PS4 To Dump The Cell Processor

Hopefully that brings the launch price down from the PS3's $600.

 

That really never lived up to it's hype. I remember all those "real" games at E3

 

IIRC, the cost of the Cell chip wasn't that much at launch. Parts for Blu-ray, the Nvidia GPU, HDD, etc., all helped lead to that number (Cell did too, but replacing it with something like the 360's CPU likely wouldn't have brought down the cost that much). And if they were to reuse Cell, it would likely be a lot cheaper than some other alternatives.



Or at least that would be the idea. Not going with Cell would mean a huge lack of long-term planning and foresight at Sony (hard to believe, huh?). Initially, it was costly and difficult to develop for, but a lot of these things would be less of an issue as time goes on. And on the flip side, you lose quite a bit by going with a different architecture. No (easy) PS3 BC, including all the digital games most likely. Also, good luck telling all your developers to scrap those Cell tools they created, which they might have assumed would be useful for another generation or two.

To ditch the architecture, that would imply they'd have a much better performance/cost ratio with an alternative. Performance/cost is actually a strong point of Cell (PS3's problems were often due to its GPU/RAM, with Cell sometimes "making up" for those weaknesses), but perhaps its specialized design would lead to other, more generalized architectures being better.

Of course, all rumors at this point (similar to how PS3 was supposed to be an all-Cell system), although this one in particular seems to have been brought up by multiple sources.

 

My money is on the new Xbox not even having an optical drive.

 

My money is on the lack of (hardware) backwards compatibility with PS3 titles. It'd be to expensive, I imagine.

 

I appreciate my PS3's ability to play PS1 and PS2 games (I have a launch unit sucker) but I can live without it now. I wouldn't complain if the PS4 cant play PS3 discs.

 

Most people who play older games just use emulators anyway.

 

Have you had any problems with overheating yet? 2 people I know who had the 60GB models with PS2 BC had their systems die.

 

No. The fan gets loud as hell now at times but she's a fighter.

 

Nope. It's still alive and kicking. It doesn't finish playing Soul Caliber (I forgot which version) or Street Fighter IV , but it works well with most of the newer titles.

I can haz one from moestavern-mart-19.

 

Mine worked perfect, everything was great until it stopped reading the discs. It still works fine to this day it just won't read the discs.

 

anyone works for AMD here know if Sony is using AMD graphics or NV?

 

Thats actually a simple fix. Same thing happend to mine. Took it to http://xtremeconsolerepair.com/ Its working fine now.

 

Make sure to use the dust blower to clean out the lent and dust inside the ps3. It's one of the reason mine got the yellow light

 

I've still got the launch PS3, which I got primarily for BC. It's running fine still, but it is awfully loud. After reading a thread about a PS3 dying, I finally upgraded to Playstation Plus so I could back up my game data.

BC doesn't seem as important now. It helps that they have released PS3 collection editions of Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank (upcoming), Sly Cooper, God of War, Resident Evil 4, and Psychonauts (upcoming). I'm fine paying a minimal cost for an upgraded version of a beloved favorite.

 

Really? What was the process like?

 

I had two of the backwards compatible units and finally bought the slim model after my second one died last year. The only PS2 games I ever still played was Metal Gear Solid 3 which is on PS3 now and NCAA Football 04 which I'm disappointed but not terribly upset about.

 

How long have you had it? Both of mine died after 2 years. The second one I took extra care to make sure dust stayed out and that it kept cool but still ended up with a YLOD.

 

I still have my FAT 40 GB one that was bundled with GT4.