the Power 7 architecture is not based on the CELL. It is true that some elements that were first used in the CELL are used in the power 7 architecture, and the CELL uses a single power PC based core. But the Power architecture is not based on the CELL, they were developed mostly concurrently and are to different approaches to CPU design. 

The power 7 was an evolution of the Power PC line, the Cell was a different family of CPUs which is no longer in active development.

But yes a Power 7 or 8 based chip is likely to be powering the PS4.

But that still pretty legit, bro. Many here, including myself, can't really look at the video game industry from a developer's perspective because were just ordinary gamers who love gaming. We're just speaking straight from opinion. But I respect the opinions of a developer in a topic related to video games because what they say will most likely always make sense in that matter. They don't always root for a single camp like most gamers. 

The CELL is a power pc cpu by definition, since it's got the same instructions set. In fact the latest IBM CELL chip is the PowerXCell 8i, which is used in Blade Servers and supercomputers. Not only that, but the Cell is still actively developed ( http://www.hardwareheaven.com/news.php?newsid=344 ): when Sony says that the PS4 will be easy to develop for, that probably means that they will use Cell processors again, since now there are a lot of useful libraries and middleware which were not available four years ago.

Support Cell processors, buy a Cell based server from IBM: http://www-304.ibm.com/shop/americas/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/default/CategoryDisplay?categoryId=4611686018425235305&storeId=1&catalogId=-840&langId=-1 (discount price, only $10000).

But I thought it was so that developers wouldn't take full advantage of the system right off the bat, so as to stick with the 10 year plan. Joking.

Good to know they're learning from mistakes they've made this gen. I just hope graphics for first party titles with the PS4 still stand out (Uncharted 4 ?).

hmm must have missed that they are still developing it, but the PowerXCell is still nearly 2 years old now, but I guess for IBM that's not to bad. I guess a CELL based CPU isn't out of the question then but I still think that there are better choices. And if SONY actually put a lot of effort into their dev kits this time round that would constitute making the PS4 more developer friendly.

Thanks...  Sometimes is fun to hear the people saying thinks like: The camera of the A console is better than the camera of the B console because it has a better resolution or wherever... But as an Artificial Intelligence researcher I know  that most of the games don't need HD images to track our bodies motion and usually they convert the images to a gray scale (or even black and white) in order to simplify and speed-up the motion tracking this is important to avoid or decrease lags.

I think they'd be smartest to actually stick with a Cell processor and add a video card that's a little more beefy...call it done...because if they change it now, I wonder if backwards compatibility will be possible...so we have another BC debacle

If they stick with a similar CPU/GPU sertup instead of changing the entire thing like they did with the PS1, PS2, and PS3 then development will be a lot easier since devs would know the basics for programming the machine to run their games. It wouldn't matter if the PS4 is running the PowerPC8 (looked it up, this PPC is most similar to the CELL) since it would be the CELL plus more cores/spes. Plus a stronger GPU with more ram (2Gbs at minimum hopefully).

With this setup they could easily run PS3 titles, PS1 titles, PS2 might get software bc maybe, and devs shouldn't have much room to complain about development difficulty since they would have experience from the PS3's CELL RSX setup.

I suppose by PowerPC8 you mean the PowerXCell 8i. The problem with that is that it's pretty much the same chip that is in the PS3 just higher clocked and without a disabled SPE. using that design wouldn't lead to more than a 10-20% performance increase. If SONY were to use the CELL architecture again, at the very least they would need to commission a custom chip to get a worth while performance increase. Like the cancelled 2 PPE and 32 SPE CELL, at 32nm or less it should be possible. I would love to see the folding@home numbers for that...

Some have said already, but it seems that people ignore it. Familiarity doesn't translate to easiness.