Along with what’s already been mentioned, it was very difficult to program for due to some interesting hardware differences and took developers a few years to really figure out which lead to some poor performance despite better hardware.
I do understand what you’re saying, but it’s kind of hard to call it “better hardware” in light of how difficult it was to actually develop for.
Someone had to develop a chip for the next video game console. That console didn’t provide any value in itself, but was a platform to enable actual game studios to create immersive games for users. The chip design they chose hindered developers from doing that to the point that they were regularly outperformed by a far cheaper chipset.
I have a lot of respect for the nerdy details of the cell processor, and why it’s an interesting processor architecture, but in the sum total context of what it was designed to do I would push back a little on calling it ‘better’.
Along with what’s already been mentioned, it was very difficult to program for due to some interesting hardware differences and took developers a few years to really figure out which lead to some poor performance despite better hardware.
I do understand what you’re saying, but it’s kind of hard to call it “better hardware” in light of how difficult it was to actually develop for.
Someone had to develop a chip for the next video game console. That console didn’t provide any value in itself, but was a platform to enable actual game studios to create immersive games for users. The chip design they chose hindered developers from doing that to the point that they were regularly outperformed by a far cheaper chipset.
I have a lot of respect for the nerdy details of the cell processor, and why it’s an interesting processor architecture, but in the sum total context of what it was designed to do I would push back a little on calling it ‘better’.