Sony shrinks PS2 chips -- cuts costs

[Arris]

From :
14:27 Monday 8th April 2002 (GMT)

The company has combined the Emotion Engine and Graphics Synthesiser chips into a single unit using a 0.13-micron manufacturing process, said Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi in Japanese trade publication Nikkei Microdevices. The original PlayStation 2 chips were designed to be manufactured on a 0.18-0.15 micron process. Shrinking the design rule and combining the processors into one unit will not directly affect the console's performance, but smaller processors consume less power and are less costly to manufacture.

This should help Sony battle the Xbox which hasn't taken off in the UK, Europe or Japan as well as it did in the US. With the current PS2 priced at £199 I am curious to see how much cheaper this new 0.13 micron update can make it. With the Xbox at £299 in the UK this could give Sony the initiative to hold on to the majority of the console market until they release the PS3 or any other box of tricks they might have in development.