PlayStation 3 chip goes easy on developers

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Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 19:35:30 -0600

http://news.com.com/PlayStation+3+chip+goes+easy+on+developers/2100-1043_3-5476933.html?tag=nefd.top

10 years after the release of the original Playstation, it seems Sony and
IBM are trying to aleviate the fears of game developers about programming
games on Playstation3, something that was never a strong point of PS2, but
definitally was with PS1.

PlayStation 3 chip goes easy on developers
Published: December 3, 2004, 3:26 PM PST
By David Becker
Staff Writer, CNET News.com

SAN FRANCISCO--The "Cell" processor that will power the next version of the
PlayStation game console will also be adaptable for advanced scientific
research, but you won't have to be a rocket scientist to program it.

That is the pledge of one of the chief architects of the Cell, jointly
developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, who on Friday sought to allay fears that
the chip would create huge programming challenges for game developers just
starting to learn their way around the complex circuitry that powers the
current PlayStation 2.

"We're very much aware of the need to balance between innovation in
architecture and the ability to leverage that innovation," H. Peter Hofstee,
a researcher in IBM's Systems and Technology division, said during a break
at an IBM press event here. "The learning curve for this platform should be
significantly better than previous ones."

The three companies announced their Cell plans three years ago, describing
an advanced processor tailored for demanding multimedia tasks. The companies
said earlier this week that they plan to begin test production of Cell chips
early next year, with the first Cell-based products--workstation PCs for
computer graphics production--set to arrive late in the year.

Sony and Toshiba both plan to start selling high-definition TV sets powered
by the chip in 2006, which is also when Sony is expected to introduce the
Cell-powered PlayStation 3.

Hofstee said the Cell will benefit game developers not only by giving them a
stable and easily approachable foundation for games to run on, but by
powering the workstations they use to produce games. The upshot is that
developers should be spending a lot less time waiting for their equipment to
render the animation they create.

"We think it's going to be a much more seamless and speedy process for
developers using these workstations," he said.

 Besides workstations, game machines and TV sets, Cell is also likely to
power certain types of scientific supercomputers, streaming media servers
and image analysis systems, all of which have continually expanding needs
for processing power. Hofstee said Cell taps into an emerging "convergence
between what we think of as supercomputing and what we use in the
entertainment space."

Beyond that, the sky's the limit, according to Hofstee, who said the Cell
development team set out to create a flexible design that would dramatically
increase processing power while skirting growing chipmaker concerns about
power consumption.

"We've created something that is very flexible," he said. "Having a more
generic architecture will allow people to do new things."

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