But at this point, nobody besides Sony has any idea what the Cell will allow the PS3 to do. Game developers say they haven't seen a prototype that comes close to the blazing processing speeds and life-like graphics of the commercial-ready console Sony is promising. Though Sony declines to comment on such complaints, in November it failed to deliver on a promise to send game creators an upgraded prototype containing a graphics chip made by Santa Clara (Calif.)-based nVidia (NVDA).
Without the souped-up graphics chip, "the machine we have is 10 times slower than the PS3 should be," says an exec at a game software maker who spoke on condition of anonymity. "The graphics chip was supposed to be ready by November. But we're still waiting."