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PlayStation (Games)

Sony To Expand Commercial Uses of PS3 68

Posted by Zonk from the more-folding-means-more-fun dept.
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."
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Sony To Expand Commercial Uses of PS3 More

Sony To Expand Commercial Uses of PS3

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  • A way to pay for online purchases? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stringfellow ( 849684 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @12:33PM (#18690839)
    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.
    • That's probably the best way to do it. I wish MS would do that for Xbox, because the infrastructure is already there. I would then compare the electricity cost (*) vs. the compensation, and if it's a net positive, I'd keep my Xbox on all the time.

      * And for those complaining about burning oil, I want to point out that I get all my electricity from wind power. So the more money I spend on electricity, the more I support alternative energy.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by LoudMusic ( 199347 )

      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 ;)
  • I'd sign up.

    Better yet...free console. $600 is a bit steep.

    Hmm...I wonder if someone could make it work that you could get a free console that would only work so long as it was able to process and transmit work units for a commercial application.
    • You know, then Sony would just make their own server farms and make money off of it. And what processing power do you sugguest the system reserve for "running" those pretty pretty games you want it to.
      • That would be a commercial supercomputer, and those do exist. Sony apparently has no interest in building one.
    • Sorry, that wouldn't work. You would want it to use the system resources only when the application was not playing games. In that case, many user's would probably simply cut off the entire console when they weren't playing games simply to spite the system.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by amuro98 ( 461673 )
        That would depend on how much you could make.

        If I left the PS3 on overnight (say 10 hours a day), that would still cost me about $10-12/month in electricity alone (I live in California) The compensation from Sony had better be worth in excess of that, otherwise, Sony is making money from me.

        Now then, what's this got to do with games? $600 is an awfully big investment to make up-front for just a few bucks a month profit...

  • A commercial endeavour would be a more difficult strategically, Mr Chatani admitted, because users would be loathe to let companies use the power of their PS3 Cell processors for free.

    Well, duh. If someone's making money at my expense (bandwidth costs, electricity, wear on components...), as negligible as those expenses might be, I'd want to see some sort of return.

    If Sony really wants to push it though, they'll just include the functionality in a firmware update and claim that the money's going to subsidi

  • Digital signage. a simple ps3 game that simply acts as a mpeg/mpg/bmp/ppt player with playlists and timings with net connectivity will make them rich overnight. most digital signage boxes start at $999.00 and are pretty crappy and can not do HD, you gotta go way higher in price for HD.

    make a $199.00 disc you insert in the cheapie ps3 and can upload content via the ethernet and you have a winner that will overtake the resto f the big names in digital signage overnight.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by benh57 ( 525452 )
      I just got a zensonic Z500 for $299, full HD, HDMI, divx, etc and it's been out for well over a year.
      AppleTV, same price, also HD, also $299.

      These are 'consumer' units, which probably explains the difference in price from commercial 'digital signage' products. But, with the proper media server either could replicate the functionality.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Lumpy ( 12016 )
        wow so the zensonic can play a mpg file or playlist of mixed files at a scheduled time as well as Power point files? I need to get one of these!

        thanks!

  • hmm .. just thought of a neat idea for this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Frag-A-Muffin ( 5490 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @12:46PM (#18691073)
    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!

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Ichelo ( 690294 )
      hrmmm, while everyone is at it, they could implement something like this for the pc there are alot more people out there who have a computer and would be willing to use a background client like f@h or seti@home if the were paid for it...
    • i doubt that the processor in the Wii would be able to make any useful contribution compared to ps3
      • i doubt that the processor in the Wii would be able to make any useful contribution compared to ps3

        you're probably right, but, the example was to illustrate the reward :) Wii Points to buy VC games would be an AWESOME reward. That's what I was going for there.

    • I think Microsoft points would be more reasonable than the Xbox Live service itself. After all, MS Points are already a micropayment system, whereas the Live service is purchased in 1-12 month chunks. I can see getting 1 point for every two hours of computation. That would be about 360 points/month if you ran it 24 hours/day all month long. Any less than that, and it would probably not cover the cost of electricity.

  • ha! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bloosqr ( 33593 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @12:46PM (#18691081) Homepage
    I was just talking to someone (in the ECE dept) who had bought a slew of these things for numerical computation last weekend. Its the cell part which apparantly acts as (i think) 128 SIMD processors .. which if you have code that parallelizes well gives you crazy numbers. At this time all he's managed to do is get Linux running and he knows the compiler works.. The math is 32 bit so I am not sure if/how it bleeds over to real numerical work.. Anyway, Its not sony who should be exploiting this, its IBM. IBM knows how to write compilers and IBM knows a lot about scientific/high performance computing. IBM does not know how to sell things cheaply :) However if they can sell these things to Sony for a profit, surely they can figure out how to sell these at a proper price point to poor scientists, who otherwise put PS3s on their grants :)

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by ericferris ( 1087061 )
      Not sure about the 128 SIMDs. The PS3's cell processor has 7 so-called SPUs (Synergistic Processor Units), basically coprocessors that work on a 256k separate internal storage. If your code is embarassingly parallel, you can greatly benefit from this architecture.

      The hard-coded floating point unit is single-precision indeed, and doesn't implement the full IEEE floating point spec, which raises eyebrows in the scientific double-precision junky crowd. The individual registers are 128-bit, although they are or
    • Wasn't there a prototype cell blade server at one point?

  • Cost to run. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Aladrin ( 926209 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @12:48PM (#18691119)
    They seem to like to ignore the fact that it costs money to run the console. Anyone that has bought their own car understands that it costs money not only for the Gas to make it run (electricity for the console), but there's maintenance as well. The car needs new tires, brakes, and other parts that are in use. The console is not designed to run at 100% CPU 24/7 and will wear out quicker.

    I would guess you could wear out a PS3 in a year by running it 24/7 on this, so that's $600/yr cost right there. I seriously doubt they plan to pay that much.

    Even assuming the console would last forever, the electricity to run constantly it is apparently about $150/yr. http://ps3.ign.com/articles/776/776347p1.html [ign.com] This charts says the national average to run Folding@PS3 is $12.23/month, which is about $150/yr.

    I don't think that they would even pay the $150 in straight cost you incur, let alone for the wear and tear on the console.

    This is a great opportunity to contribute to a cause, but it's an awful idea as a way to make money in your home.
    • As long as the heat is being dissipated properly, you can run the processor damn near close to %100 without casing wear and tear. It's solid state. It's not a drive spinning, it has no moving parts. It's just taking electricty, doing some work, and then dumping out a bunch of heat. There is no "wear and tear" as your example describes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nuzak ( 959558 )
        > It's not a drive spinning, it has no moving parts.

        Other than a fan. Running that at full speed 24/7 is sure to wear it right out.
        • At my day job (Web Hosting), I have several severs with uptimes past the 1500 day mark. These fans haven't died yet =)
          • Do you really think a PS3 is constructed for constant uptime? It's possible they factored this in while they were designing the console, but it seems unlikely to me.

            Also, I have a computer with a fan that conked out after 1 day. Anecdote cancellation in effect.
            • Ok, let's not go with anecdotes and instead go with statistics. We manage roughly 5500-5800 servers at any one time. I belive if I recall correctly we've only had a fan fail once over the course of 6 years.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by throx ( 42621 )
                You're not seriously trying to draw a parallel between a PS3 sitting in someone's entertainment system and a server sitting in an air conditioned and dust-free environment are you? And I certainly hope you're not trying to draw a parallel between the fans used in the PS3's construction (which are selected for low cost, low form factor and therefore high rpm) with those used in a typical server (which are selected for long-term 100% duty cycle use), are you?

                In my couple of dozen or so machines I've had arou
      • Uh, huh, and processors, other components, and PSUs never go out. Solid state components do last longer, they do not however last forever. Oh, and the PS2 does anything BUT dissipate heat correctly. Hell my PC doesn't dissipate heat entirely correctly, and it's put together a hell of allot better, and components still go out.
    • The console is not designed to run at 100% CPU 24/7 and will wear out quicker.

      Only the moving parts (ie, CPU fan) should wear out appreciably more quickly due to sustained load. The silicon traces aren't going to degrade very much no matter how many electrons you push along them.

      The Slashdot Automobile Analogy proves inadequate once again.

  • guarantee my $600 machine for life (Score:3, Interesting)

    by insanius ( 1058584 ) on Wednesday April 11, 2007 @12:50PM (#18691137)
    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!!!
  • 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.
    1. Make new high-end console
    2. Charge $600 for it
    3. have other people pay your consumers to leave it on
    4. Actually sell some! [1]

    [1]Since they're selling them at a loss I can't quite justify putting "profit" here. Yet.

  • > mulling over rolling out more Folding@Home-like clients to their PlayStation 3 consoles

    And I hear you can play games on the thing too! Seriously, if Sony wants to market it as a cheap 'supercomputer' they need to offer another form factor. Perhaps a rack-mounted version pre-configured with Linux clustering.
  • Translation:
    We got this mountain of PS3s that aren't selling to save our lives, and if someone in management notices, me might get fired from our cushy jobs. It is now time to blow them out the door somehow or set the warehouse on fire.

                -Charlie

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