On March 17, Nvidia spoke out on the Playstation 4. They said that they weren’t impressed by the console and that it would quickly become outdated. There was some discussion of whether or not AMD simply won the negotiation battle, because who wouldn’t want to be involved in the ever-expanding console market?
It appears that some of those inferences may hold more truth than previously thought. At this year’s Game Developer’s Conference, AMD has said that they gave the Playstation 4 what Nvidia couldn’t provide. Neal Robison, director of ISV relations at AMD, had this to say during an interview with Techradar:
"[Sony's] approach – and they've said this publicly over the last couple of days here at GDC – was, 'We looked at some of the ways that we approached hardware in the past, and we wanted to improve.' And they looked at us as being able as being able to provide that."
“AMD could provide an integrated solution through its APU that Nvidia couldn't,” he continued, “by optimizing information flows, generating greater performance, better power and heat efficiency, and by providing tools and dev relationships to provide the PS4 a strong launch.”
When asked about what Nvidia said, Robison honorably made an attempt to drop the subject.
"Well, of course they're going to do that,” Robison laughed, “They're a little bitter."
Robison was then asked if AMD would be continuing its working relationship with Microsoft. AMD provided chips for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console. Robison deflected the question, but did note that AMD had “tremendous success” with the Xbox 360 and that, “"It was a great partnership and we enjoy working with them.”
Going by the quick dismissal, we’re guessing that AMD has something brewing for Microsoft as well.
