PS4 To Build Upon Existing PS3 Technology For Lower Costs?

Well, it was bound to happen at some point: "inside" whispers of the next PlayStation console, despite the fact that Sony repeatedly tells every media member they can find that the PS3 has a 10-year lifespan.

None of the following can be considered "official information," but it'll be super fun for all you tech geeks out there. Check out this massive article at GamingFront, and you will see how Sony supposedly intends to pursue the PS4 project. According to this, Sony plans to utilize the "Cell BE" (Cell Broadband Engine), and although the translation is broken, it seems that the PS4 won't be as crippling in terms of production costs. Basically, they've already secured the foundation with the PS3 and this will be built upon in the PS4; there would be no need to spend a gazillion more dollars on research and development, and they wouldn't have to produce an entirely new piece of technology designed from the ground up. On top of which, it seems Sony will reduce the chip size itself, which would again point towards lower costs. If all of this is to be believed, the PS4 will be the first PlayStation console that doesn't use a completely new hardware architecture. There are pluses and minuses to such an approach, but perhaps the former outweighs the latter...

First of all, if they're using the same base technology, developers won't be complaining (as they always do when a new PlayStation launches), because they'll be quite familiar. Secondly, the instantly lowered production costs means Sony won't have to operate in the red (or black) for so long; they could turn a profit much faster. Thirdly and finally, general improved reliability should come along with familiar hardware. Besides, it's not like the PS4 won't be a lot more powerful; it will be. Sony may just change their style a bit, that's all.

1/29/2009 Ben Dutka

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Comments (60 posts)

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Robochic
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 10:57:11 AM
Reply

I won't believe this info until Sony announces something offical themselves. I can't see them making another console anytime soon, since recently they have said they are consitrating on software and other innovated things for the PS3, where would they have the time for making or looking into another Playstation console. But nice article and info, even though i;m not a tech person it was informative.

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LCF
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 3:30:58 PM

Yea I have a hard time with this. I read the source of this and it's confusing as Hell. I'm a tech head and it's confusing. All I know is that Sony stated last year that we will prolly see a 10-20 core Cell processor in the PS4 near 2014-2015. By then alot of programmers will have a strong grasp of the architecture of the Cell. IBM keeps improving the Cell every year. Cell type design should be common place in PCs by then.

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crapreviews
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 10:57:19 AM
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Well if that's the case i don't wanna see a $600 price tag when it's first released.

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WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 3:52:46 PM

You might anyway due purely to inflation.

Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 1/29/2009 3:52:57 PM

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Troy Powers
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:07:28 AM
Reply

But, will that give the PS4 a shorter lifespan? Will the lack of a learning curve for developers mean we won't see the games getting better over time, but instead hitting a plateau early in the lifespan?

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coverton341
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:13:49 AM

Those are things that were concerning me as well. If Sony uses the same build and just improves on it then there is not a lot of ceiling increase in terms of quality. I mean sure you can make the shading better and put a bigger CPU and GPU in it but that only pushes you so far.

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Aftab
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 2:31:30 PM

I'm not too worried about that. While Sony shops may have finally gotten around to making the best out of Cell BE, this gives plenty of time for third-party support to get their act together.

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Arkhon
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 9:03:24 PM

That just means more good games that take advantage of the hardware, rather than being forced to wait three years.

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Deleted User
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:08:59 AM
Reply

Hmm. It might take a lil more next gen.

My point being the PS2 and original Xbox as many people still play those and just look how much better games look on the new consoles. I look at the 360 and PS3 and am amazed by how the games look.

I do love the idea of lower costs and such. Im sure PS3 BC will be there to because of similar hardware so thats 2 pluses.

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coverton341
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:11:28 AM
Reply

I haven't read the massive article so I don't know if they are thinking this but I hope they use a 45nm chip from Intel. Those things look screaming and the way they changed the transistor layers make data processing even faster which is nice.

It will be interesting if they do decide to build on their existing architecture though since they have always built from the ground up.

Well here is to wondering.

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Jojoman
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:16:24 AM
Reply

Dual Cell Broadband Engine maybe?

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RebelExtrm02
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:18:57 AM
Reply

All they really need to do is throw in a more capable gpu, more faster ram, and maybe a larger hard drive.

Last edited by RebelExtrm02 on 1/29/2009 11:19:17 AM

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PS3_Wizard
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:19:03 AM
Reply

"If It ain't broke, don't fix it"

This is a complete 180 in terms of their past practices. Something about this makes me feel worried...

2 up, 0 down

BIG_E
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 2:14:00 PM

PS3WIZARD YOU AND ME BOTH I FEEL YOU.

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Douchebaguette
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 7:57:27 PM

Same.

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raztad
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:19:55 AM
Reply

It's not like Sony will be releasing a new console next year :D. And yes, thanks to some engineering gods at IBM and Sony (and why not? kutaragi's vision) PS3 got a very innovative, powerful and EXTENSIBLE arch. In a simplistic way, they only need to add more cores to CELL and fine tunning its interaction with available memory and dedicated graphic card. Im almost sure PS4 will be essentially a fine tuned and more powerful PS3. Advantages? drastic reduction on R&D spending and a BONUS, FULL "backward" compatibility. You see?

Sound pretty good to me. :D

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WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 3:55:31 PM

F yeah to the B/C, that was a mistake taking that away but I see why they did it this time, no reason not to have it next time.

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fundando
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 8:28:05 PM

yea it damn well better be backwards compatible if this is the case

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Kevadu
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:30:55 AM
Reply

It makes sense to keep using Cell. It's a powerful architecture which is still being actively developed (it's used by more than just the PS3, after all). Plus developers should already have some familiarity with it.

But if Sony is smart they will put more effort into their development tools. If you make it easier for developers to make games then you get more games...

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PSN _HAITIAN_JB
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:37:07 AM
Reply

All they need more cores on cell and more gpu ram atleast 1gb and new OS

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isaya85
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 12:04:56 PM
Reply

Didn't they say they were going to put 21 cores in the cell or was that a rumor?

PSN ID Biggest_GMoney

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Robochic
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 12:05:07 PM
Reply

@ troy powers,

I agree with you and coverton341,I would hate Sony to turn around and do something like this just to "please" developers and consumers, listen the PS3 is at a awesome price tag,it pushes the bar the develeopers need to be open minded and learn the technology, cause what happens if say M$ says we have a new console that has new technology or even Nintendo (and everyone laughs) they can't hide from new technology. I think thats the biggest issue i've read is developers are saying it's hard to make a game for the PS3, if they gave it a chance and learned what it has to offer for them ext... they wouldn't have such an issue.

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coverton341
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 1:21:22 PM

Great point just look at what Killzone 2 offers. If more studios put together a PS3 dev dream team then I think they would start to produce games that they never thought possible, but as it stands now it seems that most studios use the dev teams they have for both consoles and realistically that has to be a poor choice considering the differences in the architectures.

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BeezleDrop
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 12:52:24 PM
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This makes me wonder what else they could possibly do with the PS4. Consoles (some) already have 1080p res and 60 fps, so what else could they do to raise the bar?

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WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 3:57:46 PM

make better TVs too?

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Lord carlos
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 1:00:13 PM
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i remember when launch day came for ps3,i was watching a special on bbc about the ps3,& how it would still be decent in 2016,they also said they think the next gen would incorporate everything in one(tv and all)like arnie's tv in total recall.
sounded right to me considering its ten years in the future,an all purpose entertainment centre no bigger than an lcd screen fit directly in ur wall.
games,movies,internet,music,shopping&communication.
so maybe there won't be a ps4,i'm sure u'll have 3 different brands though.

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Shatterday
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 1:05:49 PM
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What they need to do is not let IBM di** around with their sh** the next time around.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/jan/01/sony-xbox-ibm

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Tim Speed24
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 1:11:35 PM
Reply

The next Xbox will be out much sooner than Sony would be ready with new hardware so this would make perfect sense.

Come out with the PS4 the same time as the Xbox 720 to compete but still have the backwards compatibility for PS3.

It would be like a Supercharged PS3!

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WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 4:00:50 PM

Supercharged Turbo with NOS

Last edited by WorldEndsWithMe on 1/29/2009 4:01:12 PM

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fundando
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 8:32:23 PM

xbox 720 that sounds weird i think xbox 1080 sounds better

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Deleted User
Friday, January 30, 2009 @ 11:04:53 AM

Sexbox.

That sounds good.

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jaybiv
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 1:29:16 PM
Reply

The 10-year lifecycle of the PS3 and the launch of the PS4 are not mutually exclusive. Look at how the PS2 and PS3 co-exist.

I don't this is news really, because Sony has probably been working on the PS4 when they launched teh PS3.

The Sony fanboys need to chill on PS3 sales and talk of price cuts. Sony will survive the recession and will come out of it in a better position. They took a chance in developing the PS3, so moving forward, developers will be well versed in programming for probably the next two PlayStation systems.

The question will be how much different technologically from the 360 will MS make its next console?

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King James
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 1:39:45 PM
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It don't believe that. This is TOTALLY contradictory to the rep Sony has built. The Playstations always have some new tech that's developers eventually conform to.

The PS4 would be an xbox if this was the case. Great start, w/ a fast burn-out. But w/o the hardware errors ;-)

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End of line
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 2:07:17 PM

Leading edge tech designs for the PS were largely due to Ken K. and his vision of how it SHOULD be. As he was quietly shown the door so early on this gen (no executive alive and in their right mind would accept being pushed to 3rd in market share), it's hard to believe the new decision maker/s would tread the same path. Clearly something different has to be done next time round.

I dont think its all doom and gloom though, Sony will still come out with something kick a$$.

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Blaiyan
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 1:54:24 PM
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That's exactly what they should do. Blu-ray should last a lot longer than DVD. PS4 will probably just get more memory and a better graphics chip. They'll be cheap to produce and we' ll get reasonably priced PS4's. I don't see the problem. You can't get much better than the ps3 as it is.

Last edited by Blaiyan on 1/29/2009 1:55:07 PM

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WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 4:03:09 PM

Is that a Martian Yankees fanboy?

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Blaiyan
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 5:10:42 PM

Let's go with that lol.

It's just slam man. He's supposed to be for boxing practice.

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K ASH
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 2:05:05 PM
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Ps4,PS5 lets not forget its all about quality games. Current gen gfx can stick around 4 the next ten years for all i care. Since im psfan i would not mind if sony released a ps3.5 which will be ps4 for business reasons just as long as they keep the games quality up, i guess they will have more funds to make that sure. It would be cool if ps4(ps3.5) would be backward compatible & can play downgraded ps4 games by downloading a patch, ofcourse ps3 owner would have to pay for the patch. Business guys sony needs 2 make money.

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city96
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 3:18:49 PM
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Thats what the ps2 was. powerful and cheap

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The Cheat
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 3:31:47 PM
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keeping the same architecture i think would outweigh the down sides... while it may not be the extraordinary leap ps2 --> ps3 was i think it will benefit both the consumer and sony. lower prices means more adoption, similar programming means easy backwards compatibility and the games will plateau early on (not necessarily a bad thing)

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KevinCairo
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 3:43:02 PM
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You guys gotta understand that when they make the ps4, it WILL be able to add a drastic increase in power considering how much time will have elapsed from the development of the ps3 to that of the ps4, which will take longer to develop at that matter, even if it's an improved "version". The rate that software becomes more sophisticated is many, many times smaller than the rate at which hardware becomes more sophisticated, which should be considered when pondering the lifespan of the PS4. The jump from ps2/xbox to ps3/360 was like an evolution from the neanderthal to the modern human, so I'd imagine going from ps3 to ps4 is like that modern human on steroids. Lots of steroids. And a guy on lots and lots of steroids sure as hell is a lot stronger than the average person.
Another way to look at it is that the jump was made to multi-core processors from single core (again, from neanderthal to modern human). The jump was the hard part, now it's time to push the multi-core to the limit, not make another jump to like crazy, multidimensional, exponential core.
I guess now I should actually read the article...

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LCF
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 3:48:34 PM
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I hate doing future proofing. But here it goes...
In the PS4 this is what your "Prolly" looking at: 10-20 core Cell i series. No GPU for system render (all done in the Cell). 120 fps/Hz @ 1440 rez. Solid state Flash Drive @ 1 terabit of space. Blu-ray disc support for 50gb-200gb @ 4 X disc read. 3D support for games and film. All major film studios are now shooting films with stereoscopic imaging. Dual HDMI support upto 40-60 GB transfer rate. Possibly a 10.2 surround support as well. This may all look expensive now, but technology is improving by leaps and bounds every year. So price on the PS4, im guessing $300-350. Why I say that price is because Sony don't have to do heavy R&D on the tech, like the PS3.

Last edited by LCF on 1/29/2009 4:04:24 PM

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WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 4:06:35 PM

LCF you are vastly more of a techie than I but wouldn't a nice GPU be able to take some of the pressure off the cell in order to free it up for more power down the road?

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LCF
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 4:15:37 PM

The problem with CPU+GPU is that it's not fast or efficient enough compared to doing it all in the Cell. GPUs are alway govern by the CPU. You'll prolly see GPUs phase out by the time the PS4 is out.

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WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 5:09:36 PM

Too much give and take?

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somethingrandom
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 5:33:13 PM

I hope you meant Terabyte, because a Terabit is only 125GB. By the time the PS4 comes out, I expect at least a 5TB SSD. It's probably going to release around 2014 (5 years), so I think there will be a socket for the GPU with access to the main RAM. Though I don't doubt that the Cell could do all the graphics processing, this would be a good extra measure for future proofing. I also expect it to support at least the resolution currently available on 30" PC monitors. EDIT: They will use eight (or more) layer Blu-ray discs.

BTW, AMD/ATI is working on the above mentioned graphics solution for PCs. For PS5, I expect a Cell of MONSTROUS proportions, or a CPU and GPU on the same die.

Last edited by somethingrandom on 1/29/2009 5:36:44 PM

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Naga
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 3:54:11 PM
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10 years or not everyone knows that Sony are working on the Playstation 4 maybe the PSP 2 in thier spare time.

But it should be kept secret then it will shock us with technology that exceeds the Playstation 3 in every way possible

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Arkhon
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 9:03:56 PM

You mean 4K.

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WorldEndsWithMe
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 4:11:34 PM
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Thing is, I consider this particular stage to be the equivalent of R&D because let's just say they want to release a PS4 in 5 years time: The tech will be much better by then and although the cell is clearly the future more options will be available as far as how to push it to the max, I really don't think we'd see it become a sprinter like 360. Sony will always make it a paced marathon if they can.

PSN DonovanTheICEMAN

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Bill_Clinton_
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 4:18:32 PM
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it makes perfect since.. buy time ps4 launches developers will be use to the cell so why not release a ps4 will a cell times 2, 2gigs of ram and a 1tb hdd.. makes perfect sense.. if true ps4 will be a ps3 on steroids..

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Gone
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 4:49:56 PM
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They are probably just talking about the PS3 Slimline.

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AceTatsujin
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 5:56:10 PM
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* Modified Cell, make it twice as powerful as the one in PS3.
* 9800 GTX Video Card, custom-built for the PS4 with 2 graphic cards (they're cheap now, and will be much cheapier in the future).
* MEMORY PLEASE, 2Gigs of memory, DDR2 or even DDR3 since it'll be cheapier in the future.
* Keep Blu-ray, introduce something new and please make sure it is cheap.

Price looking towards for launch, no more than 300 US dollars.

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somethingrandom
Friday, January 30, 2009 @ 12:00:37 AM

9800GTX's will be so old by then that they would be impossible to find (I have one in the machine I'm using to type this lol). I would hope that a newer cell would be more than a mere double of what we see today. DDR3 will be at the end of it's life cycle, and seeing how RAM requirements are fast on the rise, I would expect 4GB of super-high performance RAM, or >10GB of DDR3.

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bamf
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 6:36:12 PM
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There's no point on spending trillions on research when SOny has already done that already. Sony can now build up from the Cell and just make it more powerful and faster in the way Intel advances their tech.
Then for PS4 SOny can just add more memory and have allot of dedicated memory for the new advanced GPU from Nvidia.

How about a cell broadband gfx card, imagine that?

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TGG
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 8:41:00 PM
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The Cell BE is WAY ahead of it's time, the chip is pretty different from other chips. This makes sense.

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ps92117
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 9:16:27 PM
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I just hope (ps3/ps2)=(ps4/ps3) in terms of power, or moore's law ps4 64tflops that would be epic, some nice ram ,L2, L1, great bandwidth & pioneer's 400gig bd, would just kill it for me.

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dveisalive
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 9:44:18 PM
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GPU is old cell is powerful and this is a smart move, Nintendo is laughing all the way to the bank, and Sony is improvising. So Sony needs to do this to gain all of that lost money back, and plus this is genius, cause to the time PS4 comes out its gonna be cheaper to be made, so in the end Sony laughs all the way to the bank!

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BikerSaint
Thursday, January 29, 2009 @ 11:25:16 PM
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This f*cking time, they better put B/C back in!
And for "ALL" the PS machines's, 1, 2, and 3!

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Deleted User
Friday, January 30, 2009 @ 9:29:36 AM

One would hope right?

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miro_the_cat
Friday, January 30, 2009 @ 12:20:46 PM
Reply

This is great great news!!

I really can't understand the worries. In fact I bet this was the plan all along. After all the cell is called that for a reason. Like the cells in a body it is designed from the ground up to connect to other cell processors for incomparably fast parallel processing.

It is about time that Sony let developers catch up with them. putting several processors in parallel will provide an incredible leap in processing power and by decreasing development costs they can put the money where it counts in more cells per ps4.

Developers will have already acquired skills in programming the new multi cell processor, but because the options in massively parallel processers are huge - ie where you assign each task - then it will still have the growth value that the ps3 currently has.

The power will be amazing, at a price that can compete and with awesome games from the get go.

I think ps4 will be the generation that makes us weep and first or at worst second generation games that look and play exactly like the tech demos

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