Ouch. Sony is in big trouble with this one. As you probably know, Sony and some other companies decided it was a good idea to make an entirely new CPU called Cell. Cell is supposed to the powerhouse core that empowers the PS3 enough so that it can kick the crap out of Microsoft's Xbox 360.

Well that seems to be a bit, well, wrong. Instead of creating an awesome processor, Sony has managed (at this point in time) to create a dud that gets severely trounced by the 360. Cell's write speed from local memory is at a paltry 4GB/s and its write speed is at an absolutely rock bottom 16MB/s. Yes that's megabytes per second. What the hell. My iPod writes to its hard drive almost as fast at that. Good work Sony.

So not only is the PS3 ridiculously late, but at this point in time it barely works. I feel sorry for the developers having to work on games for that platform. They've been told to use main memory instead of local memory to avoid this local memory problem. It was said in such a way that indicated that this problem is not going to be fixed any time soon. Surely not?

So not only is the PS3 already difficult to program for (compared to the Xbox 360 which apparently has quite good tools) its going to get even harder with crippled local memory that will put this console in a firm second place behind the 360. And that's OK with me. I'm a Microsoft fan and anything that rubs Sony's face in the dirt makes me happy. I've never really forgiven them after that rootkitting scandal they were involved in.

In my opinion, Sony betted too much on their ability to create a new CPU. Its not an easy thing to do, as evidenced by the fact that only two main companies actually make CPUs AMD and Intel. VIA is an example of a company that will always be behind the 8 ball. Its like in Formula 1 racing: Williams used to be a good team up there at the top, then at some point they stuffed up and now they are constantly behind Ferrari, because Ferrari is always one step ahead. Its too hard to overtake them. Sony's bet on Cell doesn't seem to be paying off.

I got some disappointing feedback about my last blog, so I'll point out the nuances for people who missed it. Yes, I was deliberately being a hypocrite with my whinging and constant "shut up"s. I had hoped that more people would get the irony in my blog, that I, the hater of whinging useless blogs, now am writing one myself. Oh well, obviously it was lost in text, like sarcasm in an instant message.