Sony To Expand Commercial Uses of PS3

Sony is considering proposals from commercial distributed computing concerns, mulling over rolling out more Folding@Home-like clients to their PlayStation 3 consoles. Gamasutra reports on a Financial Times article, discussing the future of the system. Because they would be commercial and not charitable organizations, the company is considering some form of compensation for users who would participate. "Sony Computer Entertainment CTO Masa Chatani indicated in an interview that Sony had already received numerous inquiries. 'A start-up or a pharmaceutical company that lacks a super-computer could utilize this kind of infrastructure. We are discussing various options with companies and exploring commercial applications', he said."

Comments

hmm .. just thought of a neat idea for this

[Frag-A-Muffin]

If you look at The Xbox360 and it's Live service. You have to pay for it. They should have something like this, where MS gets the money from it, and users who contribute cycles can earn money off their Live services fees! (Probably capped to the cost of the Live service) That seems like it would make the most sense to me.

Of course, if Playstation 3 isn't charging for online access, then maybe it can be used to earn credits to purchasing stuff.

And for the Nintendo camp, how about earning those Wii points with contributing cycles! That'd be awesome!

guarantee my $600 machine for life

[insanius]

not that i own one, but if and when a good game ever gets released for it, i'm sure i'll buy it.

if Sony is going to actually ask me leave on my ridiculously power hungry "super-computer" while i'm not playing Socom4, they better at least agree to eat the cost and replace my machine if it fails. not fix, REPLACE. otherwise, why would i want to help "Joe's Rx" use my PS3, broadband connection, and precious power? to make some drug that they're going to charge, if not over-charge, me for when they release it?

This is a sorry attempt and positive PR. Sony, how about you concentrate on making some games for your VIDEO GAME SYSTEM!!!

Tie it into a hot game

[The Media Mechanic]

Just like people will give away their passwords in exchange for free chocolate. They should tie their number-crunching into a hot game like GTA IV and people will give away free PS3 cycles, electricity, etc.

Re:A way to pay for online purchases?

[LoudMusic]

If such a system would allow me to get credit for the work my PS3 does for these corporations, and if I could use said credit to buy downloads, then I can see how this could be a very attractive proposition for gamers and corporations. Absolutely! But why does it take a console to get it going? Are there any PC clients that provide this service already? I've got a few spare CPU cycles here at work that could be adding spare dollars to my PayPal account ;)

Re:Sony Kicking Ass As Usual

[InsaneGeek]

Ha! Wii is having month long shortages because, while the PS3 sales rate were so overestimated that they now are trying to use that surplus for other things. If the PS3 was kicking as much ass, they would be telling everybody else to go pound sand; because they have so much consumer interest they couldn't chain their supply chain so early in the product's lifespan.

Because the PS3 is kicking so little ass compared to Sony's expectations they have a glut and are now looking for unusual ways to reduce stocks outside of consumer gaming. It's positive sign when you do that for a mature product that has limited growth potential in it's current markets, it's a bad sign when you do that for a product early in it's lifetime when it's primary market is supposed to be growing quickly.