Tekken 6 to utilize PS3's Cell chip
- March 29, 2007 21:49 PM PST
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According to Namco, the first arcade game to run on the Cell microprocessor will be Tekken 6, marking the first commercial usage of Cell technology outside of the PS3.
By Eugene Huang
According to a report by the Mainichi Daily News, Bandai Namco Games Inc. announced that their upcoming arcade fighting game Tekken 6 will run on the Cell processor, the famed microchip jointly developed for the PS3 by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM.
Although the chip had been highly touted by its creators from its onset as a processing engine that could be applied to a wide variety of household devices, this announcement marks the first time that the Cell is being used for a commercial device other than the PS3*.
*UPDATE: Liz Boal from Mercury Computer Systems reminds us that her company "actually introduced the first Cell BE processor-based product for non-gaming markets back in October 2005" and have developed Cell for "medical imaging, semiconductor, aerospace and defense, seismic processing and video processing markets."
Bandai Namco spokeswoman Miki Baba told Mainichi that, although it's been confirmed that Tekken 6 will utilize the Cell, they still have not made a definite decision regarding their future arcade hardware. Namco has used arcade technology based on PS2 architecture in the past, but the company is still uncertain as to whether they should base future arcade hardware on Cell-based technology.
Tekken 6 will debut in Japanese arcades later this year, but an exact launch date has yet to be announced.
