Well, these so called developers cannot really comment on the comparable power of either machine as even if they do have PS3 prototype hardware, they do not have Xenon hardware. So if they are comparing the 'technology', considering Microsoft has not said much, even to third parties, about the Xenon... and considering the rather impressive information released during the CES about the Cell CPU... of course the Cell CPU sounds much more interesting and advanced than your stock PPC G5. First problem for Sony is that those Cell CPUs going into the PS3 won't be the 8 SPE versions and won't be as highly clocked. Secondly I certainly hope that the prototype PS3 hardware is 3 times faster than the current Xenon kits, because the problem here is those kits are PowerMACs with dual G5s and ATI Radeon 9800pros so developers can start making games.
I have the feeling these 'developer' comments are coming from developers who are directly comparing the current devkits, which I don't blame them personally... its just the fact they leaking erroneous information. Normally developers expect the final hardware to perform at about the speed of the devkit, and this is how it is most of the time. However Microsoft decided to do something different and withhold information from everyone and only have these developers work on workstations with emulators. If they are comparing a PowerMAC Dual G5 with ATI Radeon 9800pros, then I hope the PS3 prototype hardware is 3x faster... put a X850 in those PowerMACs then all of a sudden they are about even with the PS3 slighly ahead. Now instead of the X850s lets go ahead and put the ATI R520 "Fudo" video card in those PowerMACs, now that workstation is more powerful than the PS3 by 1.5-2x. Ok, now lets pretend they replaced those PowerMACs with the actual hardware which is optimized, including all 3 PPC CPUs, and the R500 which is even more powerful than the R520... yea I am sure you see where I am getting at.
Bottom line is this... I REALLY hope for Sony's sake they are not basing the performance of the PS3 versus Xenon on the difference in performance of the devkits. But I guess we will find out soon enough...
I would also like to state for the record that I find it reprehensible for these so called 'publications' to be printing erroneous and baseless speculation that is not based in fact. I trust internet forums before I will trust these gaming magazines.
The GameMaster...
PS...I know that a lot of people are automatically assuming the PS3 is going to be more powerful than the XBox2 because of the assumed fact the PS3 is coming out later, and according to information roughly 6 months difference. But here is a question for you all, not that it really matters anyway with a 6 month difference to begin with... What if the PS3 is going to be launched in Japan at the end of this year, meaning effectively both systems launching at the same time? Do you still think the PS3 is going to be 'leagues' more powerful than the XBox2 if the PS3 launched this year?
