A remarkable story has emerged claiming that AMD’s upcoming Navi graphics architecture was created for Sony’s PlayStation 5. Citing insider sources, Forbes contributor Jason Evangelho says that up to two thirds of the engineering staff was diverted to the project, with a negative knock-on effect on the development of AMD’s Vega GPU technology. The report also suggests that this occurred against the wishes of the firm’s then-Chief Architect, Raja Koduri, who has since moved on to Intel.
The Forbes report goes on to suggest that PlayStation 5 will feature AMD’s Zen core as the basis for its CPU component, which is almost certain to be the case bearing in mind how the current-gen console transition to x86 architecture has benefited games development – and that Zen’s design offers superb efficiency and high performance with a relatively small silicon footprint, a perfect fit for console designs. The Zen tech – seen in AMD’s Ryzen processors – is also a shoe-in for Microsoft’s next hardware, with Phil Spencer confirming a rebalancing of CPU and GPU power more in line with PC in a recent Giant Bomb interview.
If true, the idea of AMD diverting so much of its engineering resources to a Sony project is quite remarkable, but the firm’s commercial arrangements with both Xbox and PlayStation consoles are hugely important. According to AMD’s 2017 financial report, the Sony and Microsoft deals each account for 10 per cent of the firm’s entire revenue. “A loss of any of these customers would have a material adverse effect on our business,” the report says. Indeed, adding in AMD’s deal with HP, the cash from just those three customers accounts for 44 per cent of the firm’s overall net revenues. With that in mind, collaborating so closely with Sony – the current console market leader – may make sense as that income could conceivably dwarf its revenues from PC desktop graphics.
Source: Eurogamer Report: AMD's next graphics architecture built for PlayStation 5