Kutaragi: "Game over" for Blu-ray-HD-DVD deal

Earlier in the month, Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi said that he saw a very slim chance that the Blu-ray and HD-DVD factions lead by Sony and Toshiba, respectively, would be able to come up with a unified next-generation disc standard. Now, he's even less optimistic.

Talking to Nikkei Electronics, Kutaragi stated that the negotiations between the Blu-ray and HD-DVD camps "is game over," emphasizing that the PlayStation 3's development and release period will not be delayed due to any future talks for a unified disc standard.

Not too long ago, discussions between the Blu-ray and HD-DVD factions began in an effort to come up with a unified solution that would satisfy both camps. However, talks fell apart after Toshiba announced last month that it has no plans to accept Blu-ray's disc structure as the base for a unified standard.

Kutaragi also talked to Nikkei about various aesthetics of the Cell chip. He commented that the microprocessor comes with eight synergistic processor elements (SPEs), since the number eight is an "exponential aesthetic." He also added that the Cell uses only seven of them since that's "the ultimate aesthetic" in an engineering sense; at E3, Sony revealed that ignoring one SPE as a redundancy will improve the chip's yield and allow production costs to drop dramatically.