Is the PS3 trying to be a new Amiga?

[iamaboringperson]

Think about it. It's a console that 'expands' into a desktop computer.

It's a reletively expensive machine to play games on.

It's pretty much the most powerful around at the moment.



(You could almost say that the PS2 was like the Amiga, because of all of its custom hardware)

[countzero]

No it is not.
The company behind it wowed to end homebrew or anything related to it.
Commodore on the otherhand was more tolerant to it, which was maybe a mistake. Homebrew led to piracy, led to software companies not making profit, software companies leaving the Amiga platform, and death of Amiga. Sony seems dead scared about all this and doesn't let anyone but registered developers to be able to develop something for the platform. And you know companies behind the game consoles doesn't make profit from unit sales but games sales after all, so they have to keep a firm stance against piracy.

[Louis Dias]

The alternative to banning homebrew would be to make a profit on the hardware and developer's kits.

Homebrew has not killed Microsoft Windows, afterall...

It comes down to a question of what someone is willing to pay.  Would you download OpenOffice or buy Microsoft Office?  There are plus' and minus' to both.

Commodore made a profit on hardware and peripherals.  Published "some" software.

I believe the C64 was $1000 at launch.  A few years later, my family picked it up for $400.  That was 1984.  Looking at those numbers, the PS3 is a steal, but not so "homebrew friendly".

Piracy can be stopped via custom media.  Sony has the right idea in the patent where media is sold on a writeable that locks itself to that particular machine.  Homebrew could still be allowed, but you wouldn't allow it to run off the BR-drive so nothing would come close to commercial quality 50GB (potential) titles.

[koaftder]

What made the Amiga relevant back in the day makes it irrelevant now. Custom hardware was a necessity back in the day. Today it's not. A 1985 strategy today just means vendor lockin to todays software developer.

[koaftder]

It's pretty much the most powerful around at the moment.

That statement is not universal.

[Louis Dias]

Amiga "supposedly" has gone the way of SEGA as software only.  However they only half-assed it by requiring licensed hardware to run OS4.

If a univeral intermediate language for applications (similar to MS's .NET common language runtime) was developed for it, then you could port the OS to any platform and as long as applications are scalable(gui), everything would work on every platform...  Ah to dream...

Heck, if this became an opensource project ported to AROS and Linux, and heck even Windows...  Everyone wins...

[spirantho]

countzero wrote:
The company behind it wowed to end homebrew or anything related to it.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought Sony had approved Linux for use with the PS3... I can't see how that correlates at all with saying they're trying to end home coding....?

[HopperJF]

Good thread,
I don't think that Sony are trying to make the PS3 like an Amiga at all, but there are definitely similiarites, which make it an attractive machine for Amiga (and ex-Amiga) users.

[itix]

Sony seems dead scared about all this and doesn't let anyone but registered developers to be able to develop something for the platform.

Every single PlayStation console and game has been cracked so far. But piracy is not the point.

Commodore's business was building and selling hardware. Sony doesn't work like this: they are game publishers.

[guru-666]

the last thing they want to be is a faild computer... but they may end up there!
I think they just want a mainstream console,  if running linux brings more users and SALES to them, they will take that!

 :-D

[adolescent]

@countzero

Lots of mis-information in your message.  You can install Linux out of the box on the PS3.  So, anyone willing to pay the entry price can develop homebrew for the console.  There's some limitations in the hardware access right now. But I'm sure they'll be lessened in the coming months.  

Sony is the ONLY console manufacturer that has supported homebrew on each of it's home consoles.  PS = Net Yaroze, PS2 = PS2 Linux, PS3 = PS3 Linux.  Microsoft has opened up XNA to the 360.  Nintendo never has.  

[guru-666]

@adolescent
you forgot about he PSP.  Sony realy kinda made that hard to deal with homebrew on there.   Do you remember how sony was busted this year for intallling trojan horses on music cd's!
Sony is very serious about controlling what runs on there property.  More so than microsoft.  Knowing what I do about how sony functions I would go with microsoft over sony as the lesser of two evils, and I HATE morcosoft!  Still I lust for a ps3.... I'm so conflicted!

[adolescent]

@guru-666

I didn't forget the PSP, I said home consoles.  

I believe the homebrew issue with the PSP is that enabling homebrew also enables piracy.  On the PS, PS2, and PS3 they were seperate issues.  (ie. a Net Yaroze didn't allow you to play CD-R copies, just as the PS2 and PS3 Linux don't allow you to.)  Also remember, the 1.0 PSP didn't have ANY protection.  

[Tomas]

Not at all. It is still closed down like other consoles are. It is no more of a computer than the ps2 was. It is not a computer for me unless it comes with keyboard + mouse and is open for bedroom programmers. Sony seems to have closed it down so that linux cannot take advantage out of the 3d accelerated gfx and so on..

(You could almost say that the PS2 was like the Amiga, because of all of its custom hardware)

Isnt that the case with most consoles?

It's pretty much the most powerful around at the moment.

The performance tests so far suggest that it is really slow compared even to the cheapest pcs of today. Though the code is not yet optimized, but i doubt it will make that much of a change.
Do not believe the hype! The ps2 was also claimed to be powerful enough to do realtime graphics of the same quality as that days 3d rendering programs. And yet it was less powerful than the modern pcs of that day?

[Marco]

lou_dias wrote:
I believe the C64 was $1000 at launch.  A few years later, my family picked it up for $400.  That was 1984.  Looking at those numbers, the PS3 is a steal, but not so "homebrew friendly".

$1000 was a bomb in '82, I quote the - ever reliable - wikipedia:

Wikipedia wrote:
Introduced by Commodore Business Machines in August 1982 at a price of US$595,

Hell the A500 was only about £500 in '87, and that was a hell of a lot more computer for the money than a C64.