Despite reports that the three prime consumer electronics giants will be working on next-generation, cutting-edge chips by 2010, Sony, Toshiba and NEC Electronics have all denied such claims. In fact, only Toshiba and NEC Electronics are attempting to renew the chip development alliance, and have left Sony out of the talks.

For the next line of 45nm chips for consumer electronics, Sony will be going their own separate way. "We have no intention of joint production. We make products ourselves, and if our capacity is not sufficient, we can turn to outside suppliers," a Sony representative said.

Next-generation development of smaller and more intricate chips require deeper pockets as development costs and upgraded facilities require more financial resources than usual.

Only experienced and money-burning giants, such as Intel and IBM, have every ability to develop next-generation chips without outside help. Whether or not this has any effect on the STI alliance (Sony Computer Entertainment, Toshiba, and IBM) for the Cell BE, Sony consumers will just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile, Intel has already been successful with a next-gen, 45nm-prototype of the Core 2 Duo processor ("Penryn"), and plans to mass produce a 32nm, 80-core processor ("Westmere") by around 2009.

Early registration to the Game Developers Conference and the London Games Summit, which will follow GDC in London this year, has been extended from September 15th to September 22nd. The two gaming meetings will begin on  October 2nd and carry on through to the 4th for GDC London and branch out to October 4th through 5th for the following Games Summit.

Both the GDC and the Games Summit in London will take place at the world-famous BAFTA Headquarters (Yes, the same place that gives out the TV awards) at 195 Piccadilly. You can register for the fee of £75, versus the £100 charge for registration through October 2nd so get your registration in early if you wish to attend!

GDC London focuses heavily on techniques for game development, so unless you are a game developer then joining the conference probably won't be that beneficial to you. However, if you plan to go into game development or programming it could be worth a try if you can cough up the cash. The registration fee includes two days of tutorials sponsored by IBM and NVIDIA, with the IBM tutorial covering Cell Broadband Engine application processing and the NVIDIA tutorial covering DirectX10 programming.

Visit: [London Games Summit Website]