Will this change with IBM pulling out of their own development? Not necessarily. Sony can still hire IBM to create a Cell Processor for their next console, without IBM being involved in their own internal development outside of the PS4. So don’t start counting Sony’s chickens just yet.

cell processor has always been a joke. You cant replace a gpu with a normal processor... u can however replace a processor with a gpu... or soon will be thanks to nvidia.

Uhm I see all the PS3 droids cry so much but one thing is for sure.

If the Cell was that great, it would have been continued. As it isn't, it is not the most optimal way to use processors obviously. There are easier ways to get the same results. It was a nice try, but it failed.

Its not cut over nothing, remember that. And yes, with a lot of effort stuff like Uncharted 2 can be done. But if thats with 5 x the cost compared to other CPU's, suddenly it becomes a problem. Like KZ2 costing 60 mln. to get all that SPU's to work also.

"am part of this development team"

"the net can really make people look as stupid as they are in real life"

Hahaha thnx for making me laugh kid.

I think this playstation themed website is bogus. This is the second nasty story these guys have 'reported' on.

Further more, IBM has had finacial difficulty for quite some time now. So, IF this story is true, it would not have anything to do with the quality of the Cell processor.

Also, the comment "notoriously difficult to develop for" raises red flags. This sounds like a fanboy comment, because developers have said that its not 'difficult' just different. If you only want to work with the familiar and simple then yeah, its 'difficult'. This site is garbage and that statement alone raises some doubts to its crediblity.

Maybe next gen the poor multiplat issues will be sorted out, and no doubt the ps4 will get a lot more games for this change. Good to see sony has learnt from their mistakes. Creating new processor architecture, which is not compatible, or easily ported to from existing universal multithreading cpu's was insane.
I'd love to hear MNicholas's explanation of why sony's 'vastly superior and cheap to manufacture' cell has been killed of, especially when as he claimed it had a large market outside of the playstation.

No loss for gamers, or to computer industry, the next ps3 will be a lot more compatible, and instead of this 'they don't know the hardware' crap, they can just max out every game with ease of programability, as for the workstation market, tesla is here to save the day, have no fear.

To summarise the reasoning: Intel got it wrong with larabee, IBM got it wrong with the cell, Nvidia got it very right with tesla and the new gt300 gpu's

This is actually good news. paraphrasing, It says that things are moving more toward the GPU, and so future development will try to adapt current cell technology to work with an integrated gpu solution. It means more focus on graphics rather than just sheer processing power. Future processors along this same vein may not be call CELL perhaps, but they will be based off the technology, and shoot, it sounds like they will be even better adapted for a console with more emphasis on the gpu. I think that is pretty awesome. Sony will definitely have to be in talks with IBM for their next system. I'm not really seeing why there is so much doom and gloom in the article. technology adapts and advances. Whatever IBM moulds the current cell designs into, im sure it will be great, and since it will be based of the CELL we can still hope that compatibility will be there to some degree as well when it comes to making programs/games. Good interesting article!

The Cell will not be used in the PS4. Maybe still be used in tvs and other devices but it was a huge gamble. Those that were closely associated...Ken, IBM..etc are/already have jumped off or gotten the boot.

Will this change with IBM pulling out of their own development? Not necessarily. Sony can still hire IBM to create a Cell Processor for their next console, without IBM being involved in their own internal development outside of the PS4. So don’t start counting Sony’s chickens just yet.

this is just like every other chip out there, they take it so far and then start developing a new one, do you think the 360s chip is being used in anything other than 360? no its not, and as it says in that quote sony can partner wit ibm again if they want, sony plus toshiba still own the rights to the cell tech, it means nothing to the ps3 for ibm to stop support.

Ok, this is getting grossly out of proportion. IBM isn't doing away with CELL, they had a new Design for a 32 core cell, they scrapped that new design to try to go a different way adapting technology from the cell. But saying the CELL failed is stupid. How many cores can you attach to a processor before performance increase is negligible because there just arent enough things being run at one time to make use of them all? I'm sure IBM is trying to find ways to continually improve technology and they decided that instead of slapping on more cores they could get more performance increase by better incorporation with a gpu. This has nothing to do with the success of the CELL, nor does it reference sales as any reason. to the contrary, if it was a bad design, then why would they want to base newer technology off of it... Come on people, use our brains...

Tis is not biggie. IBM simply decided to move on for business reasons. The Cell Processor did not expand beyond the market they intended. IBM was expecting the Cell to be implemented in many devices outside of the PS3. This did not happen. Time to move on

To me, the important quote in that article was...

"...Turek did explain that features of the Cell would continue to be moulded into other processor designs. With the future looking like it’s taking a GPU route, a hybrid technology is the direction IBM will developing."

Any fanboys crying about the failure of the Cell should just read that quote. It explains exactly why the Cell development was a success, and where it is leading.

Also, there's no mention of stopping production, only development. So Sony should have no problems using a Cell in the PS4, and quite possibly using a hybrid chip based on Cell in the PS5.

like Sony lovers claim....then why hasn't it even made a SCRATCH in the PC CPU retail world....or anywhere else for that matter? EPIC FAIL - just like the Emotion Engine! ROFL!

BTW This probably also means that there will be little, if ANY support for backwards compatibility of PS3 games on the PS4 : 0

Bots, are you really discussing cancelled hardware. The first Xbox? Come now

It truly made the way we play games so much better. And yes, Sony and Toshiba are still involved, and can hire IBM for additional work on the next Cell (if need be). So no, it's not the end of the world. We're still at least 4 years away from a PS4 being released, if not longer.

"I am part of this development team..."
No, you're not.

I thought Sony pulled out of the Cell when they sold their production facility to Toshiba? Or did they just get out of Producing cell chips?

Either way I am sure that IBM will take what they have learned from Parallel Processing from the Cell and apply it towards their next chip.

The CELL has power, but its to expensive to dev for. IBM dropps the development because they also invest too much money for the cell.

looking on commning games like RAGE or BRINK, which look way better than KZ2, we can easily say, that the PS3 is in NO WAY better in terms of graphics compare dto the 360.

There are 700 games out and the only game is uncharted2 which shows the cell power?? Damn, thats a really shame! Even God of War 2.5 cant beat uncharted2. And Alan Wake looks ways more realistic and has sharper textures as uncharted2.

Sorry... but the PS3 and its cell with its slow blu ray drive is the biggest flop this gen.

RAGE/ BRINk > ALL

Do all you lemmings think that the Cell is gone because 1 part of STI (Sony/Toshiba/IBM) has dropped it?

Sony and Toshiba are more than capable of taking on the R&D...plus, IBM can still help with manufacturing...this just means that IBM isn't putting money forth to develop future cell revisions and such.

Understand?

Hiphopgamer translation coming on sunday: "Sony cancels the PS4!"

Damn, the xbox fanboys are riding this one hard!

Lap it up all you want though boys, it makes no difference....The PS3 is here to stay, like it or not.

The Open Zone reeks of the stench of desperation today. I have no problem with people defending their console of choice with constructive argument but some of of you xbox diehards sink to embarrassing levels of childish fanoboyism and damage control. The PS3 is doing fine, smashing sales figures, numerous AAA titles are rolling in and next year is only going to get better. I fail to see how that constitutes "failure".

This news is going to have zero effect on the PS3 as a console. Deal with it and grow tfu.

And for all those talking of "8 core xbox's" and "the next gen" already.....please. This gen is barely half way through it's cycle and the current crop of consoles are going to be with us for a good few years yet.

There is no such thing as a (Pentium1,2,3,4 processor) be There are all different processors with the same name. We need to get the idea out of our heads that th same thing will be here for years.

So saying the cell failed is no different then saying a Dual core failed because the dual core 2 came out.

Get what I'm saying? The cell was and is a huge win and everyone is coping its tech intels new gpu direction is a cell clone

This is MAJOR news!
IBM cancels the much vaunted cell.

I can just see all the forums across the globe resound with a chorus of 'bu bu teh cell?'
.... lol!

Question is, what recourse do the developers have, considering they 'invested' so much more time and money in getting cell coding skills?
Are their cell-skills, acquired at great personal cost, now useless?
Would it be fair to say they got screwed?
hmmm.

Makes me wonder if Gabe Newell wasn't right all along?
He certainly looks to have been vindicated by this news.

... funny how these things sort themselves out in the long run, huh?

The article says that IBM is pulling out of the Cell development, meaning,
they are not going to produce the envisioned PowerXCell-8i+ processor utilizing
two PowerPC- and 32 SPEs cores in one enclosure. Why? Despite the Cell offers
an outstanding number-crunching capability, which performs at it best when
applied to non-aligned data-structures (i.e. trees, unstructured grids, etc.),
which becomes possible due to the explicit nature of the memory interface
(gather/setter operations), it seems like that selling such a processor to the
HPC market, which isn't a very large market to say at least, and others can't
support the development even further because the workloads of todays HPC
machines do also incorporate a lot of graphical operations (i.e. scientific
visualizations) which don't map that well onto the Cell processor. Most
graphical operations perform at it its best when applied to linear
data-structures (i.e lists, structured grids, etc.). And this is also the reason
why graphics accelerators do perform that good when it comes to these kinds of
workloads. Hence, offering only a Cell processor to the HPC community would
only solve half of the problem. What's needed is a hybrid processor that does
also incorporate efficient execution of graphical operations. Well, it's no
surprise that the PS3 does include an graphics accelerator (the RSX).

I wouldn't be surprised if IBM follows the route originally given within the
patent of the Cell processor where one could see that they indented to integrate
a unit explicitly for graphical workloads, the so-called Visualizer.

The Cell processor for itself is a master-piece, it's architecture offers what
is needed to implement complex algorithms efficiently. The main difficulties
in developing for Cell doesn't come from the processor itself, it's a universal
problem, it comes from the rather hard task of parallelizing an algorithm that
operates on a non-linear data-structures (i.e. just try to parallelize a kd-tree,
or an algorithm that operates on an unstructured grid). Most of these topics
are scientific research problems. However, the situation is much easier when
considering graphical workloads. Most graphical algorithms operate on linear
data-structures (uniform grids, etc.) and those data-structures are very easy to
parallelize such that one can make good use of an graphics accelerator.

To give you an example; the Cell processor shines when being applied to
fluid dynamics, crash-test simulations and similar problems. And an graphics
accelerator shines when visualizing all the results coming out of those
simulations. Hence, it would be best to have kinda of an hybrid processor that
allows to do hard number crunching and that also includes a graphics unit
that can immediately process parts of the computed data to compute a
visualization thereof.

When an article about the Cell Processor, can still attract people that want make this about a console war. As surprising as it may seem, everything isn't always about the PS3/360.

Shocking, I know...

this pretty m uch guarantees no backward compatibility for the next playstation iteration

that is the one detail people are skipping

This is actually good news for the PS4! IBM is pretty much moving on to the next "phase" of the cell, which is integrating tech learned from the cell into a GPU. Hopefully this means that by the time the PS4 comes around, it will have a powerful multicore processor (the cell hired out by IBM, just not internally done by IBM) AND a cell derived GPU!!! My god, think how fast it would be!!!

cell is getting used left right and center

ps4 will be upgraded with a new cell chip that will be x times powerful then the next consoles

the next consoles ps4 will be the best mark my word

I want the cell only in ps3 consoles, its sickening to see them in TVs etc.

only on playstation and devs developed for cell when the ps3 was new and had 0 marketshare why wouldnt they do when ps4 is released and ps3 has 50 million consoles in the market?

Why are people saying failure, every new system has a new processor

PS1
PS2
PS3

Xbox
Xbox 360

All different processors no one banked on holding on to the same style forever, you would be out of the hardware game

I would expect some evolutionary processor still based upon the cell for the next console. Perhaps some kind of hybrid as suggested in the article. Sony took an early beating pushing forward this technology, so imho the smart business decision would be to ensure backwards compatability for PS3 games on the PS4, and not having to reinvent the wheel again for the software developers.

Lots of anal probed xbots I see. Still waiting for Santa to get you a PS3? Don't wait anylonger couse he ain't coming.

Btw, took a picture when Mart stood...well, see it for yourselves.

Sorry to smash your dreams bots. But if you ask mommy enough she might find it in her heart, if she has enough money left after paying for the trailer and cocaine.

AND IT WON !! lol xbots, in PS4 sony can use any processor, they might use an upgraded cell or any other multi threaded processor.

I think canceling the Cell is not bad.

I want PS4 to have a new cpu architecture that is much easier
to develop games for.

Buh buh buh, teh power of the cell.
Lol, nobody else is doing this, cause the cell is better off as a gpu, not cpu. For chip design, look no further than intel. Proprietary doesn't have all the advantages that fanboys believe in. Sony just likes calling their stuff supercomputers with buzzwords like cell bbe, emotion engine, etc. Rally points for fanboys to get behind. Then as per protocol, sony leaks a story like, they can't import the unit into the US cause it's too crazy fast (PS2), or china (PS3). All marketing, little substance.

technology it's always advancing if processors were not continously in development at this time a pentium 2 would be part of our pc's lol

Sony plans on using the cell again for PS4? Where did that information come from? I hope not, cell is cool and all but they need to move into even more powerful technology. Maybe if it's made more powerful? Anyone have an idea? I'm curious how cell could be made more powerful? memory? more spus?

the cell... http://www.youtube.com/watc...

well, at least Sony could use the cell next generation, if they want to.

well sony bailed out now ibm whos left?

this as something to do with the new world order!!!

Oh boy...let's just hope IBM has something better planned for PS4 then, or else just maybe they lost their contract to Intel with their Larrabee.

That's going to hurt PS3's credibility though, having its much hyped processor canceled only 3 years into its life. It sure did provide developers with great results, but it never hit the mainstream and its costs to work with and train developers to efficiently utilize the CellBE architecture outweighed its results.

If PS3 games could've been priced at $79.99 then maybe developers could make back dev costs quicker. Now you see why IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT TEH SALES! Uncharted 2 and KillZone 2 might have insane visuals (to some) but they weren't sound investments from a business standpoint. They didn't generate the revenues of a COD or Halo title.

Hahahahaha look at the bots happy cus ibm is not developing the cell no more. Look idiots toshiba builts the cell and gives it to sony 2 put it on the ps3 u guys are f@cking stupid read for once for god sakes.

U sonyturds can't even accept the article from yoru own community playstationuniversity.com

HAHAHA coming in to defend your lastplaceforeverestation3.

If it weren't for the cell processor you wouldn't have had your limited-but-a-ripped-off processor in the 360s you have today. Source: read the book "race for a new console". Goes in specific detail how at first microsoft had their own processor in the beginning of development then heard news of PS3s cell which would make them scrap their original abd delt with ibm to create a similiar but limited version. Point: don't be hypocrites.

well thats the end of sony's ps3 maybe ps4 can do something

Consider all the hype and development money, the Cell project has been a failure. It is less effective at running general purpose code than Intel, AMD, and IBM's microprocessors. Moreover, it is less effective at running graphics code compared to Nvidia and ATI GPUs. That's why Sony dumped the Cell and went to Nvidia at the last moment for the PS3 instead of using 2 Cell processors. It is no wonder that IBM, the creators and researchers of the Cell, is just letting it die off.

Gabe Newell is laughing his fat ass off right now. John Carmack was right about the Cell all along.

Ken Kutaragi, "where is my 120FPS networked-super-Cell matrix at?" No wonder Sony fired/canned you.
Hopefully, Intel will bailout Sony for the PS4, who knows.....

RIP Cell (Nov., 20 2009)

Do you xbots honestly think that Toshiba and IBM will stop PRODUCING the cell because they have stopped its development? That's like saying, we know that the cell is still profitable but we don't want to take advantage of that. Please Sony, don't place anymore orders for the cell processor because we don't like profit.

Too complex for you? Let me break it down even further, just because Microsoft stopped developing the pleasefixme does that mean that they stopped production? Why turn away profit if the market is still there?

If anything it means that IBM is planning on working on future projects. Perhaps next-gen CPU's? Considering how Microsoft got the shaft from IBM this gen, wouldn't it make more sense for them to go to Intel for the next-gen Xbox cpu?

Logic xbots, use it...

The Cell B.E. was created for networking and compression, Sony jumped in for it to have it in the PS3.

IBM has been crippled in recent times by Nvidia Tesla and by AMD, also IMB Roadrunner Servers had AMD opterons to support the Cell B.E.

For example one S1070u Tesla Blade by Nvidia with only 4 processors was more powerful than 7 or 8 blades which contained 14/16 Cell B.E. and 28/32 AMD opterons.

If IBM servers were failing to make money of course they were going to dump the Cell B.E., they are expensive to produce and make no money.

http://www.computerworld.co...

That Uncharted 2 maxed out the PS3. Not a terrible thing though, U2 was and still is incredible and much higher quality than anything you're going to find on 360. But when you look back at things, all these games that were supposed to take PS3 above and beyond compare (Resistance: FoM, MGS4, Uncharted 1) were all great in their own ways but not enough to literally be blown away. Then Resistance 2, Killzone 2, Uncharted 2 were all supposed to show the REAL power of the PS3...All were great but where's our native 1080p60 games at we were promised at launch? And now supposedly God of War 3, Heavy Rain, and GT5 will show what PS3 is really about. Can games in this generation get THAT much better? I hope we hear news in 2010 about the next-gen consoles.

Wii obviously wins this gen, as bad as that is. 360 will finish second and PS3 will take 3rd even though I believe it has the best first and second party games and exclusives. It just didn't generate the sales it needed out the door in the opening year.

The cell was developed 4 years ago, it's old technology now. Fact is you can buy a better proc for you PC for a reasonable price. It makes sense for them to move on.

Actually the fact that they stuck with 1 proc for this long is very unusual in this industry. New/better technologies are constantly being produced.

IBM sees where the cell is heading and bailed out on sony and it won't be to long before toshiba does the same.

RIP cell.

You were expensive and useless and will be remembered as another short lived waste of money peace of crap such as the mini disc, beta and other bad creations by sony. May you join them and find peace in the recycling depo.

but but bu ........teh cell

Buahaaahahahhahaha.

527 days ago, about how the Cell processor compares to a P4 and against the
three PowerPC processors within the 360 from a pure computational standpoint;
http://n4g.com/NewsCom-1555...

The people who think this is the end of the Playstation franchise are insane.

Tinfoil hat much?

The future of gaming will be unlike anything we currently expect.

why didn't steve jobs make the switch to intel instead of the cell.

It can stop the competitor from copying the cell's tech. and since the ps3 is build for the future the ps3 can compete with newer competition.

Sony and Toshiba don't have the rights or the technology to manufacture the Cell B.E. so if IBM does discontinue the Cell then PS3 can't be made once stocks deplete

Seeing as how IBM is SOOO on top of new technology.

hehheheheheheheehehhe cancels

crap cell hehehehehehhehehe

flopstation 3

I'm going to do a study on the depletion of I.Q due to fanboyism.

The amount of stupid things I just read.

Fanboys never learn, I still read the same crap as I reed 3 years ago.

Tell me again how the multiplatform strategy was supposed to fix everything. Look at your results and compare them to Nintendo, which keeps thriving with exclusives. Your loyal fans are gone. And let’s not forget the pile of IPs you purchased only to let them rot.

The worst thing is this is down from last years numbers/expectations which was down from the previous years numbers/expectations. You think about how long “down” has been a consistent part of the communication and you realize those subscriptions are what’s holding that boat together. The price cut of gamespass is still a price raise in a string of price raises. They are trying to use players to offset the missing revenue. Now call of duty is out of gamespass, which is literally WHY they bought the company. To draw people to the subscription. They realized they missed a boatload of money and that wasn’t sustainable. Now you pay for it like you would have if they never bought the company… so why buy the company? Mind you those billions still need to be paid back. Yeah it gives you a chance to say we make the biggest FPS… but the internal conversations must be brutal at high level on topics that really matter. Like revenue. Profitability. And ROI for the shopping spree.

Is this like the 10th quarter in a row they're down 33% on hardware how is that even mathematically possible. You would think their mediocrity would Plateau