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It's All Just Fun And Games (3/13/01)
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If you're one of those poor souls who is still having a tough time finding a PlayStation 2, our advice is to relax and wait a couple of years-- they'll be all over the place once the PlayStation 3 ships. Of course, by then you'll probably want the latest and greatest... especially since the PS3 will probably have more in common with your Mac than you might expect.
While Motorola is busy shoveling employees onto the fire to keep the heat on, the other PowerPC manufacturer is taking a decidedly playful turn these days. You probably already knew that IBM is producing a "custom, game-centric" variant of the PowerPC called "Gekko" for Nintendo's upcoming GAMECUBE console, which is slated to ship this summer. What you may not have heard yet is that, when it comes to Big Blue creating game-friendly microprocessors, the Gekko is just the beginning. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Sony has just hired IBM to create the chip that will power the PS3.
We can't say for certain that the PS3 chip (code-named "Cell") will be a PowerPC derivative, but since that's the route IBM took with the Gekko, it seems like an obvious strategy. It's also true that we don't know for certain that Cell is destined for the PS3; Sony's not saying one way or the other, and the official word is that Cell will be used in Sony's "next generation of consumer electronics products." But unless Sony has plans for a Walkman with gigaflop performance, we think a Cell-powered PlayStation 3 is a pretty safe bet.
Now, if Nintendo and Sony can hire IBM to design and produce chips that are optimized purely for game consoles, why on earth doesn't Apple hire Big Blue to make chips that are designed expressly for use in Macs? One of the setbacks in the PowerPC's history was when Motorola moved to AltiVec and IBM didn't, claiming that AltiVec was of little use in servers, which is where it wanted its chips to go. Okay, fine. Can't Apple just write out a big, fat check and commission a custom chip, just like Nintendo and Sony did for their game systems? Just something to consider in case Motorola's financial difficulties start to pull Apple down with it...
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SceneLink (2921)
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 | | The above scene was taken from the 3/13/01 episode: March 13, 2001: Brace yourselves, because the age-old "thin client Mac" rumor has risen anew, albeit with an x86 twist. Meanwhile, Motorola continues to hack away at its headcount to keep costs down, and Sony hires IBM to create the processor for the next PlayStation...
Other scenes from that episode: 2919: You Can Never Be Too Rich... (3/13/01) Evidently nostalgia is big right now, because we're smack in the middle of a hot and heavy old-school rumor revival. First there was our playful resurrection of the old Disney-Apple buyout story-- a classic for the ages... 2920: Motorola: Deep Hurting (3/13/01) Frankly, we're a little tired of Motorola getting smacked around so often over these past few months, but the company just keeps taking a beating. At first the woes were entertaining, on some sick level; we were sorry for the people who lost their jobs, of course, but at the same time, there was a certain soap opera thrill that accompanied those 2500 pink slips in January...
Or view the entire episode as originally broadcast... | |  |
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