The Sony PlayStation 3 (colloquially known as the PS3) will be the
new video game console in Sony's PlayStation series. Currently, PlayStation
3 is estimated to be available sometime in 2006, but recent developments
suggest that it may in fact arrive as late as 2007, or as early as
fall (October to December) 2005.
Central Processing Unit
The PlayStation 3's CPU will be a chip codenamed "Cell",
and the system will use chip-to-chip interface technology and memory
technology from Rambus. Cell's technical details were released
at the February 2005 ISSCC. IBM has won the contract to produce Cell
chips for the console. The CPU's supposed distributed
processing features have been of great interest to the press, speculation
being that many items in the home, with differing numbers of Cell chips,
can pool their power. Cell is a dual-core, 64-bit RISC IBM POWER derivative.
Early versions of the chip will be 90-nm, with a change to a 65-nm
process, if cost and performance allow. Abstracts from presentations
to be presented at ISSCC show the Cell processor running at 4.6 GHz.
Graphics Processing Unit
In December 2004, Nvidia announced that they have been in a multi-year
agreement with SCEI to develop the PlayStation 3's GPU,
a custom variant of their next-generation graphics processor. In fact,
they had worked for two years on the chip before making the announcement.
They were previously responsible for the GPU in the Xbox console. The
GPU will be manufactured at the joint Sony/Toshiba fabrication facility
in Nagasaki, Japan.
RAM
Reuters news service reports that Elpida will be supplying the RAM
used in the Playstation 3, and the company confirms spectulation that
the Playstation 3 will utilize the 512 megabit version (64 Megabyte
per RAM chip) of XDR DRAM, with Rambus' interface technology. Up to
four can be used per Cell chip, for a maximum RAM figure of 256 Megabytes
per Cell Chip.
Anticipation
As the latest in
a series of extremely popular game consoles, anticipation surrounding
the PS3 is high. Fans have
already started designing
images of what they think the console will look like. However,
there have not been any official designs publically released by Sony
as
of yet. Dedicated Sony loyalists have also formed various forums,
which they use to discuss all aspects of the next generation gaming
system. Sony has announced that the PS3 will appear (possibly in
playable form) at E3 in 2005, but will debut ahead of
that event.
Features
PlayStation 3 Standards
Unlike the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 systems, Sony appears to have
chosen publicly-available application programming interfaces and
technologies for the PlayStation 3.
The current list of open standards
Sony is either investigating, or has chosen includes:
OpenGL ES, the
embedded version of the popular OpenGL graphics API.
OpenVG, for hardware-accelerated 2D vector graphics.
OpenMAX,
a collection of fast, cross-platform tools for general "media
acceleration," such as matrix calculations.
COLLADA,
an open format for 3D models.
IPv6, for connection
to the next-generation Internet.
Games
This following a list of games planned to be released for the Sony
PlayStation 3 console. As the PS3 itself has not yet been released
as of 2004,
the list is subject to change.
Avalon - Climax
Broken Saints - Gnosis
Clown Combat
- Eagle Claw
Condemned - Sega
Devil May Cry - Project by Capcom
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Bethesda
Gran Turismo 5 - Polyphony Digital
Grand Theft Auto (PS3 Project) - Rockstar North
Heavenly Sword - Just Add Monsters
Need for Speed (New Generation Consoles Project) - Electronic
Arts
