Cell Chip Designer Felt 'Contaminated' by Xbox Options

[Xbox-Scene]

Cell Chip Designer Felt 'Contaminated' by Xbox Posted by XanTium | January 1 18:48 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From spong.com: [QUOTE] The Race for a New Game Machine [book] details how Sony, Toshiba and IBM formed the Cell partnership in 2001, each committing several hundred million dollars. It was agreed that IBM would be able to sell the Cell to third-parties. Everybody gathered at IBM's Austin HQ. Then, in 2002, Microsoft approached its old ally-cum-adversary, IBM, with a view to Big Blue creating a chip for a new game console. This lead to what could be seen either as a comedy or a tragedy depending on your loyalty. Agreements meant that engineers within the IBM team could not share knowledge with Toshiba or Sony colleagues regarding their Xbox 360 chip design. This lead to work being hidden while simultaneously the Sony Cell was in test just below the room where the Xbox 360 internals were being put through their paces. According to the Wall Street Journal, Mr Shippy "felt 'contaminated' as he sat down with the Microsoft engineers, helping them to sketch out their architectural requirements with lessons learned from his earlier work on PlayStation". [/QUOTE] Full Story: spong.com

[Elemino]

MS & IBM go way back, what do you expect? It's like a couple that broke up years ago asking for a favor.

[DeMoN_DARREN]

Hahhah, very funny/interesting stuff. I would pick it up if I read....

[Davek1013]

im sorry he feels that way maybe he shuold grow a pair and realize that big companies will do whatever tha f they can to get an edge over competitors. who really cares sony could have done more im sure they just didnt forsee it as being a major concern which is 100% sonys fault
Mickie Phipps copied his name from an olympic swimmer and im gonna ship David Shippy a shipment of %#$!

[jsawyer86]

Oh how I love the battles that rage on.

[PerfectGun]

"While Shippy may have felt that way about a Microsoft chip designed with money from Sony, Microsoft's ahead planning was uncontaminated by amateurism. The chips for both consoles arrived on time at IBM's manufacturing facility... but errors occurred in the first batch leaving Sony hanging. Microsoft had arranged for a third-party facility as back-up. Sony had not."

LOL!

"Microsoft's ahead planning was uncontaminated by amateurism."

But hey these 2 amateurs/hacks now have writing careers! Thankfully MS had a third party backup that didn't feel so ewwww contaminated enough to make a chip that works the first time.

[johnnyrico]

lol, MS and IBM are like the couple that divorced out of court with joint custody

[metalcoat]

What architecture? Didn't xbox just use a slightly modified PowerPC chip?

[johnnyrico]

What architecture? Didn't xbox just use a slightly modified PowerPC chip?

powerPC: IBM hardware.

[Elemino]

I'd like to know if Sony will continue with this Cell crap or go back to traditional processing next go around. They could easily use a quad core something, or dual quad cores if they're set on multi core processing. But if they use a chip that's already out there they could cut their costs significantly.

[Chancer]

If you want a different angle on things (If some of you can actually look from all sides). the following sourced by HSD is interesting
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/01/0657211
Snapshot

"Sony, Toshiba and IBM committed themselves to spending $400 million over five years to design the Cell, not counting the millions of dollars it would take to build two production facilities for making the chip itself. IBM provided the bulk of the manpower, with the design team headquartered at its Austin, Texas, offices. ... But a funny thing happened along the way: A new 'partner' entered the picture. In late 2002, Microsoft approached IBM about making the chip for Microsoft's rival game console, the (as yet unnamed) Xbox 360. In 2003, IBM's Adam Bennett showed Microsoft specs for the still-in-development Cell core. Microsoft was interested and contracted with IBM for their own chip, to be built around the core that IBM was still building with Sony. All three of the original partners had agreed that IBM would eventually sell the Cell to other clients.

This post has been edited by Chancer: Jan 2 2009, 06:28 PM

[johnnyrico]

If you want a different angle on things (If some of you can actually look from all sides). the following sourced by HSD is interesting
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/01/0657211
Snapshot

so are we seeing some twisted form of corporate espionage here?
interesting article btw.

[Elemino]

so are we seeing some twisted form of corporate espionage here?

No, not really. What they did is no different from a majority of the manufacturing companies in the US. The company builds something for one client and uses what they've learned with the next client even showing the next client a design in progress to give them an idea of what they might want. In other words, if you design a specialty printer for one client, you might use that same printer again and again afterwards. Same thing here.

[HotKnife420]

No, not really. What they did is no different from a majority of the manufacturing companies in the US. The company builds something for one client and uses what they've learned with the next client even showing the next client a design in progress to give them an idea of what they might want. In other words, if you design a specialty printer for one client, you might use that same printer again and again afterwards. Same thing here.

A better example would be the TV market. How many times have you seen an off-brand television set that has strikingly similar appearance and menu functions as a name brand set? Essentially, it's the same TV, with some very minor adjustments (usually), as if you took it apart you would find most (if not all) of the same components.

[Chancer]

A better example would be the TV market. How many times have you seen an off-brand television set that has strikingly similar appearance and menu functions as a name brand set? Essentially, it's the same TV, with some very minor adjustments (usually), as if you took it apart you would find most (if not all) of the same components.

Happens all the time and some people would be shocked at which manufacturers short change them by re-badging cheap crap as their own. But at the end of the day the public gets what it wants minimum price for consumer electronics, regardless of the quality.

Seems from the article that MS were also going to go initially with the Cell core as well.


This post has been edited by Chancer: Jan 3 2009, 01:55 PM