The
Wall Street Journal reports that a new book by IBM engineers has revealed some startling facts about the most recent console race. "The Race for a New Game Machine," by IBM engineers David Shippy and Mickie Phipps, details how research conducted for Sony's Cell processor--used in the PlayStation 3--ended up directly benefiting the development of Micorosft's Xbox 360 chip.
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The Journal summarizes: All three of the original partners had agreed that IBM would eventually sell the Cell to other clients. But it does not seem to have occurred to Sony that IBM would sell key parts of the Cell before it was complete and to Sony's primary videogame-console competitor. The result was that Sony's R&D money was spent creating a component for Microsoft to use against it.
Mr. Shippy and Ms. Phipps detail the resulting absurdity: IBM employees hiding their work from Sony and Toshiba engineers in the cubicles next to them; the Xbox chip being tested a few floors above the Cell design teams. Mr. Shippy says that he 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.
The article notes that while both chip designs were shipped off to manufacturing on time, a problem with production caused Microsoft to receive its chips first, allowing Microsoft to beat Sony to the market with the Xbox 360.
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