Sony Hints At PS3 'Homebrew' Linux Plans

simoniker writes "Talking to the Japanese press, Sony executive Izumi Kawanishi has illuminated some of his company's PlayStation 3 Linux plans, indicating that it will be possible for individual 'homebrew' coders to create playable content for PS3, something actively blocked for Sony's PSP handheld. He commented: "Other then game studios tied to official developer licenses, we'd like to see various individuals participate in content creation for the PS3"."

Comments

Don't get your hopes up

[Guspaz]

PS2 linux failed because:

1) Sony crippled it and didn't give anything close to direct access to hardware, meaning very little hardware acceleration
2) Sony charged a big chunk of change to "buy" linux support

And Sony is actively trying to kill off PSP homebrew. So don't get your hopes up!

Re:Why not?

[drinkypoo]

This is why you should be concerned:

It seems that Sony is happy to let basic application and game construction take place without access to the extremely sophisticated rendering and physics libraries available to licensors - Kawanishi further commented: "When a game studio enacts development on a PS3 by entering a license contract, SDK libraries... will be presented, and various technical support given. In contrast, when using Linux World on the PS3... support will fall to the lowest level required, and you must solve and work on things by yourselves."

If the article is to be believed, you don't get access to any of the normal libraries. If they don't give us specs, either, then you're not going to be doing much 3D...

It appears that it's more Linux++ this time

[Morgaine]

You seem to have forgotten the following two Linux-related announcements:

- Kutaragi at the recent 2006 PlayStation Business Briefing

... which claims: "Kutaragi said that that the PS3 will require a hard drive, which will have a 60 GB capacity and support Linux OS."

- Kutaragi at the earlier PS3 Conference Report

... which says: "He [Kutaragi] did offer some tantalizing new details about the system, though. PS3 will include a 60GB hard drive (which is upgradeable) with Linux preinstalled."

It would appear then that things aren't all that bleak. Maybe IBM had an influence this time around, as they would love to see the Cell succeed, and perhaps forced Sony to open up a bit.