Link
More Details about NVIDIA and Sony Joint Developments: CES 2005 Interview
Category: Editorial
by Anna Filatova
[ 01/17/2005 | 04:36 PM ]
We would like to offer you an interview with NVIDIA’s Vice President of Corporate Marketing, David Roman, who kindly agreed to answer a few questions about the cooperation with Sony and about the situation with Playstation 3 related projects.
During CES 2005 in Las Vegas I managed to get hold of David Roman, who is in charge of NVIDIA's Corporate marketing. In X-bit’s newswire we had quite a few posts lately about the Playstation 3 and NVIDIA’s contribution to the development of this new platform. And people have been talking a lot about it in the forums and all over the web. It looks like Playstation fans have become very aggressive and active lately: people want to know more about what’s happening. Therefore it was a great opportunity for me to ask a few questions about this extremely exciting and interesting topic.
Anna (X-bit labs): Thank you very much, David, for taking the time to answer some of my questions. I know there are many things that you cannot actually talk about, but nevertheless, I am sure there is a lot of interesting news from the development stage you could share with our readers.
David Roman: Well, yes, there is not much that we can say unfortunately. However, I could tell you what the story is and then you could probably ask me some questions.
We worked closely with the Sony PR team on the launch and now they are here as well also so we are just chatting about it. Basically on December the 7th we announced that we are collaborating on this next generation computer entertainment system. They don’t call it Playstation 3, but let’s assume that’s what it is. And basically what it is, it’s on next generation of GPU. As you know we don’t talk about next generation products but it’s our next generation of GPU. And we’ve been working with them to produce a customized version that is customized specifically to connect that to the cell processor, so that they could work together. And the timing and everything is up to them to disclose, although we will have some products a little bit later this year, so this is not that far in the future on the development side.
We’ve been working with them on the whole development platform for the software developers, which is one of the advantages to them with going outside, not doing it inside just in terms of the availability of tools, the availability of systems and things. What we developed was to come up with content and quickly and efficiently. In fact we engaged with them quite some time ago, so we‘ve been working with them for quite some time on the development platform overall for the new technology. The thing that we like about this partnership is not only the fact is that it’s Sony and it’s big and there is strong volume involved. But also the fact that Sony is very ambitious for where it wants this new computer entertainment system to go, so in terms of not just the 3D graphics but also in terms of the media processing, in terms of integration of different media types, and in terms of the role it going to play especially relative to what they see happening with the cell processor. The cell processor will be in lots of different devices, based around the palm and cellular tied together. So it’s a pretty ambitious thing that we are doing with 3D graphics technology. And we are thrilled to be cooperating on the graphics side.
There is not much we can say about the actual technology itself. First, because we don’t talk about our new technologies. We will be rolling a new graphics solution out as a GPU in addition to what we are doing with Sony.
With Sony, it’s a licensing deal. Sony will actually be manufacturing the chip themselves.
Anna (X-bit labs): From the technology stand point what will the new GPU developed for Playstation 3 resemble if we compare it to the desktop chips by NVIDIA?
David Roman: This is the next generation GPU, so after the GeForce 6 series this is going to be the next generation. So, this will be everything we have in GeForce 6 + whatever else we bring out. Obviously it will support DirectX 9, shader models 3, it will be the most feature-rich, the most powerful GPU that we’ve ever created actually, when it comes out.
Anna (X-bit labs): The cooperation with Sony is a big step forward for NVIDIA. Would you expect this agreement to extend to other markets, such as portable consoles, set-top boxes, etc., or you will be staying with Sony Playstation only?
David Roman: The agreement with Sony, the specific license deal is on the console. However, as part of the agreement we are looking at other Sony devices that will have the cell processors. We haven’t announced yet but we are exploring some other opportunities within Sony, within the world of Sony. The license deal is specifically with Sony computer entertainment, which is the subsidiary dealing with the consoles, but in fact the agreement actually does include talking to Sony about some of the other consumer electronics products.
Anna (X-bit labs): Is it an exclusive agreement with Sony, or does it imply that you can use your developments in agreements with other manufactures working in the same market of gaming consoles and similar devices?
David Roman: Well, we can’t disclose the details of the agreement, but it is concluded with Sony. It was a joint development with Sony, so Sony is fabricating the chips therefore this is not something that I would see will be available outside the world of Sony. Although this has been developed with Sony computer entertainment, there is an opportunity for other groups within Sony to also use the technology.
Anna (X-bit labs): As far as I know NVIDIA may claim that there was not that much investment into the RND: only about 50 engineers. Is this the result of the fact that Sony’s own engineers contributed to the development of the GPU in a significant way?
David Roman: We do not disclose anything on the actual resources. Obviously there is a major economy of scale. This chip is a custom version of our next generation GPU. So we’ve been working on the next generation GPU for close to two years now, namely about 18 months. I don’t know the cost of this one but I know the cost of the last generation: it was 350 million dollars. These are expensive chips to develop. So, the fact that we didn’t have to do that development just for the Sony application obviously is a major economy of scale, because we are doing the development for the new chip anyway. The amount of work involved into customization, I don’t know. I know that we designed a new generic team, we had been working with Sony before on the actual development platform, we had actually been working on the details of the chip. We now have assigned an engineering team to work as a Sony engineering team. And the numbers? I don’t know what the numbers are but I am sure they are growing, but there is a lot of work that’s going on. As I have said we do not disclose the details, but there is certainly some economy of scale due to building it on the technology that we have been working on for a long time. So, it is the next generation of GPU.
Anna (X-bit labs): How do you think the cooperation with NVIDIA will help Sony to compete with Microsoft XBox? How would you evaluate the advantages of this cooperation in relation to competition?
David Roman: This is tricky one to answer. I would say some of the reasons why we think that is beneficial, some of the things that are going to help Sony with it, is first of all the actual development platform itself. As graphics becomes more and more complex, it’s not just the actual technology of the graphics processor, but it’s also the whole development platform that’s available to the software vendors to actually be able to take advantage of the feature set in terms of the tools, in terms of the support, in terms of the code that’s already written, the routines that are there. That’s something we do very well because that’s our business. And because we’ve been working on this next generation GPU, we have already been developing a lot of that material. So, I think in that sense compared to how Sony did it before, they did that in-house: they had to normally develop the technology, but then also develop all the tools for the platform to actually give to the developers to create content. There is an advantage to them in not having to do that. They can work with us because we are developing prototype anyway.
The other reason is just in terms of resources, I think we are all getting to the point where huge companies like Sony when we are tackling something new like this, developing the new CPU in terms of cell, developing whole new set of media based technologies, things that are working on the display side, they have to work on the graphics side as well. These are big development companies. Most likely the benefits to them will be to be able to allocate those resources for things they are specifically very good at, and using our resources for things we are good at. We know how to develop graphics processors, that’s our main.
Also the development of the actual platform tools is something one would think would be easier than in the past, when they had to work on their own platform and at the same time to build their own technology.
The next generation of consoles is going to be exciting. Everybody has very high expectations for all of the coming out hot new technologies, which we will see in the next generation products. This is going to be exciting.
Anna (X-bit labs): How would you evaluate the growth of the console gaming market relative to the PC gaming market?
David Roman: The market is growing a lot. You know what happens with consoles. Their life cycle is relatively long: 5-7 years, and the growth at the beginning of the cycle is very-very rapid, and then it starts to slow down. I think now it is the tail end of the current generation. Typically when there is the whole new generation of consoles across the market the growth is very rapid, very high. I would think that would happen again with this transition.
In addition to that I think all of the console manufacturers are looking at redefining the console as being a much more universal sort of device than just a games console, a device more compatible with the living-room environment. There appears more integration with photo, media, and other different things. Their ambition is to go beyond the game market, which suggests that they would increase the market potential.
On the PC side the PC vendors are doing the same. I am saying let’s bring the PC into the living-room, let’s make the PC sort of generic device. So, it certainly brings tension in the market. In terms of growth potential I would suspect that the consoles will enjoy a higher growth because of the price line and because it is the new generation of consoles that will be much more compatible. That will be an exciting time!
Anna (X-bit labs): Will NVIDIA’s primary focus still remain on the PC GPU development, or you see the opportunity for your company to shift more towards the digital home initiative and appropriate class of devices cooperating with Sony and other manufacturers on the development of solutions in this field?
David Roman: You know I don’t want to sound as if we were just waffling on this but we do tend to focus on all of these fields. Let me put it this way: we don’t see the PC decreasing in terms of importance. But in terms of the relative size of our business there will be more growth outside of the PC space simply because those devices are growing faster. We do see that happening. We do still see that PC is being absolutely crucial for all of this media integration and all these new things to become possible. In terms of volume more of our business will still come from the non-PC space.
In terms of development, a lot of these devices still look like PCs. From our standpoint we develop a graphics processor that works in an environment and is driven by system architecture whether the form-factor is out of a PC, a game console, or a PDA. To some degree it doesn’t matter that much from a development stand point. That obviously matters for business and integration, but from a development stand point it doesn’t matter that much. I would say that we haven’t really changed our prospective that the PC and the PC architecture is fundamental for our development. It’s just that we see many more applications for that outside.
Now, the wireless media processing side is different. Because what we are looking in the cell technology is based around different nature of the business: it is driven by power consumption, much more driven by media playback, and video, and 3D. And we may very soon see cell phones that even though physically are not like the PC, the architectural model is probably moving more to the PC thing in terms of the setting issues, in terms of the common infrastructure, less vertical integration. Physically it may look like a system-on-a-chip, the architecture is more like a PC architecture, an integrated device architecture.
Returning to your question, we do not see ourselves moving away from the PC side at all, but it’s true that PC business will be a smaller percentage of our total sales, although it will still be growing in absolute terms.
