Cell Servers begin shipping

[MuGen]

The first version of Cell based servers began shipping from Mercury Computer Systems earlier this week. The servers were evaluation only and were to be used for "medical imaging, industrial inspection, aerospace and defense, seismic processing and telecommunications.”

This amidst news that the three main companies behind Cell, Sony, IBM and Toshiba have announced that they have extended their development partnership for another five years.

What does this have to do with gaming? Well one developer, who wished to remain anonymous, had this to say, “One of the problems with working on the PS3 or the 360 is that the PCs you use to design assets are really holding you back right now - obviously the PC will catch up, but in the meantime we've been talking about whether Cell workstations could help to smooth the path.”

The systems from Mercury are not designed for the digital media market, however both Sony and IBM have talked about workstations that could be used for digital media. Is it possible that we could see Cell workstations used to assist in the development of next-generation games? It appears that this may be the case.

Article: http://www.ps3portal.com/general/article/254.html

Imagine Xbox developers using Cell-based workstations to develop for Xbox 360.... now even STi group can make money off microsoft. :P