Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 18th Aug 2009 23:24 UTC, submitted by John Mills
As everybody had been more or less anticipating for months now, Sony has released the Playstation 3 Slim, a much smaller, lighter, and more energy-efficient variant of the regular Playstation 3. There's good news for people who held out on the PS3 because it was too expensive, and there's bad news for those of us who liked the idea of running Linux on the PS3.
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Member since:2005-07-08
You have to thank the users of PS2 Linux for that.
It seems that the Yaroze project and then the PS2 Linux never quite matched Sony's expectations.
Regarding the PS2 Linux kit (I do own one myself), many users took it to run the PS2 as a cheap computer instead of using it to learn how to do PS2 game development. As Sony originally intended. Just browse the PS2 Linux forums at http://playstation2-linux.com/forum/forum.php?forum_id=4
And they will also be closing the PS2 site.
So now I know finally which game console I will not buy. Maybe "Heavy Rain" will change my mind, but for the time being I'll be keeping with my Windows PC for gamming.
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Member since:
2009-04-17
It's Sony being dicks. Which is natural Sony behavior. They are pretty much constantly huge dicks.
Sony did not want Linux users having direct access to hardware so for the PS3 they implemented a 'secure' IBM VM that blocked a lot of access. (the PowerPC platform (which the PS3 is a family member) is designed from the ground up for virtualization so that is easy compared to x86 system).
Hackers on Linux found ways around the VM so they could access the Nvidia video card and started figuring out how to get acceleration from that.
But later Sony firmware upgrades closed that 'hole'. And prevented that from working.
Now with people have figured out enough about programming with the SPE that Linux folks now have things optimized to the point were you can play 1080-sized HD video on the PS3 without needing assistance from the video card.
So that is probably one of the reasons why Sony decided to kill it. The other major reason would be that they figured there was no point in licensing the IBM tech for the new PS3 to save a bit of money.
This is the problem with having a computer manufacturer that is also a major movie and music producer. They probably figured that people having the free ability to play whatever media they want on the PS3 would lead to too much piracy going on with that platform... so instead they probably want people to do the 'PS3 Home' for all there entertainment.
Seriously. f--k closed computers like the Xbox and PS3. Those things have lots of potential and they are cheap so they should be perfect targets for people hacking and wanting little multimedia power houses.
(look what XBMC did for the original Xbox)
Now instead you have locked-down systems with limited media support and very limited functionality that is designed to remove as much money from your wallet in the most efficient and corporate-friendly way possible.