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Sony plans to sell PS3 chip production facilities to Toshiba

Sony may be planning to sell its chip production facilities to Toshiba for $865 million, if reports by the AP and Reuters are to be believed. The production facilities will include the lines that manufacture the PlayStation 3's Cell chip, and may or may not include the manufacturing of image sensors, depending on whether you believe Reuters or the AP's report. After the sale, Sony will probably continue to purchase chips from the facilities, with the company's game unit possibly also taking a stake in exchange for some kind of operational control. The deal isn't expected to go down for a few months yet, so even if there any problems in the handover, the PS3's production shouldn't see any short term issues. Sony and Toshiba have already responded to these reports, but managed to neither confirm nor deny their veracity to Japanese publication ITMedia.

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Read - Sony may sell game chip (Reuters)
Read - Sony to sell advanced chip operations (IHT)
Read - Toshiba / Sony neither confirm or deny the news (ITMedia)