Sony's GDC Presentation

[MuGen]

Originally Posted by ps3portal.com

While much of their GDC presentation was cloaked in techno-babble and industry-speak, Sony reps Mark DeLoura and Dominic Mallinson underscored the paradigm-shifting approach Sony is taking with its future console.

“The goal for the developers is to create the next generation of entertainment,” declared Mark DeLoura, Manager of Developer Relations, Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Sony, IBM, and Toshiba co-developed and unveiled the specs on the Cell chip in early February. The 4 GHz architecture is comprised of a 64-bit Power processor core, which is surrounded by eight Synergistic Processor Units (which themselves house four Floating Point Units), for a chip capable of delivering 256 gigaflops at 4 GHz.

According to Dominic Mallinson, Director, Sony Computer Entertainment America R&D, “We can run multiple operating systems on the chip at the same time.” He later added, “Each operating system can protect the others from crashes or security problems.”

Mallinson and DeLoura also detailed that unlike the PS2, PS3’s Cell technology will allow designers to program for it in more complex languages, such as C/C++. After hearing about the development kits for the PS3 and it's Cell technology, Sony signed 5 more third party developer contracts at the GDC.

Additionally, the Cell will support Collada XML for PS3’s art assets interchange, and the OpenGL ES applications programming interface for 3-D graphics. A partnership with NVIDIA will see the graphics card maker begin producing PS3 GPU by the end of 2005.

In a January interview with Xbitlabs.com, NVIDIA corporate marketing head David Roman said, “This is the next generation GPU [...] It will support DirectX 9, Shader Models 3; it will be the most feature-rich, the most powerful GPU that we’ve ever created.”

Sony’s GDC presentation comes just a day after the news that top members of Sony’s high command will get the first look at the PS3 in action during a closed door presentation in Japan next week.

Mallinson also clarified Cell's progression,
"Our research & development team has resolved any issue's relating to the Cell chip regression. We will have 8 APU's in this chip and it remains at the announced specs."

The GDC has been rife with talk of those rumors, but alas, no one from SCEA is saying or denying anything.

Source: FileFront

Originally Posted by Mallinson

"Our research & development team has resolved any issue's relating to the Cell chip regression. We will have 8 APU's in this chip and it remains at the announced specs."

AWESOME!!

[Null]

very interesting. nice to see that the third parties are interested and signing up.

Hopfully Nintendo can attract the 3rd parties also this gen, but i have visions in my head about they explain thier next console, and ask which 3rd parties would like to sign up and hearing cricket sounds.

[Jonbo298]

Pretty cool.. But by the sound of it, price of something like the PS3 is gonna be huge unless they make it cost effective by next year.

[MuGen]

If it's under $500 I will buy it.... anything more... .......
...

... I will still buy it...

EDIT: you can almost tell that Cell has been completed... considering they are already showing the ps3 in action to high ups in Sony.

[Blackmane]

The console sounds really powerful, but like Jonbo says, I'm fearing the moment when they say "the PS3 will retail at $399"...

Ahh!! Well, maybe it won't be that bad. I'm betting on a $299 retail. Still very expensive.

[MuGen]

whoa... I highly doubt anything like the ps3 will cost $299..... I don't fear, but I'm predicting they launch it at $399 the most reasonable price for something so powerful.

And if the Cell chip can run 2 OS' one that protects crashes and security problems and one that runs the system, I can imagine a console with almost close to no loading time, and absolutely no cases of Freezing......

speaking of which... I was playing URBZ and I had like 200 reputation points then the game froze.....

Please... ps3... prevent freezes!!

[Blackmane]

I'm going to laugh when they go through all this trouble to make the console never freeze, and I'm playing a game with my friends and all of a sudden it freezes. I will laugh so hard.

And Kyuzo, you do realize that most people do not want to pay upwards of $400 for a console. Most people are not willing to pay a huge sum of money and will wait for the price to drop before buying.

At any rate, I think that even if Cell costs a lot of money to produce, that Sony will still price it lower and take a hit for it. The question is, how big of a hit?

[GameMaster]

True gamers will refuse to pay anything more $200 for a console.

If the companies won't comply with our budgets, than video gaming will just have to become the rich man's sport.