In dit artikel is het verbazingwekkende nieuws te lezen dat Sony van haar PlayStation een open formaat gaat maken. Dit betekent dat de onderdelen gewoon los gaan worden verkocht, net als bij gewone PC-onderdelen. Mensen kunnen dan zelf een betere Playstation in elkaar knutselen.
In a bid to dominate the videogame business and establish a beachhead in embedded systems, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. will sell on the merchant market the high-performance microprocessors and graphics chips used to drive its Playstation 2 game console, beginning next year. The company will also open up the platform's format, a move analysts say could dramatically swell the number of Playstation users.
Sony will back up its drive into the merchant market with a $1.2 billion investment to expand its semiconductor manufacturing plants. "With this investment, we will enter into a new business phase," said Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment. Increased production capabilities mean "we will be able to provide customers with powerful and flexible processor functions," he said.[break]Sony heeft ook nog heel wat plannen met het Playstation platform:[/break]Once the chips are out on the open market, the company intends to offer multiple kinds of Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesizer derivatives based on customer requests.
One possible application cited by Kutaragi is home servers that act as gateways for broadband networks and handle a large data stream, such as streaming video. "There will be enormous data traffic on the broadband network," he said. "Servers and routers should have an enormous processing capability. That's one possibility for Playstation 2 chips."
Another possible application might be to put the Graphics Synthesizer in a printer, to crank up its graphic-processing capability.
Sony Computer Entertainment intends to provide support and joint R&D programs to help customers adapt the two chips to fit their platforms. However, the company has no plans to license either one as an intellectual property core.
Het kan allemaal nog best interessant worden, en niet alleen voor console-liefhebbers...