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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?"
play cool video games and use mac os x cool...dude
Thank You God for the ultimate gaming machine we are about to recive.......... If this is true about OSX and Linux working on the PS3 Bill Gates is going to really ramp up the XBOX360 as OSX and Sony make bill have bad dreams. Then again it might make bill even madder and he might make the xbox 360 even better
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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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.. BeOS! .. OS/2! .. iTron! .. ???
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If this is true, I don't know what the hell Apple is thinking. The word on the street was always that Apples were built to last. You had to accept the higher price and less popular OS to get it, but you did get the increased quality as a trade off.
Sony, in my estimation, is the the new Packard Bell or Gateway. Where quality is job 3, maybe 5. Well, I'm sure they will get around to it sometime.
Seriously, Sony is a company that is renowned for its lax quality control. Why the hell Apple would want to associate themselves with Sony is beyond me.
That's one more reason why ps3 beats the new xbox.. Microsoft can only offer windows but try to get Vista running on a consol while it won't even run on a good computer.
There is a partnership between sony and apple regarding HD Video. Maybe that has something to do with it...
Fleur de Sel
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.
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Dreamcast?
We've known that the integrated Cell processor could support OS X since we learned that it had a full (if relatively slow) PowerPC core. This is not news. Whether the other hardware in the PS3 will be supported by OS X, and whether OS X will be licensed for the PS3 is still unknown.
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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
what are the main reasons people list as reasons they can't/will not buy a mac?
1: No games. not if sony releases PS games for mac
2: No multi-button mouse. weak reason but now with "mighty mouse a non-issue. Not that you couldn't go third party anyway
3: Macs are too expensive. With the mac mini and potential price drops with soon to be intel CPUs - a shrill cry
Looks like all the reasons to not go with mac are evaporating. I won't even mention the traditional windows problems...
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts." ~The Honorable Daniel Patrick Moynihan
I would have dismissed this as complete bullshit had it not been on Sony's own PR. What an odd thing to mention. I mean, It's not unknown for PR's to "name drop" in order to more likely appear in search engine listings, Sony doesn't have to resort to that sort of thing because their PR's are widely disssiminated by the media anyway (especially PS3 related stuff).
While Kunitake Ando and Steve Jobs were making complimentary (if somewhat guarded) comments about the two companies early in 2005 (was it at Macworld or something?), steve has been less upbeat about Cell.
If you take the statement at its fact, its really just saying that the cell is general purpose enough to handle any OS. In fact, there's nothing incorrect or even exaggerated about the statement: 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. Whether Sony means anything other than that is another question.
Curious, but I'm leaning towards dismissing this as PR hubris. But give it a couple weeks - if the media get's into a froth about it I'm sure Apple will speak up or Sony will clarify one way or the other.
Wow.
Just, wow.
Take an 8-month old report of Apple looking to "work with" Sony. Add marketing speak from the initial burst of info about Cell, and how it is designed to run "multiple OSs".
Add some Sony fanboyism.
Add some "Slashdot Anti-Microsoftism(TM)".
Watch the speculation fly. And watch people make complete asses of themselves.
This is hands down the stupidest, weakest thing I have read here in a long time.
by macworld dude
The Admin and the Engineer
We need to go back to the original real-time multitasking game OS... AmigaDOS!
Since I'm missed out on the PS2 - seems like this would be the thing that justifies the $499 price tag. It would be much better than my mac mini and a playstation.
-- Jay Brewer -- http://www.blogpire.com
Just checking.
One thing's for sure... if you tried to run OS X on a PS3, you'd find out why Apple decided not to come out with a Cell-based computer. The PPC implementation isn't all that hot, and the other cores won't help because they don't run PPC code.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Only some Dreamcast games used WinCE, and those that did included it on the disc; it wasn't preinstalled on the console.
Sorry, I shoulda been more clear. I wasn't trying to say whether it would be fast, slow, or anything else. I dont have any idea until we start seeing it in the "real-world". My point was that the statement "cell can support any os (such as linux or tiger)" isn't all that shocking because virtually *any* desktop-strength processor could make the same claim... it just depends on how much of a hit you will take in duplicating and/or emulating the environment (cpu, chipset, sound hardware, etc) that the target OS expects. MIPS, ARM, x86, Cell, you name it. For x86 it's a pretty big hit (for now at least).
For cell, I imagine it would be easier, but I'm not convinced that you'd get "insanely fast" performance from over, say, a dual-core G5. The central core is (pretty much) a PowerPC processor, surrounded by eight(?) DSP's. However, if I'm not mistaken, these DSP's do not support branch prediction, and can only get instructions fed to them via the main CPU (they can't get it DMA-style from RAM).
So it's not like you've got a 9-way cpu workstation thundering away... you only get benefit when you take advantage of DSP-friendly code like what you see in media players. Alot of people are skeptical that the code mix in your average video game can be efficiently tap Cells architecture. And for something like an OS running a wide range of apps, I'm sure it's an even shakier proposition.
But of course, I have no clue and I could be totally wrong. Personally I'd love to see such a radically different CPU approach turn out to deliver great performance. But nobody knows at this point. Not me, not you, not the media, and not even the game developers (hell, it took 'till the third generation of ps2 games to wrap their brains its Ps2's funky innards).
He Mac Mini isn't cheap, except as a Mac. It's at least $150 more expensive than a comparably crippled entry-level PC. It's only "cheap" because that's less than half the "Mac Tax" you'd have to pay on anything else.
Does that include the OS? Because OS X costs almost all of that $150 dollar difference, and Windows costs more.
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This is quite a step up for relations between Steve Jobs and Sony... It seems like just yesterday when Steve's approach meant you needed to hide the Sony Rep in the closet
Yes, that includes the OS in both cases.
Mac mini, including OSX - $500
Cheap PC with Windows Home Edition and monitor included - $400 (they have stacks of boxes like this at Walmart)
Subtract cost of cheap monitor - $300
Add Radeon 9200 - $330 (since they usually have some generic Intel graphics)
Add firewire - $335
Difference - $165
Microsoft?
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Commercial console games are run on top of a minimalist, low-overhead runtime environment, often tweaked for quasi-real time response (RTOS) and push the hardware to the max (hopefully). You simply cannot expect the same kind of low latency performance out of a general purpose operating system (GPOS) like Linux or Darwin/OSX. In the past, homebrew developers have often resorted to coding on these POSIX platforms (NetBSD/KallistiOS on the Sega Dreamcast, Linux on the PS2), but only because the official development environments and hardware were unavailable to them. It definitely hurts your Doom 3 framerate to load up a bloated POSIX kernel.
Playstation = PSX
Playstation 2 = PS2
Playstation 2 + Hard Disk Video Recorder (only marketed in Japan) = PSX
Playstation 3 + Apple = POSX
The Cell front end processor is PowerPC. With the right drivers it probably could run OS X. That said, it won't because Apple doesn't want to support OS X on someone else's hardware and Sony doesn't need a general purpose OS.
The OS X userspace is nice but a bit redundant for a machine that only needs a few utilities and games. The OS X OpenGL implementation isn't the fastest, and the spiffy display technologies (and they are spiffy) aren't necessary. Sony just needs a subset of OpenGL but it needs to be fast.
The Darwin kernel isn't the fastest either, and Sony can do a lot better whether or not they're willing to pay for it (Linux or NetBSD on the free side, any number of real-time kernels on the other side).
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
That's it. That's all it said. "The operating system has also yet to be clarified. The integrated Cell processor will be able to support a variety of operating systems (such as Linux or Apple's Tiger)."
The companies (MS, Sony) know their machines are being hacked to run Linux and such. Those two sentences up there are worse than the rumor sites and the speculation is even worse. Of course it could run an OS. That's a no brainer. It could probably run any flavor of Mac OS X (being UNIX-based) and also Linux. So...what's the news? It's speculation, hype, and a bit of marketing to get all the geeks all giddy, wondering what Sony has up its sleeve.
What DOES Sony have in mind? Have you noticed how many commercials for the PSP aren't specific to the gaming platform but more to the video capabilities? Or new videos released "available on DVD and PSP"? Match that with Sony's pissiness about being manhandled by the iPod and it only makes sense that Sony will do what it takes to get itself in the limelight. Mention Apple and heads will turn...
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Playstation 3 + Apple = POSX
Yes but is it POSIX compliant?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
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.
You can't compare XP Home edition to OSX. At least make it XP Professional. kthx
I'm guessing with all of its added features that have nothing to do with video games, it will just be a POS.
Why was this modded Interesting/Insightful? What do people think Windows has been doing for years on SMP (and now dual-core) PCs?
Thank you for playing the "I'm not going to compare entry level PCs with entry level Macs, I'm going to sit there and insist that you load the PC with everything you get on the Mac, and I'm not going to insist you load the Mac with everything you get on the PC" game.
I've already been more than generous there. I upgraded the video and added firewire and didn't add a USB floppy drive and an iMic so you could get the audio in that's missing from the Mac mini.
But if you're going to play the "but the PC doesn't have..." game, I'll play along:
I'll add $200 for XP Pro, but only if you add 3 PCI slots and an AGP slot to the Mac mini. Then I'll spring for software to compete with iLife, but you have to add an extra IDE bus, 3 3.5" internal bays, 2 5.25" external bays.
Or we could go back to the start, because by the time you finished your Mac mini would be a Powermac G5.
Sony and Apple could benefit from the relationship. Sony could get add extra features without having to develop those in Linux. Apple gets marketing by showcasing OS X to Playstation market (much larger market). Because Apple is moving away from PPC and Playstations are pretty static systems, Apple's hardware will be more faster and offer more features. So, it won't necessarily detract from hardware sales.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
This is why I don't have a Mac desktop now.
I needed dual displays and a few other things, and I wasn't prepared to pay for a PowerMac to get them. OS X isn't worth CDN$1500 to me.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Last time I heard, the PS3 was going to be way more than $200. No official price point yet, but SCEJ president Ken Kutaragi was quoted as saying "I'm not going to reveal its price today. I'm going to only say that it'll be expensive." That doesn't sound like it's going to be cheap to me.
I'm not trying to play the game, Its merely that XP Home is a deliberately limited piece of software that would have many users chafing at the boundarys. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XP_Home I prefer my software fully functional rather than deliberately limited to justify a price difference thanks.
Its merely that XP Home is a deliberately limited piece of software that would have many users chafing at the boundarys.
In that it's only marginally different from XP Professional, but that's beside the point. The same thing is true of the Mac mini hardware, and I know for a fact that the crippled video and low performance hard drive has cost it sales as a result. Neither the Mac mini not the Walmart Economy PC are anything but entry-level computers.
We're not talking about Atlon 64s or G5s. You can easily pay more just for an AMD or Intel CPU than for the whole Mac mini. We're talking about low end entry level machines, and in that realm the Mac mini is about 50% more expensive than an entry level PC... and it's remarkable that Apple's been willing to reduce the Mac Tax that much.
But the Mac Tax is still there. It's real. It's what's allowed Apple to produce the software and hardware that makes the Mac attractive, and no matter what the processor inside it's not going away.
The small form factor Playstation was also called PSX. Confused yet?
the PS2 Linux kit is. :-)
You forgot to factor in your time to source the replacements, and install the parts, anti-spyware and iApp equivalents and upgrade the OS to Pro, OS X comes with support for multiple CPUs, remote access (SSH, X11, VNC) etc out of the box so you need to upgrade from Home.
Time isn't cheap. Playing with computers is fun, but then so is playing with cars. If someone bought a fiat panda and tried to upgrade it to a Mercades A-Class they're going to bill you for time.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
You forgot to factor in your time to source the replacements, and install the parts [...]
You forgot to factor in your time to fabricate a larger case for the Mac mini so you can install a 3.5" 7200 RPM hard drive instead of the low-power laptop drive it's using.
Besides, someone else already beat you to the goalpost.
I really like my Mac mini, but I'd rather have it in a bit more expandible form factor.
When was the last time you saw any piece of hardware that ran Mac OS have a large library of games available for it?
The mini is hardly cripled, is it? The latest versions have 512Mb RAM and a wireless card, and they perform at the speed of approximately 2.2GHz Pentium. Plus it has a much better video card and firewire, is small and doesn't make any noise.
And you don't need the $80/yr firewall/anti-ad/anti-virus subscription...
The mini is hardly cripled, is it?
4200 RPM laptop drive. Going to an external drive, even with firewire overhead, improves disk benchmarks by 75%. Since it's a crippled unexpandable box, that's the best you can do without fabricating a new case and extending the IDE cable.
The video ports are low-power, leading to problems driving standard DVI and VGA displays.
The USB ports are low-power. You can't even charge an iPod Shuffle reliabily without an external powered hub.
The $500 version doesn't have a wireless card.
I already accounted for the video card and firewire in my calculations. The Mac mini has a 32M Radeon 9200: a 64M Radeon 9200 costs $30. A firewire card is $5.
Norton Antivirus is $40 + $10/year after the first year.
My Mac mini along with two external firewire cases, a powered USB hub, and the associated four power supplies is getting up to the size of a small PC, and is a lot more cumbersome to manage.
Yes, I think "crippled" is the right word.
Remember the early demos of the new Xbox that were running on G5s? Now consider that Playstation might be able to run OS X. Suddenly the two major game consoles are theoretically capable of running OS X. That would rock!
Why doesn't anything interesting happen when I have mod points?
No, it was called the "PSOne"
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
Yeah, I'd have to agree. If Apple would ship a standard 5400 RPM laptop drive instead of the pathetic 4200 RPM drive, it would be a quite usable machine. I might even consider buying into one, were this serious deficiency fixed.
It's no secret that Apple shipped all initial review units of the Mac Mini with a 5400 RPM drive, and it's no surprise how much the 4200 RPM drive hurts general usability performance in comparison.
Perhaps another good improvement would have been something more recent for video (no, it doesn't have to be FASTER, just slightly more recent), say, a 6200 TC or an x300 HM...but wait, Apple is in the dark ages still selling AGP core logic chipsets while the rest of the world is quickly moving on to PCIe.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
If 5400 RPM is enough to satisfy you, you can always replace the drive yourself. You'll have heat problems, though.
That's the real problem: the thing has even more of a heat problem than a laptop because it's just about as cramped and it's got a smaller surface area... and remember that several models of Apple laptops have had a history of overheating if you run them with the lid closed.
I suspect that's one reason they didn't put more VRAM or a better GPU in it... they simply couldn't keep it cool.
That tiny size that some of the people in this thread have been arguing is an advantage? That's what's crippling it.
The drive, ok, but that buys you a very silent computer. But the new versions do have a wireless card, and Bluetooth. Cost $529 nowadays. The low-signal video driver is also fixed (or so they claim), and it is considered a manufacturing error, so you can get it repaired under warranty. And although I haven't tested it for a long time, the iPod mini seems to charge properly. And the Ethernet interface seems faster than on low-end PCs.
For the rest, you have to buy what you need. If you need a fast graphics card, you have to buy something else. And while Norton may be $10 a year where you live, the upgrades here are 50 euros a year.
No, it's a perfect machine for normal people. It runs all games but the likes of Doom 3, Word, mail, browsers. There's no reason to be disappointed.
And you get the development environment for free, and you can run bash. Them's pure geek points!
The drive, ok, but that buys you a very silent computer.
That doesn't mean it's not crippled.
That just means that if your requirement is a very silent computer, that crippling is worth it to you.
It's like responding to the difference in price between Macs and PCs by talking about how great OSX is and how you don't need antivirus.
That doesn't mean a Mac isn't more expensive, it's just an explanation for why you bought it despite it being more expensive.
I happen to agree with you. OSX is worth paying the Mac Tax. That doesn't mean the Mac Tax doesn't exist.
The mac is also much smaller than the crippled PC, but then I built a Shuttle XPC for a friend the other day and it had an Athlon 64 in and it was still cheaper than a Mac, with a original a copy of Windows to boot.
The dangers of excessive individualism are nothing compared to the oppressiveness of excessive collectivism
You started the thread by comparing prices. An antivirus subscription is a legitimate argument in that case. Silence is also an economic commodity. Check out the prices on powerful yet silent PCs (e.g. for use in recording studios).
Consequently following that line would reduce all your argumentation to: it has features I don't need and some I don't want. Well, the Dell has the same problem. It all boils down to comparing Apples and Pears, doesn't it?
Macs always have been more expensive than PCs, but only in the way that Mercedes is more expensive than Hyundai...
You started the thread by comparing prices.
I started the thread by responding to someone who was commenting that the Intel switch would mean that Apple could make Macs that were as cheap as PCs now. My response was that there are good reasons why Macs weren't as cheap as PCs and that the processor wasn't one of them.
Macs always have been more expensive than PCs, but only in the way that Mercedes is more expensive than Hyundai.
You're not disagreeing with me when you say this.
"My response was that there are good reasons why Macs weren't as cheap as PCs"
Boy, you would think they could make them as cheap at least. They don't have to fabricate as many mouse buttons and the MB and monitor are housed in a single case (in some models). If they can't save money by cutting down on real expenses like that, then perhaps you are right, they will never be cheaper or even competitive in pricing.
Boy, you would think they could make them as cheap at least.
They could make them just as cheaply as Dell or HP could make a similar PC, in fact they almost certainly do make them for about that price since they use the same far-eastern systems houses as Dell and HP. It's not anything in the actual physical hardware that makes Macs expensive, it's the 40% profit margin that does it.
"it's the 40% profit margin that does it."
Don't you find that evil in it's own regard?
Don't you find that evil in it's own regard?
Should I? Are they using the money for something you think I should disapprove of?