AMD’s financial crisis in the late 2000s was a drama story. Insufficient revenues and costly expansion strategies pushed the company to the brink of bankruptcy. But an unexpected PlayStation 4 subsidy from Japan came to AMD’s rescue. Here are the details of what happened at that time…
PlayStation 4 saved AMD from bankruptcy
The financial crisis of 2008 was a difficult time for many companies and AMD was no exception. The company’s LinkedIn profile and the words of Phil Park, an engineer who has been with AMD for 19 years, reveal just how difficult that period was. While Intel quickly recovered from the financial crisis, AMD couldn’t get back on its feet. On top of that, the acquisition of ATI added to the company’s financial burden. So much so that they had to sell IPs like Adreno and many employees had to live on temporary pay cuts.
AMD had their first success with the first Fusion-APU, which they called Bobcat. But the big moment came when Sony decided to use AMD’s Jaguar architecture processors for the PlayStation 4. This was a real turning point for AMD. The PlayStation 4 was a huge success worldwide, selling more than 117 million units, and AMD’s Jaguar processors became one of the most widely used chips. Microsoft used the same processors in the Xbox One.
Thanks to these huge sales, AMD has managed to stay afloat. The continuous revenues from Sony PlayStation 4 and Microsoft have allowed the company to make new investments and focus on future projects, such as the Zen architecture. The Zen architecture allowed AMD to become competitive with Intel again.
So, AMD was on the verge of bankruptcy in 2008. Employees shared the challenges of that period on LinkedIn and X. The acquisition of ATI was financially challenging and the sale of IPs like Adreno provided financial stability. The introduction of the Fusion-APU called Bobcat was a success. PlayStation 4 and Xbox One used AMD processors and sales of PS4 saved AMD from bankruptcy. The Zen architecture allowed AMD to return to the competition. Now AMD is back on the scene with the Zen architecture and competing head-to-head with Intel.
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