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Welcome to 2013, 64-bit took over the world years ago.

There are no 32-bit x86 processors for sale anymore. "x86" means x86_64 as well.

32bit code can sometimes be faster than 64bit code because 32bit pointers are smaller, use less RAM and put less pressure on the cache.

It'd be interesting if Sony choose to run the processor in 32bit mode for that reason, they could also use something like the Linux x32 ABI (i.e. use the AMD64 instruction set but with 32bit pointers).

Of course referring to the processor architecture as "x86" doesn't mean anything in that regard.

They didn't talk specifically about processor architecture during the event, but the leaked specs were showing that it (as well as the next Xbox) will have a 8-core AMD x86-64 chip. I can almost guarantee that it will not be plain 32-bit x86.

Nowadays x86 directly means 64-bit since it's the most common architecture. Also the 8GB of RAM directly suggests 64-bit support. I'm curious how much cheaper and faster it will be to develop for x86 compared to the PS3's Cell processor.