Slashdot Mirror
PlayStation 3 Could Support Mac OS X
ucahg writes "Sony's website has a press release stating that they will release the PS3 in 2006. The most interesting part about the page, though, is the last sentence which reads: 'The integrated Cell processor will be able to support a variety of operating systems (such as Linux or Apple's Tiger).' Is this what Steve Jobs was talking about when he said Apple and Sony looked forward to cooperating more in the future?"
What kind of a company would put out a $200 game console running Windows? The Microsoft tax would contitute nearly 50% of the console's cost. Any company unwise enough to try that deserves to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
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It sounds more like some idiot typing copy for the website didn't realize that OS X is/will always be tied to Apple hardware.
If that IS a little revelation, it's awfully quiet and fanfare-free.
The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
Perhaps the writer tought that Linux and Darwin would compile fine on the machine but this does not guarantee that Apple will port (recompile) the GUI layers of OS X. Just as Darwin compiled fine on Intel, before Apple ported the closed source party of OSX to the Intel architecture.
If on the other hand, the rumor is true: this would be a great leap forward for the PS3 as well as for Apple / OSX
"The cell could certainly support OSX in the same way that PearPC enables a x86 to support OSX (i.e. emulation) but it would be slow as hell."
Huh???
Cell chips are essentially insanely fast PowerPC chips. Apple could have OS X running on a Cell chip in about the same time it takes for them to support any other new PowerPC chip that comes out.
Not only would it be incredibly easy for OS X to use Cell chips, Apple has spent years setting up the media technologies like QuickTime and all the Core* libraries to seamlessly support hardware with massive parallel floating point power and bandwidth.
It is hilarious(and sad) to think of all that hardwork Apple engineers went through to be ready for media processing monster chips like Cell before they even knew that the first of such chips would be called Cell and now all that work is being used to support the weakest media processing architecture the x86. All that work just to support SSE! Oh god...
Notice the bad mouthing of Cell chips Apple has been overly enthusiastic putting out in the media? Nothing is more venomous than a jilted lover. Apple running on OS X on Cell hardware would have decimated the x86 media processing market(Image processing/3D Rendering/Video/Sound).
You won't catch anyone from Apple admitting it in public, but if you ever see an Apple employee watching one of the new Sony Cell media workstations you'll see the tears flowing from their eyes...
similar processor + similar OS + PS3 + Apple = easy and fast game ports for apple = LOTS OF MONEY
Wow.
Just, wow.
Take a slashdot article.
Add some slashdot readers who don't read the article.
Add some games.slashdot.org Xbox fanboyism.
Watch people make idiots of themselves as they dismiss information taken straight from an official Sony press release as speculation by PS2 fanboys.
The parent to this comment is hands down the most blatently stupid comment I've read here in a long time.
This is so stupid, it's hard to imagine how it got into that press release. It's so stupid, it's even hard to imagine how it was considered Slashdot-worthy.
Yes, it's a PPC chip, so Apple could release Tiger for it. No, they're not going to do it.
Let's consider the facts:
Sony simply wrote about what their processor could do, not about what they're going to do. Linux? Maybe, they did it before. Mac OS? Definitely not.
What is much, much, much more likely is that Linux and Tiger were given as examples of operating systems that aren't Windows, rather than as operating systems that might be ported. Well, Linux will be, but Tiger ? Unlikely as all hell. Maybe 10.5, but Apple sure hasn't been compiling its OS for the PS3 all along like it has been with the x86 architecture.
Sloppy writing in the article, no plans by Apple.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951