Report: Sony working with IBM in new Cell processor

[NJ5]

Rainbird said:

NJ5 said:

More used to it, yes. Some existing tools may help, but in the end many developers will still have to do extra effort to program for the "odd platform".

I'm ASSuming here that Microsoft's and Nintendo's new console will have more sensible CPUs with few, symmetric and fast cores. Add to that PCs, and you have three platforms which should be rather easy to port between, and then the PS4 which will require extra effort if the Cell is used.

Even if Microsoft and Nintendo have more sensible CPU designs, Nintendo seems to be going for a platform that might be underpowered compared to Sony and Microsoft's next platforms. And unless we know how Sony will handle this new Cell, it's hard to know if it will be easy to use or not.

If there's anything the NGP is showing, it's that Sony are focusing on being development friendly. So for all we know, Sony will provide the tools to easily use the Cell.

EDIT: And Toshiba have used the Cell in some of their 3D TVs.

I thought the current rumors were that Nintendo was going for quite powerful, at least decently powerful hardware by today's standards.

We know that Sony or Microsoft won't make another $600 console, so even with an alleged launch date one year later that Nintendo, I don't see them making systems much more powerful than Nintendo's. More powerful, yes, but in the sense that games will enable some extra effects or run at slightly higher resolutions. But that doesn't make a port hard, it's just simple tweaking to adapt for each hardware as all PC games already do.

What Sony could do to make the Cell easier to use would be to provide more PPU cores which are easier to port for than the SPUs. But if they did that I doubt they could put 16 SPUs in it, and it would be a departure from what the Cell is supposed to be all about.