AMD Shares Surges After CEO Discloses Possible PlayStation NEO And Nintendo NX Wins

At the risk of not wanting to count chickens before they hatch, it's pretty hard to not be excited for AMD right now. For so many years, the company has struggled to increase its share value due to a lack of truly competitive products. However, this week, we've heard of two examples of how AMD could turn itself around, and the benefits are already materializing.

A couple of days ago, we reported that AMD struck a deal to license its processor and SoC technologies so that Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co., can create its own processors based on AMD's technologies. The deal is reported as being worth $239 million. That might sound like a drop in the bucket for a company as large as AMD, but it could count for a lot going forward.

AMD could also reap some great rewards from being chosen to supply chips for both the upcoming Nintendo NX and Sony's PlayStation 4.5 "NEO". While Nintendo's platform is official, as the company itself announced it a while ago, the upgraded PlayStation is very much still considered to be a rumor. But as the rumors surrounding it continue to swell, it's becoming increasingly likely that a PS 4.5 is in fact going to happen. Oh, and there's also the little fact that AMD CEO Lisa Su on the company's latest financial call dropped a big hint about the console, giving us hints that it will be released in 2017. 

With the potential of a PS4.5, many vocal PS4 owners have complained about Sony wanting to supplant such a youthful platform so soon. But recent rumors lead us to believe that there is little to worry about, as Sony is allegedly going to make it impossible for a developer to create an exclusive for the updated platform. Therefore, no PS4 owner can rightfully complain, because nothing is happening to their console. Ultimately, this would be a great move by Sony, because those that want to upgrade, could, and those that don't want to (or can't), won't be screwed over.

Sony's PlayStation 4.5 could be twice as fast as PS4 thanks to AMD's updated APU

Regardless of what gamers think, though, it's going to be AMD that's reaping some nice rewards. It's been rumored that the updated APU in the PS4.5 will bundle twice the cores, and even enjoy a nice GPU clock boost. Overall, this means that the PS4.5 could literally be more than twice as fast as the original PS4. While the performance boosts are going to be tied almost exclusively to AMD's APU, it seems likely that such a platform would enjoy a price premium, especially since the console's design might have to be tweaked to account for added heat (a doubling of GPU cores is no joke).

Because of its premium chip, AMD could earn more off of each PS4.5 than it did each PS4, although it stands to reason that the PS4.5 isn't likely to sell nearly as many units as the original, as many (or perhaps most) people are not going to be upgrading. Either way, the success of the PS4.5 could directly affect AMD in a big way, so it'd be great to see the new platform become a reality.

On Thursday afternoon, AMD's stock price was valued at $2.62. Following the announcement that the company would be teaming up with THATIC, that price soared to $3.99, and remains there as of Friday's closing.

Has AMD got its groove back? Let's hope so.