6 ms·

PS3 allowed other OSes like Linux or BSD. It was eventually scrapped due to no market demand for it.

by adrr 5y ago

akaij 5y ago
Pretty sure the actual reason was to prevent exploits that lead to piracy.
- TAForObvReasons 5y ago
  Pretty sure the actual reason was console margins and non-gaming buyers. At the time [1], it was believed that Sony lost hundreds of dollars per console. The business case for the losses was that the cost could be recouped with games. But people and organizations buying the PS3 for its computing capabilities, running OtherOS, were not buying enough games to recoup the losses. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2006/11/8239/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2006/11/8239/
  - lugged 5y ago
    This, it was powering ML clusters irrc.
    - NullPrefix 5y ago
      US Air Force built a PS3 cluster.
  - lupire 5y ago
    Hundreds of dollars sounds bigger than the average game library's licensing fee.
pharmakom 5y ago
No that feature was included to sidestep taxes in some markets (general purpose computers usable for research being lower tax category than game specific computers). They never intended it to be used by many consumers. The PS3 was cracked because the feature was removed.
hythyt 5y ago
i bought a ps3 and not a xbox to be able to install linux, and use it as a computer to see later that they disabled it in an update. jailbreaked it. will never buy again a sony product.
josefx 5y ago
> It was eventually scrapped due to no market demand for it. Rather the opposite. I think it ended up as part of several compute clusters because the console was sold for less than it cost to produce, something normally offset by game sales. So suddenly Sony had a large market that only cost it money.
- hrh 5y ago
  You know we're all bullshitting here apparently but my guess is that happened relatively little. The PS3 was too exotic of hardware to get useful compute out of it during the length of time that option was arounnd. I'm sure internally it was pitched as a neat idea why don't we see what happens (god can you imagine the corporate politics in a decision like that?), but practically it allowed Sony get get special import status. I'm sure eventually they realized they didn't care about that enough it outweigh allowing those filthy users to possibly do something interesting. Sony throws a lot of stuff at the wall. There was a good chunk of hardware cut out of later PS3s, not to mention continued attempts and silent canceling of things like those move lightguns, etc.
  - josefx 5y ago
    > The PS3 was too exotic of hardware Wasn't more an issue that games didn't specifically optimize for cell processors? They had to run on dozens of platforms and the Cell processor was the odd one out. > to get useful compute out of it during the length of time that option was arounnd. There were at least three largish cluster setups, the biggest being a super computer with almost 2000 PS3s. Of course you are right, that is barely a blip on their sales. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster
    - pdpi 5y ago
      > They had to run on dozens of platforms and the Cell processor was the odd one out. That’s what being exotic hardware means.
    - em500 5y ago
ajdegol 5y ago
I’ve read the other replies but I remember well why it failed: only single precision floats. You can’t run physics simulations on single precision. So the people who would have bought and tinkered and pushed it forwards were all turned off by it. The military was allowed double precision; but there was no point making it a compute cluster otherwise. I don’t know if it was a marketing or budget decision but basically all the early adopters who would have championed doing impressive things on there (I was so hyped at the time for the cell architecture) couldn’t do anything useful with it.
- oscardssmith 5y ago
  There's a lot of physics you can do in single precision. In fact, current gen climate models are mostly in single precision, and some of the next gen models are trying to do a lot of the work in half precision (float16).
  - ajdegol 5y ago
    I’ll give you it’ll be algo and scale dependent. I work with climate modellers and I think they’d get more bang for their buck with optimising for GPU architectures. I recall I was very excited at the prospect of getting my hands on a ps3 for modelling, but all my work (1) at least required double precision and it left a long bad taste in my mouth when it wasn’t to be. (1)chaotic plasmas
- lupire 5y ago
  Should have done ML! ML loves single precision
edude03 5y ago
AFAIK, they pulled it because geohot got an "exploit" running under linux (unlocked the GPU or something, can't remember now) and their reaction was it was too much risk that it could lead to piracy
- giobox 5y ago
  This is the actual reason the "Other OS" support was pulled. The other speculation in here is pretty funny. It was also pretty limited for many purposes - you couldn't access the GPU at all reducing total system memory to 256mb IIRC. https://www.theregister.com/2010/01/25/playstation_cracked_wide_open/ https://www.theregister.com/2010/01/25/playstation_cracked_w... https://tedium.co/2020/11/27/sony-linux-otheros-geohot-history/ https://tedium.co/2020/11/27/sony-linux-otheros-geohot-histo... It's arguable giving hackers a platform to explore the innards of the PS3 was the biggest contribution Other OS made to the PS3, and I'm not surprised it scared Sony management. In the release notes for the PS3 firmware update that removes "Other OS", Sony also state it was for "security concerns": https://blog.playstation.com/2010/03/28/ps3-firmware-v3-21-update/ https://blog.playstation.com/2010/03/28/ps3-firmware-v3-21-u... "...will disable the “Install Other OS” feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009. This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update." The "security concerns" were of course geohot/others using it to crack the PS3 DRM.
ekianjo 5y ago
rewriting History much? That's not at all what happened.

PS3 allowed other OSes like Linux or BSD. It was eventually scrapped due to no market demand for it.

by adrr 5y ago

PS3 allowed other OSes like Linux or BSD. It was eventually scrapped due to no market demand for it.

akaij 5y ago

Pretty sure the actual reason was to prevent exploits that lead to piracy.

TAForObvReasons 5y ago
Pretty sure the actual reason was console margins and non-gaming buyers. At the time [1], it was believed that Sony lost hundreds of dollars per console. The business case for the losses was that the cost could be recouped with games. But people and organizations buying the PS3 for its computing capabilities, running OtherOS, were not buying enough games to recoup the losses. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2006/11/8239/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2006/11/8239/
- lugged 5y ago
  This, it was powering ML clusters irrc.
  - NullPrefix 5y ago
    US Air Force built a PS3 cluster.
- lupire 5y ago
  Hundreds of dollars sounds bigger than the average game library's licensing fee.

pharmakom 5y ago

No that feature was included to sidestep taxes in some markets (general purpose computers usable for research being lower tax category than game specific computers). They never intended it to be used by many consumers. The PS3 was cracked because the feature was removed.

hythyt 5y ago

i bought a ps3 and not a xbox to be able to install linux, and use it as a computer to see later that they disabled it in an update. jailbreaked it. will never buy again a sony product.

josefx 5y ago

> It was eventually scrapped due to no market demand for it. Rather the opposite. I think it ended up as part of several compute clusters because the console was sold for less than it cost to produce, something normally offset by game sales. So suddenly Sony had a large market that only cost it money.

hrh 5y ago
You know we're all bullshitting here apparently but my guess is that happened relatively little. The PS3 was too exotic of hardware to get useful compute out of it during the length of time that option was arounnd. I'm sure internally it was pitched as a neat idea why don't we see what happens (god can you imagine the corporate politics in a decision like that?), but practically it allowed Sony get get special import status. I'm sure eventually they realized they didn't care about that enough it outweigh allowing those filthy users to possibly do something interesting. Sony throws a lot of stuff at the wall. There was a good chunk of hardware cut out of later PS3s, not to mention continued attempts and silent canceling of things like those move lightguns, etc.
- josefx 5y ago
  > The PS3 was too exotic of hardware Wasn't more an issue that games didn't specifically optimize for cell processors? They had to run on dozens of platforms and the Cell processor was the odd one out. > to get useful compute out of it during the length of time that option was arounnd. There were at least three largish cluster setups, the biggest being a super computer with almost 2000 PS3s. Of course you are right, that is barely a blip on their sales. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster
  - pdpi 5y ago
    > They had to run on dozens of platforms and the Cell processor was the odd one out. That’s what being exotic hardware means.
  - em500 5y ago

ajdegol 5y ago

I’ve read the other replies but I remember well why it failed: only single precision floats. You can’t run physics simulations on single precision. So the people who would have bought and tinkered and pushed it forwards were all turned off by it. The military was allowed double precision; but there was no point making it a compute cluster otherwise. I don’t know if it was a marketing or budget decision but basically all the early adopters who would have championed doing impressive things on there (I was so hyped at the time for the cell architecture) couldn’t do anything useful with it.

oscardssmith 5y ago
There's a lot of physics you can do in single precision. In fact, current gen climate models are mostly in single precision, and some of the next gen models are trying to do a lot of the work in half precision (float16).
- ajdegol 5y ago
  I’ll give you it’ll be algo and scale dependent. I work with climate modellers and I think they’d get more bang for their buck with optimising for GPU architectures. I recall I was very excited at the prospect of getting my hands on a ps3 for modelling, but all my work (1) at least required double precision and it left a long bad taste in my mouth when it wasn’t to be. (1)chaotic plasmas
lupire 5y ago
Should have done ML! ML loves single precision

edude03 5y ago

AFAIK, they pulled it because geohot got an "exploit" running under linux (unlocked the GPU or something, can't remember now) and their reaction was it was too much risk that it could lead to piracy

giobox 5y ago
This is the actual reason the "Other OS" support was pulled. The other speculation in here is pretty funny. It was also pretty limited for many purposes - you couldn't access the GPU at all reducing total system memory to 256mb IIRC. https://www.theregister.com/2010/01/25/playstation_cracked_wide_open/ https://www.theregister.com/2010/01/25/playstation_cracked_w... https://tedium.co/2020/11/27/sony-linux-otheros-geohot-history/ https://tedium.co/2020/11/27/sony-linux-otheros-geohot-histo... It's arguable giving hackers a platform to explore the innards of the PS3 was the biggest contribution Other OS made to the PS3, and I'm not surprised it scared Sony management. In the release notes for the PS3 firmware update that removes "Other OS", Sony also state it was for "security concerns": https://blog.playstation.com/2010/03/28/ps3-firmware-v3-21-update/ https://blog.playstation.com/2010/03/28/ps3-firmware-v3-21-u... "...will disable the “Install Other OS” feature that was available on the PS3 systems prior to the current slimmer models, launched in September 2009. This feature enabled users to install an operating system, but due to security concerns, Sony Computer Entertainment will remove the functionality through the 3.21 system software update." The "security concerns" were of course geohot/others using it to crack the PS3 DRM.

ekianjo 5y ago

rewriting History much? That's not at all what happened.