AMD CEO: PlayStation 4 saved the company

In mid-2010, AMD was facing headwinds. It looked so bleak for a while that some analysts even predicted the company would go bankrupt before 2020. Today, its fortunes have improved a bit, thanks, among other things, to the successful Zen and RDNA architectures, investment in high-performance chips for PCs, servers and workstations with Epyc and Threadripper — and of course some luck when rival Intel was late and AMD was able to capitalize on TSMC’s success.

But during the tough years, it was AMD's collaboration with console manufacturers, among other things, that ensured there was money in the coffers to continue developing new circuits, he wrote. WCCF TechnologyAccording to Renato Fragale, AMD's head of gaming products, the Playstation 4 in particular deserves credit for AMD's ability to avoid bankruptcy.

Renato Fragali wrote on his LinkedIn profile that he led a 15-person development team that produced the PS4 chipset, “which is seen as one of the most successful launches in AMD’s history and helped AMD avoid bankruptcy.” AMD also made the chipset for Microsoft’s Xbox One during the same period, but either another executive was in charge or it didn’t fit the resume. It sold more than twice as many units as the Playstation 4.

AMD has continued to be the preferred partner for console manufacturers and is also behind the system circuitry in the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Nintendo has chosen Nvidia's chip for the Switch, and it's rumored to have done so for the Switch 2 as well.