Slashdot Mirror
Possible PS3 OS Information
Ars Technica has some details they think are fairly reliable about the OS the PS3 will be using. From the article: "In fact, there was some question as to what such an OS would be doing with all that leftover horsepower. I think the answer is probably to be found in the interactive, real-time, user- and network-facing sides of the console's functionality. This includes not only the audio/video chat and IM referenced in the PS3 Portal rumor, but also the aforementioned DRM (for streaming and downloadable online content that might be dynamically integrated into the game experience) and security/privacy-related code. "
"This includes not only the audio/video chat and IM referenced in the PS3 Portal rumor, but also the aforementioned DRM (for streaming and downloadable online content that might be dynamically integrated into the game experience) and security/privacy-related code"
So that's pretty much what the Xbox 360 has too right? And pretty much what any next gen online console will have, hmmm? Who wouldn't expect an online gaming machine in 2006 to have AV IM/chat and downloadable online content? Sheesh!
They'll be telling us that Vista's gonna have menus and a pointer next...
The PS3 has a lot of expensive and powerful media hardware. They might as well create the software needed to use as much of the hardware as possible to market the beast at the $500-700 dollar pricepoint it will probably come out at.
It should be capable of:
1) Live Video Streaming in HD (new hd movie trailers on your big screen vs. PC screen).
2) All kinds of communications, chat, voice, etc.
3) Linux networked device.
4) All the game related stuff like demo downloads, etc.
5) Release a $50 dollar tv tuner accessory + appropriate software to make this into a pvr (already has massive graphics and parallel processing power along with the output hardware built in).
Of course this isn't to say that they should put any less resources on games. They should keep their AA third party and in house development teams and release as much variety + quality of games as they can. However, I'd hate to see all this hardware potential go to waste. Then and again since theres a good chance it will be able to run on linux (if thats not the default os) we may have free alternatives made by hobbyists (depending on the strength of the drm).
Hmmm... Pie...
"I'd hate to see all this hardware potential go to waste"
When you say "all this potential hardware" you really mean "blu-ray drive." The power difference between a PS3 and a 360 (with 3 3.2ghz processors and a better GPU) is negligable.
This would be an issue if PS3 games came out of the box demanding >75% of the processing capacity. I doubt that game programmers will be fluent enough working with all those cells this early in the production cycle to actually make use of all that power.
It's not the amount of the cells you use, it's how you use em!
There were numerous reports that the PS3 would form a distributed Grid computer for things like running the game servers or providing Mhz for rent (over broadband).I'm wondering if this is still the plan?
No, it was just a way of trying to demonstrate the phenomenal cosmic powers the PS3 will possess. I truly doubt that was ever anything other than talk.
See also the "Emotion Engine" (translation: "CPU"), "real-time Toy Story graphics" (something the new generation is getting close to if you fudge the resolution issue, but the only way the PS/2 was getting Toy Story-quality graphics was by playing the Toy Story DVD), and the nations that were polite enough to classify the PS2 as a "supercomputer" worthy of import/export controls, which made for wonderful, if meaningless, news stories for Sony.
'Course, at the time they were babbling about grids and stuff the PS3 sounded amazingly more powerful than anything available at the time. Now it mere seems kinda powerful for the price. In another year it'll be underpowered at best, and soon after that, the idea of network PS3s together for any sort of computation will be about as silly as the idea of networking PS2s together now.
That may be conservative, too; with the latest multi-core processors from Intel and AMD not being all that much more expensive than single cores, and the ever dropping price of 3D graphics, the point at which a computer costing the same as a PS3 will best the PS3 in most ways may come very quickly. (You can probably blame the Blu-Ray drive for that, since I wouldn't put one in the PC, and that's a lot of margin for the PC to play with.)
(However, the real final killer is that if they expect me to leave my PS3 on for any extra period of time, they're going to have to pay me for the electricity, which can be ~$10 a month or more, or restrict the grid to things I don't mind donating that sort of money to, which wouldn't make Sony any money.)