The Cell Broadband Engine™, better known as the ‘heart’ of the Playstation 3, is finding new uses for gaming other than powering MotorStorm or Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

IBM, in a joint venture with with Hoplon Infotainment, will soon be integrating the PS3’s Cell Broadband Engine™ into its one-of-a-kind mainframe to aid in the handling of next-gen “virtual world” applications and massive multiplayer online games (MMOGs).

As virtual world gaming and collaboration becomes more popular on gaming consoles, the need for a network that can handle asymmetrical bandwidth while maintaining its CPU power is quickly rising.

IBM found the Cell Broadband Engine to be the most suitable for the task of creating a system that can seamlessly handle ultra-fast communications between many online users simultaneously sharing a single gaming world.

Within the new system, the Cell will handle virtual reality, wireless downloads, real-time video chat, interactive TV shows, and complex physics simulations such as gravity; while the mainframe will run admin tasks for software and user connectivity through gaming consoles, cell phones, and PCs.

“As online environments increasingly incorporate aspects of virtual reality — including 3D graphics and lifelike, real-time interaction among many simultaneous users — companies of all types will need a computing platform that can handle a broad spectrum of demanding performance and security requirements,” said Jim Stallings, general manager, IBM System z. “To serve this market, the Cell/B.E. processor is the perfect complement to the mainframe, the only server designed to handle millions of simultaneous users.”

The hybrid mainframe will be extremely fast and powerful, and will capitalize on the IBM mainframe’s specialized ability to handle such ’specialty processors’ as the Cell Broadband Engine.

Related:

US military buys 300 Sony PS3s to get its game on

160GB Sony PS3 may get 45nm Cell processor

PS3 breaks PS2 sales record, to overtake Xbox 360 by summer

Sony to offer PS3-compatible downloadable PS2 games

Mass Effect PC system requirements revealed

Entry was posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2007 at 3:45 pm under PC, PlayStation 3.

Read more entries by George Gardner.
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