Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (SCEI) is planning to use what it has learned developing chips for its latest PlayStation 2 games console in a new workstation graphics accelerator business. SCEI chief executive officer, Ken Kutaragi, says that the company wants to get into the less than lucrative workstation market as a way of driving the technology curve of chips for the PlayStation 3 and providing games developers with workstations specifically optimized for PlayStation graphics and games coding.
I don’t think that the workstation business will be able to turn a profit, but we will supply the funds for the development work there from the games side of the company, Kutaragi said, in interview with Japanese magazine, Nikkei Electronics. He said that Sony’s innovative graphics processor, the Emotion Engine, would be the basis of workstation chips. The first workstation chips from Sony will arrive sometime next year.
Kutaragi said that SCEI was particularly targeting SGI Inc in the graphics market. SCE is prepared to take on the challenges that SGI isn’t prepared to, Kutaragi said, claiming that SGI doesn’t have enough strength remaining to go on competing on the very cutting edge of technology.
