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PlayStation 3 HDD to Ship With Linux

Posted by Zonk on from the penguin-in-every-hard-drive dept.

timtwobuck writes "Gamespot.com is reporting that Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, has disclosed in an interview that PlayStation 3 will natively run Linux. In fact, it will come bundled with it, if you purchase the HDD peripheral." From the article: "But while Linux would require a hard drive to run on, Kutaragi told Impress PC Watch, 'We're not going to equip [the PS3 with] a HDD by default, because no matter how much [capacity] we put in it, it won't be enough.' It was unclear whether he was referring to the previously known fact that the PS3 would not have an internal hard drive or whether he was indicating that the device would not come with the external 2.5-inch detachable HDD outlined in the specs revealed at E3."

3 of 548 comments (clear)

  1. Won't be enough? by MBraynard · · Score: 5, Insightful
    'We're not going to equip [the PS3 with] a HDD by default, because no matter how much [capacity] we put in it, it won't be enough.'

    Nonesense. Never came close to filling up the 8gig on my Xbox, but every game I've played has made use of the HD because they KNOW it will be there.

    Of course, since the HD is optional with the PS3, devs will have to assume that it will not be there to reach a wider installed base. PS3 has just made developing for their system more difficult by releasing two products - ones with HDs and ones without.

    Even just a small 4gig drive might have been helpful and inexpensive.

  2. ps3 as pc? by rawmule · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This announcement makes me wonder if Sony is positioning ps3 as a general purpose pc replacement. If the HDD includes not only the kernel but a windowing environment(KDE, gnome, etc...), I could see more than a few people using ps3 as thier primary web/email/office box. Assuming that it has keyboard/mouse support, the ps3 has more than enough power to handle normal pc usage.

  3. Re:Not suprising. by Trigun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You mean they won't be able to contol the desire for everyone to have this machine, instead of buying their competitors product? They won't have to worry about people poking around their bios and reverse engineering it, because there would only be one reason to do that? They won't be able to handle the heaps of praise placed upon them from the open source community?

    Damn, this looks like a bad move on their part.