PS3 in 2005 - Cell Design Completed

The mythical Cell chip is said to be entering production in 2004, much earlier than anticipated. What does it mean for PS3?

Cell, the new computer chip developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba and the brain-to-be of PS3, will be ready to enter production in 2004, according to reports.

The design of the chip, said to be one of the most advanced ever developed, has been completed and is ready to be manufactured by engineers. What makes Cell so advanced is that it performs multiple functions on just one chip - with multiple processing cores - which could dramatically improve the standard of performance in computer devices such as PlayStation 3.

If hype is to be believed, the chip will be capable of 1 trillion calculations per second - a teraflop - rendering it about sixty times more powerful than the highest-spec home PCs available today.

However, the chip has already got a bit of a kicking from some analysts, who claim it will be highly problematic to develop for. It is believed that the power of the chip will only be fully realised with an operating system design that matches the complexity of the chip itself - and then the quality of development tools will largely define the quality of the games that end up on the shelves.

With the majority of developers unable to tap into the full potential of current generation console hardware, and the increasing cost of videogame development, it might be the case that only the most elite game makers will get anywhere near satisfactory results with Sony's next generation hardware. But then, that's never harmed PS2 all that much.

PlayStation 3's success will largely be determined by the timing of its launch compared to rival next-gen hardware, particularly from Microsoft. If this chip continues moving forward at a good pace, there could be enough of them manufactured by mid-2005 to make the prospect of PS3's launch in Q4 2005 quite realistic.

But it has to be said - this Cell stuff all sounds very exciting - but weren't we fed similarly stunning information about PS2's Emotion Engine and how it could launch missiles? Reader discretion might be advisable.

Adam Doree
Director, Kikizo.com