Playstation 3 Background

March 22nd, 2008 by Mitch

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Overview

The PlayStation 3 (officially marketed PLAYSTATION 3, commonly abbreviated PS3) is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game systems.

A major feature that distinguishes the PlayStation 3 from its predecessors is its unified online gaming service, the PlayStation Network, which contrasts with Sony's former policy of relying on games developers for online play. Other major features of the console include its robust multimedia capabilities, connectivity with the PlayStation Portable, and its use of a next-gen optical media, Blu-ray Disc, as its primary storage medium.

The PlayStation 3 was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November 17, 2006 in North America, and March 23, 2007 in Europe and Oceania, with two stock keeping units (SKUs): a basic model with a 20 GB hard disk drive (HDD), and a premium model with a 60 GB HDD and several additional features. (The 20 GB model was not released in Europe or Oceania.) Since then, the console has had several revisions made to its available SKUs and has faced stiff competition from the other seventh generation consoles. As of December 20, 2007, the PS3 is in third place in home console sales for its generation.

Hardware

The PlayStation 3 is convex on its left side when vertical, (the top side is convex when horizontal) and has a sleek black finish with the Playstation logo on the left side. Playstation designer Teiyu Goto stated that the Spider-Man-font-inspired logo "was one of the first elements [SCEI president Ken Kutaragi] decided on and the logo may have been the motivating force behind the shape of PS3."[105]

The PlayStation 3 features a slot-loading 2x speed Blu-ray Disc drive for games, Blu-ray movies, DVDs, CDs, and other optical media. It was originally available with hard drives of 20 and 60 GB (only the 60 GB model was available in PAL regions). An 80 GB model has since been introduced in NTSC regions, and a 40 GB model has been introduced in all regions. All PS3 models have user-upgradeable 2.5" SATA hard drives.

The PlayStation 3 uses the IBM-designed Cell microprocessor as its CPU, utilizing seven of the eight "synergistic processing elements" (often shortened to SPE). The eighth SPE is disabled to improve chip yields i.e. chips do not have to be discarded if one of the SPEs is defective. Only six of the seven SPEs are accessible to developers as one is reserved by the OS. Graphics processing is handled by the NVIDIA RSX, which can output resolutions from 480i/576i SD up to 1080p HD. The PlayStation 3 has 256 MB of XDR main memory and 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory for the RSX.

The system has Bluetooth 2.0, Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 and HDMI 1.3a built in on all currently shipping models. Wi-Fi networking is also built-in on the 40, 60 and 80 GB models while a flash card reader (compatible with Memory Stick, SD/MMC, and CompactFlash/Microdrive media) is built-in on 60 and 80 GB models.

Numerous accessories for the console have been developed including the wireless Sixaxis controller, the wireless DualShock 3 controller, the BD Remote, the PlayStation Eye camera and the upcoming PlayTV DVB-T tuner/digital video recorder accessory.

At its press conference at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show, Sony announced the DualShock 3 (trademarked DUALSHOCK 3), a PlayStation 3 controller with the same function and design as the Sixaxis, but with vibration capability included. Hands-on accounts describe the controller as being noticeably heavier than the standard Sixaxis controller, and capable of vibration forces comparable to the DualShock 2. It was released in Japan on November 11, 2007, and is scheduled to release on April 15, 2008 in North America and in Spring 2008 in Europe.

The PS3's hardware has also been used to build supercomputers for high-performance computing. Terra Soft Solutions has a version of Yellow Dog Linux for the PlayStation 3, and sells PS3s with Linux pre-installed, in single units, and 6 and 32 node clusters. In addition, RapidMind is pushing their stream programming package for the PS3. Also, on January 3, 2007, Dr. Frank Mueller, Associate Professor of Computer Science at NCSU, clustered 8 PS3s. Mueller commented that the 512 MB of system RAM is a limitation for this particular application, and is considering attempting to retrofit more RAM. Software includes: Fedora Core 5 Linux ppc64, MPICH2, OpenMP v2.5, GNU Compiler Collection and CellSDK 1.1.

On March 22, 2007, SCE and Stanford University released the Folding@Home project for the PlayStation 3. This program allows PS3 owners to lend the computing power of their consoles to help study the physical process of protein folding.