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Sony Says Nobody Will Ever Use All the Power of a PS3

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the they-never-heard-of-the-robsort-algorithm dept.

Tighthead Prop writes "Sony executive Phil Harrison has made some brash comments about the Cell processor and the PlayStation 3. Harrison says that the current PS3 game lineup is using less than half of the machines power, adding that 'nobody will ever use 100 percent of its capacity.' Is he right? 'The major reason Harrison wants to hype up the "unlimited" potential of the PS3's architecture is to downplay comparisons between games running on Sony's console and Microsoft's Xbox 360. The two systems are not completely dissimilar: they both contain a PowerPC core running at 3.2 GHz, both have similarly-clocked GPUs, and both come with 512 MB of RAM.'"

9 of 581 comments (clear)

  1. This sounds familiar... by Electrode · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Something about 640k of RAM...

    1. Re:This sounds familiar... by bigman2003 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is a really safe bet though-

      Will anyone use 100% of the CPU(s)?
      AND 100% of the GPU?
      AND 100% of the RAM?

      If not, Sony can always say they aren't using 100% of the system- so they game didn't live up to its potential.

      Show me a game on any system that uses 100% of the resources, and I'll show you a game that hangs like mad and runs like crap.

      Once again Sony comes out with an idiotic statement that they think will impress the public.

      (Admittedly, the article was /.ed so I couldn't read it...so maybe he said something else...if so, sorry!)

      --
      No reason to lie.
    2. Re:This sounds familiar... by SCPRedMage · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And yet, if they DO use 100% CPU time, GPU time, and memory, then that means the game is bottlenecked on something and frame rates will suffer, so the game will never live up to it's full potential...

      Guess that means it's impossible for a game to "live up to it's full potential"...

      --
      My sig can beat up your sig.
    3. Re:This sounds familiar... by Manmademan · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Final Fantasy XII is the best that a game will ever look on the PS2. It could have been made to look better but the PS2 cant handle it. He is saying that this will never be a problem on the PS3.

      I disagree with this 100%. Final Fantasy XII is one of the best looking games on the PS2 to date, but There's a good argument to be made that Gran Turismo 4 (which runs in 1080i in one way or another while FFXII is 480i only) surpasses it. But regardless- consoles arent like PC's. there will ALWAYS be an enterprising developer who comes up with some crazy coding method no one ever considered before and squeezes a little more performance out of the system.

      Remember when Shadow of the Colossus was released, and everyone was saying things like "no one ever thought the PS2 was capable of things like this?" same principle. There's probably a lot of life left in the Ps2 that no one will ever get around to tapping, because with the existence of the PS3 it's no longer worth the effort to do so. By the time Developers REALLY know their way around the PS3 and are on the verge of squeezing every last ounce out of it, the Ps4 will be out and in the market and it simply won't make sense to bust one's ass trying to max out the PS3.

  2. Brilliant plan, guys by Zetta+Matrix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm not sure this is something I would want to brag about. If you made the system so complex that it was impossible to use to its fullest potential, then why did you make it so complex and/or powerful? Sounds like admitting to a lot of wasted effort.

  3. Does this mean that there won't be a PS4? by datajack · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Well, if it's not possible to use all the power in the PS3, there's no point in making a more powerful console in a few years time, right?

  4. Re:Architecture by webrunner · · Score: 4, Insightful

    of course it's also presented as -different- bad news, if you think about it. It means they could have made it less powerful, cheaper, and easier to program for and there wouldn't be a difference because nobody will ever use the extra power

    --
    ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
  5. Re:Thank You AC by Rallion · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How can a game be "in development" if the developer is still TBD?

  6. Re:Then either by Slack3r78 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The correct answer is:

    C) The Cell is a poor general purpose processor.

    If you're at all familiar with the fundamentals of CPU design, it should be blindingly obvious that the Cell should be very good at handling streaming vector data, but relatively poor at more general purpose calculations.