360 CPU and Cell are fairly equal according to Dave Shippy

[heruamon]

Procrastinato said:

heruamon said:

I'm not sure it's screwed, but many where banking on the ps3 dominating the gaming sphere, and driving the adaption of the chip for another functions...and that's not really happening on a mass markeet scale.  PS2 had almost reached 100 milion ( if not more) by the release of 360, so it wasn't pie-in-the-sky by sony, but the console just met too much competition, and it lacked transformational tech to covince consumers to accept the higher price.  With the current losses incurred by Sony, you have to wonder when you'll see the PS$.  Antoehr thing is you're constantly hearing the talk about how developers are JUST now starting to learn to program for the PS3...so looking at the timeline:

- 2010...programmers start to really push the ps3....

- 2011/2012...Nintendo/M$ launch new console....

Won't this put the ps4 is the same position as the ps3 wrt to the next generation?

 

It depends on where Sony goes with the PS4.  If they continue to push the envelope, they made a genious decision -- the future versions of the Cell will likely be 100% BC with the PS3, whereas both MS and Nintendo need to switch gears.. and in MS' case, emulating the Xenon will be hard to impossible on any other architecture, because a souped-up version of the Xenon would generate huge amounts of heat, and cost a truckload thanks to transistor count.  

MS is basically stuck with dumping the previous gen's software library next time around, unless they choose to only mildly upgrade the CPU, and focus on the GPU (which I believe will be their course).  The days of BC are evaporating, since speed is coming with parallelism, rather than raw single-thread horsewpower increases.  The Cell is the only chip really capable of growing in such an environment, while still maintaining BC.

If Sony decides to make a Sony Wii, they just wasted a bunch of money on the Cell and the PS3.  A tiny version of the PS3 could replace the Wii in the next gen, for all we know.  It certainly has the power to grow, and it continues to get cheaper and cheaper to build.  45nm Cells will likely be in PS3s in the middle of this year, well in advance of the 45nm Xenon/Xenos combo chip, which will probably arrive next year sometime.

Sony has the most options in the next gen.  They haven't stumbled in that dept. at all.  They are in a really good position, with both the PS4 and the PSP2, as long as they can keep the marketshare up, which is a big hurdle.

 

Nintendo seems to be intent on keeping backward comp, and based on this generation of games, M$ will probably do the same.  Building in B/C insured transition to the newer console is smoother, and imho, it was a critical factor in Wii' success.  i'm still amazed by the ability to play older games on the way...even use older controllers.  If Nintendo and M$ can execute on a effective B/C strategy, the PS3 will begin to look really unattractive.