Some say the PS2 was harder to code for.  Even Sony.

"The PlayStation 3 is, definitely, easier and cheaper to develop for, relative to the same period on the PS2."   Phil Harrison (SCEI) in OPM interview source

The PS2 wasn't the weakest in all areas either, for example it had more usable RAM than the Gamcube.

I don't think you can use a quote from a SCEI guy to show that it's easier or cheaper. Search for 3rd party guys saying the same, then it would be believable.

It's logical when you consider the bigger picture that a handful of developers THIS gen have complained about Cell developing "restraints" when compared to Xenon.

Here's one quote, just remember I was only comparing PS2 to PS3 in terms of ease of programing.
"The PS3 is easier to develop for than the PS2" - Nathaniel Bell (Insomniac Games) source

as has been said SONY PR...

anyway the gamecube actually had more total RAM 43MB (3MB frame/texture buffer 24MB shared 16MB dvd/audio buffer) vs the PS2s 36MB (4MB graphics 32MB shared) but the PS2 had faster RAM. The gamecube made up for the lack memory bandwidth by supporting texture compression which allowed higher res/more textures than the PS2.

Insomniac was then a Sony 2nd Party developer. Insomniac became a 3rd party multiconsole developer on May 25, 2010, when they reached an agreement with EA.

If we're all going to ignore Sony PR than this thread would be pointless.

If you look more closely at Phil Harrison's comment he does have reasons for saying what he did.

"In the OPM article, the interviewer tells Harrison that the PS2 is "notoriously hard to develop for." Harrison responds by saying that belief is a "self-fulfilling prophecy" and that Microsoft has "banged on that drum [until] it became conventional wisdom."

But Harrison says it isn't so. "With the original PlayStation," Harrison explains, "we had very rich and fully featured [software resource] libraries for developers to program with." But soon developers grew tired of working with Sony's pre-selected code libraries and wanted to "write direct to the metal" for maximum performance, a request Sony granted with the PlayStation 2...to somewhat mixed results, according to Harrison, as that technique was a "bit hard" to program with.

But not so with the PS3's Cell chip, which is "completely different." Rather than require programmers to develop specialized skills, Harrison explains in the piece, they utilize "general-purpose programming languages" to make for a smoother, less demanding coding process. "The PlayStation 3 is, definitely, easier and cheaper to develop for, relative to the same period on the PS2," Harrison says."

This is great great news, sONY is learning from mistakes!

Although I've worked developing/researching on serious games I'm a ordinary software developer not a game developer.

They will use IBM's PowerPC 7 or 8 thats based off the CELL.