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Sony made a troublesome decision when they decided to invest into the development and implementation of the cell processor for the PS3. While the chipset is reliable and powerful, lazy developers have decided it’s too “difficult” to develop games that harness the cells’ true potential. This has put the PS3 at a distinct disadvantage this generation. Cases in point: BioShock and Fallout 3; 2K Games simply couldn’t develop the game for the PS3 because they didn’t have the technical know-how, and the PS3 version of Fallout 3 was far less polished than that of the Xbox 360. Over a year ago, the first rumblings of such talk were heard when it was reported that Intel Larrabee architecture was a frontrunner for the next PlayStation iteration. Now it appears Larrabee “is out of contention due to 3D graphics pipeline performance issues and low power efficiency,” reports Andriasang’s Anoop Gantayat.
Well, according to Impress Watch’s Hiroshige Goto, Sony is likely going to abandon the chipset in favor of more standard multi-core processors, similar to those found in high-end PCs. Not only will this make development easier, porting between a new PlayStation and future PCs (and Xbox 360/720) should be a snap. Mr. Goto also feels that, due to the fact architecture solutions are being actively discussed and that it takes 24 months to bring a new console from concept to market, consumers should expect the next PlayStation to drop in 2012 – assuming the world doesn’t eat itself. Will you be ready for a new system that early? Have you upgraded to a next-gen console yet? I have upgraded all the way around, but I’m not too keen on dropping another few grand to make the next leap so soon. |
