Samsung remem's Xbox
New contract for the New Year
Samsung Semiconductor plans to announce later today that it has renewed its contract with Microsoft to supply memory chips for the Xbox game console. At the console's current rate of sale, the deal puts Samsung in a very healthy position, and it draws attention away from the dire state of the PC DRAM industry, where manufacturers sold memory below cost for much of last year just to keep factories open. "The long-term contracts present a number of benefits in that suppliers can plan much more efficiently," VLSI Research analyst Risto Puhakka told News.com. With Japanese and European launches on the horizon, this contract cements the state of the Xbox for the time being. The rumoured Xbox revision (which may or may not include a small aesthetic change ala the transition from PlayStation to PSone, if indeed it comes about at all) will obviously continue to use Samsung chips. Related Feature - Xperience