For gamers it’s a little early to start thinking about the PlayStation 4 as for many the PS3 Slim was the real introduction of the console at an acceptable price point and more manageable size. But Sony has to consider what console will replace it even if that is three or more years away.

Industry watchers are always speculating as to what is happening internally at the games divisions for Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. The latest rumors and speculation suggest Sony may not use the Cell processor in the PS4. That information comes courtesy of Hiroshige Goto, technology writer for Japanese publication Impress Watch.

It is thought Sony is considering alternatives to Cell due to feedback it received from developers about the PS3 architecture. It was clear to see that producing games for PS3 was a struggle to begin with due to the new challenges the architecture posed. Early games clearly looked better and ran faster on the Xbox 360, which had a more friendly architecture. Goto had previously informed his readers that Sony were looking at Intel’s Larrabee as an alternative or a modified Cell solution which introduced an SPU2 for hardware caching. This would allow programmers to treat the Cell more like a typical PC processor.

Now Goto is saying that Larrabee has been dismissed as a poor performer for both processing and power consumption. Instead the modified Cell is still under consideration, but next to a more mainstream multicore processor setup.

Gamers need not worry about saving up for a new console just yet. Goto also believes we won’t see anything from Microsoft or Sony before 2012 and that we should expect the PSP2 before then from Sony.

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