As one of the major investors behind the Cell processor, it’s about time that Toshiba actually used the bloody thing. Sony’s Cell results haven’t been exactly stellar, with
recent reports claiming that the PS3 has already burned through the massive mountain of cash that the PS2 made in its entire lifetime. This doesn’t appear to have put Toshiba off though, as the company has just announced the launch date of its Cell-powered TV at the IFA electronics show in Berlin.
First demoed back in January of this year at CES, Toshiba’s first Cell-based tellies will be the Regza ZF range, but they’re still quite a ways off. You’ll need to clear your credit card debt by the second half of 2009 to pick up one of these boxes, and if you’re really keen you’ll need to move to Japan to get it before the rest of the world. Europe is the next stop for the ZF after Japan, followed by the US. We’re guessing that Aussies will watch their first Cell-powered episode of The Great Outdoors some time in 2015.
If and when it does arrive on our shores, the Cell chip will be utilised to provide two key benefits to the ZF. Sadly neither of these has anything to do with Metal Gear Solid 4. Nope, the Cell’s ability to crunch polygons will be neglected in the ZF; instead it’ll be put to use to provide upscaling and picture in picture. At the IFA event, one impressive demo showed the Cell outputting a whopping 48 preview windows on screen at one time. Channel surfer’s rejoice!
The Cell included in the ZF will only utilise four working SPEs (which are akin to separate CPUs within the Cell processor), half the number of the Playstation 3. Does that mean we can at least play Metal Gear Solid 2 ?