Another Source claims SONY will abandon the Cell, "Esssentially a PC"

[drkohler]

Soleron said:

leper-apostle said:

drkohler said:

leper-apostle said:

brendude13 said:
And their next console "essentially being a PC" is what will pull in the most money for them, even if they do have to get rid of backwards compatibility with the PS3 (PS1 and PS2 backwards compatibility is inevitable).

Why do people keep saying this, backwards compatibility is still easily done,

Sure. An AMD processor emulating the PS3 cell processor. Even Better: An AMD processor that turned out to be subpar in performance emulating the PS3 cell processor. I believe you....

Umm no, you have no idea how software works... This is easily done through emulation. Sony will NOT make PS4 non backwards compatible.

Can be done, yes, but I doubt 4 BD cores at say 3GHz are strong enough to emulate the Cell at a reasonable speed.

You mean 4 BD modules...which would bring the performance of the chip roughly up to an Intel i5-2600. There is no way in hell such a processor would be able to emulate the cell processor (which contains 1+6 operating "cores" and a memory subsystem that is way too complex to emulate. Let's not forget the 4 module Bulldozer is a _gigantic_ chip that costs at least three times as much as the cuurent Cell chip.

If Sony really goes the "Let's make a midrange PC and call it PS4" route, this would be a catastrophic decision imo. Being out last next generation means you have probably lost right away (I doubt there is a market for three similar "look-alike PCs". And why buy a "PC look-alike" when you could buy a real gaming PC (probably for not much more)? Sony would be forced to continuously use all its first-party studios to stay alive.