The PS3 != The Cell... THe PS3 is an expensive device over encumbered with hardware for throwing polygons at a TV screen. It is not a general purpose computing device.
I really can't understand why people still harbour fantacies about games consoles... history has show that these devices while perform really well at running games, they are useless for general purpose computing. The strength of the Amiga was that even though it was a games machine, it was also a powerful general purpose device (this did not happen by accident, if you read the history of the thing).
This is far from correct. In fact we are going through the process of assessing the PS3 for various 'non-gaming' applications.
Id suggest you do some reading up about the PS3, and the Cell for that matter. The PS3 _DOES_ include a complete version of the Cell processor.
The PS3 also DOES resemble the Amiga in many ways. Whereby the Gfx and the CPU were tightly coupled and had high bandwidth between them. Where the CPU and the Gfx (Blitter) could operate on independant code segements.
Also, they are different, in that much of the PS3 will use the seperate internal SPU's to offload work from the main PPE. Yes, the SPU's are entire seperate processor elements, they are NOT just vector units as many people keep on misinforming others.
The most important similarity between the PS3 and the Amiga however, is that it WILL be running an OS (Linux), it will be able to run applications, have USB keyboards, mice, and so on. Making this machine MUCH more like the Amiga than any previous console - the PS2 with the Linux kit was probably closest thing yet.
You might want to note too, that like you mention about the Amiga being designed not just for games, Ken Kuturagi has said _exactly_ the same things about the PS3. It has been designed ground up for use not JUST as a games machine. Expect to see the PS3 much more like the Amiga, than you can imagine - we hope to envision something pretty 'Amiga like' on it..
I should also note, that the PS3 can run pretty much any OS in VM. And I know for certain that OSX, and XP have been trialed on it. So dont write off being able to install your favourite OS
