【转】索尼 你被IBM和微软联手涮了
文章来源：http://bbs.evolife.cn/viewthread.php?tid=665&extra=page%3D1新一代游戏主机大战，如果你还不明白为什么SONY PS3比微软XBOX360晚一年问世，却被后者打得一塌糊涂的诡异，那今天华尔街日报的读书栏目中《The Race For A New Game Machine》一书，也许能帮我们找到大量线索。
这本由IBM游戏主机CPU设计部门工程师撰写的回忆录中提及，在2001年的时候，SONY、IBM、东芝三者联手研发Cell处理器时，微软随即与IBM接触，以高额订单为交换获得了Cell处理器的详细规格图，并在IBM的帮助下领先于Cell CPU量产，从而获得了1年的竞争优势。
IBM在整个计划中提供研发人力，设于美国德州Austin的研发总部有着Sony及Toshiba派遣的工程师团队，大家一同生活吃住，目标为2005年圣诞节让 PS3上市。就当2002年微软与IBM接触后，事情有了变化。2003年IBM 的Adam Bennett甚至向微软公开正在开发中的Cell 规格详图，微软决定交由IBM研发新主机的CPU，至此IBM两手掌握两大订单。
一段诡奇的回忆：同住于紧邻小卧间的IBM的员工得对来自Sony与Toshiba的工程师保密以防他们为微软设计处理器的合约计划泄漏，而 360处理器晶片的验证进度也比Cell超前。Shippy先生感受到一股良知上的煎熬，称自己的本性已被污染，因为他是在用着之前为PS3主机处理器设 计过程中所学到的经验在与微软工程师协同规划新处理器的架构需求。
Sony遭遇的惨事不只于此，就当IBM完成两大公司的设计合约后，IBM的晶片制造部门却发生问题。相比于未预料到此巨变的Sony因此遭受 六周的推迟才拿到第一批Cell晶片，微软将备用产能转移于第三厂商的先见之明让微软比Sony还早拿到新主机的处理器晶片。微软拿到了Sony出钱培养 工程师积累经验后研发的晶片，及时赶上2005 11月首发，而PS3最终因一连串阻扰导致推迟一年上市。
华尔街日报全文节选
Like dynasties rising and falling, videogame systems enjoy periods of ascendancy and popular support, only to be thrust aside by a new and conquering power. First came Magnavox Odyssey (in the 1970s), then Atari consoles, then Nintendo, which dominated the market for the better part of the 1980s. In the early 1990s, Nintendo's Super NES and Sega Genesis battled each other for supremacy. Each found enough competitive room to lay the groundwork for the modern videogame console, which has become something like a dedicated personal computer.
It was in the mid-1990s that Sony dropped Playstation into the console market -- a graphics powerhouse that featured games for adults as well as for kids. Playstation was a huge success, selling more than 100 million units. Its 2000 sequel, the Playstation 2, was an even bigger one.
For the system's ambitious third iteration, though, Sony wanted an entirely new processing architecture. Most computer processing chips are built on the foundations of the chips that are already in use. Designing a new chip from the ground up is a costly and time-intensive process. So in 2001 Sony partnered with Toshiba and IBM to create the so-called Cell processor -- a chip so powerful that it would redefine PC-scale power.
David Shippy, as it happens, was in charge of designing the brains of the Cell, the processing core. In "The Race for a New Game Machine," he and his co-worker Mickie Phipps tell the story of the whole effort to build the Cell. They also describe how the project went off the rails, ending up with IBM engineers creating the processing chips for two rival videogame consoles and, along the way, delivering to Sony Corp. one of its greatest business failures.
The Race for a New Game Machine
By David Shippy and Mickie Phipps
(Citadel, 240 pages, $21.95)
When the companies entered into their partnership in 2001, Sony, Toshiba and IBM committed themselves to spending $400 million over five years to design the Cell, not counting the millions of dollars it would take to build two production facilities for making the chip itself. IBM provided the bulk of the manpower, with the design team headquartered at its Austin, Texas, offices. Sony and Toshiba sent teams of engineers to Austin to live and work with their partners in an effort to have the Cell ready for the Playstation 3's target launch, Christmas 2005.
But a funny thing happened along the way: A new "partner" entered the picture. In late 2002, Microsoft approached IBM about making the chip for Microsoft's rival game console, the (as yet unnamed) Xbox 360. In 2003, IBM's Adam Bennett showed Microsoft specs for the still-in-development Cell core. Microsoft was interested and contracted with IBM for their own chip, to be built around the core that IBM was still building with Sony.
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 deal only got worse for Sony. Both designs were delivered on time to IBM's manufacturing division, but there was a problem with the first chip run. Microsoft had had the foresight to order backup manufacturing capacity from a third party. Sony did not and had to wait another six weeks to get their first chips. So Microsoft actually got the chip that Sony helped design before Sony did. In the end, Microsoft's Xbox 360 hit its target launch in November 2005, becoming its own success. Because of various delays, the Playstation 3 was pushed back a full year.
Mr. Shippy and Ms. Phipps view the delivery of the Cell processor and the derivative Xbox chip as victories for both companies. "Both Sony and Microsoft were extremely successful at achieving their goals," they write. But this is true only in the narrowest sense. The new chips certainly set the standard for technical virtuosity. Yet the current generation of videogame console has been dominated not by Sony or Microsoft but by the Wii, Nintendo's modest machine that relies on an older, cheaper and less powerful chip. With an input device that allows players physically to interact with games, the Wii has been yet another runaway success, selling almost as many consoles as the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 combined.
In fact, the Playstation 3 now runs a distant third in sales. (And the trend is downward: On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported that "U.S. sales of the PS3 fell 19% last month from a year earlier, while sales doubled for the Wii console and rose 8% for the Xbox 360.") For Sony, the Cell processor was such a debacle that two weeks after the Playstation 3 finally appeared in stores, the company fired Ken Kutaragi, the head of its gaming unit, who had championed the Cell and built the Playstation line. The lesson, lost on Mr. Shippy and Ms. Phipps, is that technical supremacy divorced from sound strategic vision is no virtue. It can even end up in disaster.
[ 本帖最后由 siren 于 2009-1-6 17:13 编辑 ] 第二次了 看来几天不关注游戏区就有火星的风险。。。
页:
[1]