significantly outsold the previous one, PS3 should be a nice little money spinner for the graphics chip maker, and one that potentially will do more for its bottom line than the Xbox 2/Next contract would have.

Unlike the original deal with Microsoft, Nvidia’s partnership with Sony extends only as far as the graphics chip, not to system logic too. Nvidia will design for Sony a “custom… next-generation GeForce” chip for 3D graphics and image processing.

Apparently, Nvidia has been working on the chip for the last two years, according to company CEO Jen-Hsun Huang. That would put the start of company’s involvement in PS3 development at least eight months before ATI confirmed its Xbox 2 design win. Then, it was suggested that Nvidia and Microsoft had fallen out over how much the latter owed the former for its graphics technology, and that led to the decision to adopt ATI chippery.

The Register
Nvidia nabs PS3 graphics contract