The New Year hasn’t even begun yet, and the rumour mill has started churning out juicy bits. IGN is reporting that according to Japanese outlet Impress Watch, Sony is considering many options for the design of its next console, the PS4, including doing away with the PS3’s Cell architecture altogether. The web site says that Sony could favour a traditional PC multi-core processor instead.
Many third-party developers have reported difficulty in making games for the PS3 platform with its Cell Broadband Engine, even though it seems to have the upper hand over the competition. And IGN reports that tech writer Hiroshige Goto says Sony is also looking at a new and modified version of the Cell processor and Intel’s Larrabee chipset. The tech writer also says that it is rather unlikely we’ll see the PS4 until the year 2012 at the earliest, since it typically takes about 2 years for a console to go into full production from concept.
It seems that Sony might be taking this step to become more developer-friendly in the future. And we have already heard rumours that Nintendo might implement Intel’s Larrabee in its next gaming console.