A small story I found details a new venture between Sony and Toshiba, they're to start manufacturing graphics processors and Cell microprocessors, can this be the prelude to Toshiba's Blu-ray player? It seems like Sony is giving some heavy concessions to Toshiba. Remember that unlike American corporations, Japanese corporations though appearing to be rivals, have a symbiotic relationship and always put Japan first.
"Toshiba-Sony JV to make advanced chips
Thursday, February 21, 2008 at 05:00 EST
TOKYO — Toshiba Corp and Sony Corp said Wednesday they will set up a joint venture to produce from April high-performance semiconductors, including products for Sony's PlayStation video game consoles. The joint venture, whose name will be fixed at a later date, will be capitalized at 100 million yen, of which Toshiba will put up 60%, while Sony and its game arm Sony Computer Entertainment Inc will each provide 20%, the companies said.
In line with an agreement announced in October last year, Toshiba is set to acquire by March 31 the 300-millimeter wafer fabrication facilities at the Sony group's Nagasaki Technology Center in Isahaya, Nagasaki Prefecture, for around 90 billion yen, the firms said.
Toshiba will then loan the facilities to the joint venture.
The joint venture, to be located in the Nagasaki center, will manufacture the Cell microprocessor and the RSX graphics processing chip for the PlayStation 3 game console as well as Toshiba's leading-edge system-on-chip products for use in digital consumer goods."
(Mods: I posted about this on Steam Vent as part of a "business-Ed" thread, but the more I thought about it, this could be interesting indeed if this will be Toshiba's genesis of their Blu-ray player.)
