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PlayStation (Games) OS X Operating Systems

PlayStation 3 Could Support Mac OS X 150

Posted by Zonk from the it-could-do-many-things dept.
ucahg writes "Sony's website has a press release stating that they will release the PS3 in 2006. The most interesting part about the page, though, is the last sentence which reads: 'The integrated Cell processor will be able to support a variety of operating systems (such as Linux or Apple's Tiger).' Is this what Steve Jobs was talking about when he said Apple and Sony looked forward to cooperating more in the future?"
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PlayStation 3 Could Support Mac OS X More

PlayStation 3 Could Support Mac OS X

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  • play cool video games and use mac os x cool...dude
  • Thank You God for the ultimate gaming machine we are about to recive.......... If this is true about OSX and Linux working on the PS3 Bill Gates is going to really ramp up the XBOX360 as OSX and Sony make bill have bad dreams. Then again it might make bill even madder and he might make the xbox 360 even better
  • .. BeOS! .. OS/2! .. iTron! .. ???

  • The funny thing about this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SetupWeasel ( 54062 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @02:34PM (#13258986) Homepage
    If this is true, I don't know what the hell Apple is thinking. The word on the street was always that Apples were built to last. You had to accept the higher price and less popular OS to get it, but you did get the increased quality as a trade off.

    Sony, in my estimation, is the the new Packard Bell or Gateway. Where quality is job 3, maybe 5. Well, I'm sure they will get around to it sometime.

    Seriously, Sony is a company that is renowned for its lax quality control. Why the hell Apple would want to associate themselves with Sony is beyond me.
    • Because it would be an instant + 10-20% points in their market share, and they'd start cracking the gamer market in a big way.

    • As long as you're not buying one of their LCD ACDs, in which case they're built to deteriorate before you even get them and are crap within a few years. But at least you get to still spend the insane Apple price.

      But yeah, I agree as far as their laptops. :)
    • Don't worry, Apple will never license it's OS. It tried that, it sucked for Apple... they learned their lesson.

      Apple licensing it's OS is about as likely as Apple switching to x86, or releasing a multi-button mouse.

      Oh, wait...
      • On this vein I'm thinking give apple five or six years to milk the iPod cow, and get a solid base of x86 apps, migrate the user base and beef up hardware support and we just might see OS X released into the wild like so many slashdotters are salivating for.
      • I see several possible varients on this theme...

        1) This could replace the Mac mini (or be an even lower level entry machine).

        2) This would explain (partially at least) why Apple bailed to Intel (because the Apple/PPC market was about to have its lunch eaten)

        3) iTunes/iTMS/iPod on PlayStation (yet another way to push music sales)

        The plus side to this 'rumor' is that Teh Steve had Sony President Kunitake Ando onstage for the SF 2005 SteveNote.

        On the minus side, there appears to be some friction between Apple
    • similar processor + similar OS + PS3 + Apple = easy and fast game ports for apple = LOTS OF MONEY
    • What is much, much, much more likely is that Linux and Tiger were given as examples of operating systems that aren't Windows, rather than as operating systems that might be ported. Well, Linux will be, but Tiger ? Unlikely as all hell. Maybe 10.5, but Apple sure hasn't been compiling its OS for the PS3 all along like it has been with the x86 architecture.

      Sloppy writing in the article, no plans by Apple.
  • That's one more reason why ps3 beats the new xbox.. Microsoft can only offer windows but try to get Vista running on a consol while it won't even run on a good computer.

    • Re:nice thing (Score:5, Interesting)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @03:14PM (#13259236)
      I don't even think Microsoft would try to get Vista running on the Xbox 360. The Xbox 360 has the recommended amount of RAM so it wouldn't do to badly in that department, but of course there would be no way for them to upgrade the RAM. The larger, problem, however is that the Xbox 360 uses a triple core PPC processor whereas Windows Vista is designed to run on an x86 processor. In order to get Vista to run on an Xbos 360 they would need to port the code to run on a PPC processor. In addition they would need to rewrite a lot of it to make it multi-threaded because that's what the Xbox 360's processor handles best. It's not really designed to run something intensively on one thread as that limits its performance to 1/6 (each core is capable of two threads each last I heard) of performance. That would create a rather large bottleneck and probably result in a poor user experience.

      Assuming they did in fact manage to get a version of their OS to run on the Xbox 360, they'd run into the problem that eventually someone will get Linux running on the console. Considering Microsoft can't afford to sink too much money into the console in building a solid OS that runs fast, whatever they manage to port will likely be just as flawed as their regular operating systems are. Given a choice between Linux or Windows, I think that a lot of people would tend to choose Linux. Not all of them, but more than in the computer market considering there are more tech savvy people purchasing consoles.

      In short, Microsoft even trying to get Windows onto their new console is most likely going to be the biggest flop they've had in a long while.

  • there is a sony-apple partnership (Score:4, Informative)

    by matt4077 ( 581118 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @02:44PM (#13259041) Homepage
    There is a partnership between sony and apple regarding HD Video. Maybe that has something to do with it...

  • Web copy is never that useful. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by 75th Trombone ( 581309 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @02:45PM (#13259046) Homepage Journal
    It sounds more like some idiot typing copy for the website didn't realize that OS X is/will always be tied to Apple hardware.

    If that IS a little revelation, it's awfully quiet and fanfare-free.

  • Yes, it could. (Score:3, Informative)

    by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @02:53PM (#13259094) Journal
    We've known that the integrated Cell processor could support OS X since we learned that it had a full (if relatively slow) PowerPC core. This is not news. Whether the other hardware in the PS3 will be supported by OS X, and whether OS X will be licensed for the PS3 is still unknown.
  • Perhaps the writer tought that Linux and Darwin would compile fine on the machine but this does not guarantee that Apple will port (recompile) the GUI layers of OS X. Just as Darwin compiled fine on Intel, before Apple ported the closed source party of OSX to the Intel architecture.

    If on the other hand, the rumor is true: this would be a great leap forward for the PS3 as well as for Apple / OSX

  • less and less anti-mac fuel (Score:4, Interesting)

    by splatterboy ( 815820 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @02:55PM (#13259116)
    what are the main reasons people list as reasons they can't/will not buy a mac?

    1: No games. not if sony releases PS games for mac
    2: No multi-button mouse. weak reason but now with "mighty mouse a non-issue. Not that you couldn't go third party anyway
    3: Macs are too expensive. With the mac mini and potential price drops with soon to be intel CPUs - a shrill cry
    Looks like all the reasons to not go with mac are evaporating. I won't even mention the traditional windows problems...
    • THe Mac Mini isn't cheap, except as a Mac. It's at least $150 more expensive than a comparably crippled entry-level PC. It's only "cheap" because that's less than half the "Mac Tax" you'd have to pay on anything else.

      Why do you think going to Intel is going to make Macs cheaper? The G4 is not a horribly expensive chip - you can't buy it retail but quantity prices are under $100, and comparable Intel chips aren't any cheaper than that.
      • He Mac Mini isn't cheap, except as a Mac. It's at least $150 more expensive than a comparably crippled entry-level PC. It's only "cheap" because that's less than half the "Mac Tax" you'd have to pay on anything else.

        Does that include the OS? Because OS X costs almost all of that $150 dollar difference, and Windows costs more.
        • Yes, that includes the OS in both cases.

          Mac mini, including OSX - $500

          Cheap PC with Windows Home Edition and monitor included - $400 (they have stacks of boxes like this at Walmart)
          Subtract cost of cheap monitor - $300
          Add Radeon 9200 - $330 (since they usually have some generic Intel graphics)
          Add firewire - $335

          Difference - $165
          • You forgot to factor in your time to source the replacements, and install the parts, anti-spyware and iApp equivalents and upgrade the OS to Pro, OS X comes with support for multiple CPUs, remote access (SSH, X11, VNC) etc out of the box so you need to upgrade from Home.

            Time isn't cheap. Playing with computers is fun, but then so is playing with cars. If someone bought a fiat panda and tried to upgrade it to a Mercades A-Class they're going to bill you for time.
            • You forgot to factor in your time to source the replacements, and install the parts [...]

              You forgot to factor in your time to fabricate a larger case for the Mac mini so you can install a 3.5" 7200 RPM hard drive instead of the low-power laptop drive it's using.

              Besides, someone else already beat you to the goalpost [slashdot.org].

              I really like my Mac mini, but I'd rather have it in a bit more expandible form factor.
      • The mac is also much smaller than the crippled PC, but then I built a Shuttle XPC for a friend the other day and it had an Athlon 64 in and it was still cheaper than a Mac, with a original a copy of Windows to boot.
    • If Apple moves to Intel chips they won't be on the same architecture as the PS3 anymore and won't be compatible.
    • "No games. not if sony releases PS games for mac"

      Since Macs will be running on PowerPC and Intel processors, this won't happen. Cell optimizations are not terribly portable.

      "Macs are too expensive. With the mac mini and potential price drops with soon to be intel CPUs - a shrill cry Looks like all the reasons to not go with mac are evaporating. I won't even mention the traditional windows problems..."

      It depends on what you mean by "too expensive". If you mean "Are they too expensive for people to be able to

  • What a curious thing to say... (Score:4, Informative)

    by nobodyman ( 90587 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @02:57PM (#13259126) Homepage

    I would have dismissed this as complete bullshit had it not been on Sony's own PR. What an odd thing to mention. I mean, It's not unknown for PR's to "name drop" in order to more likely appear in search engine listings, Sony doesn't have to resort to that sort of thing because their PR's are widely disssiminated by the media anyway (especially PS3 related stuff).

        While Kunitake Ando and Steve Jobs were making complimentary (if somewhat guarded) comments about the two companies early in 2005 (was it at Macworld or something?), steve has been less upbeat about Cell [google.com].

        If you take the statement at its fact, its really just saying that the cell is general purpose enough to handle any OS. In fact, there's nothing incorrect or even exaggerated about the statement: The cell could certainly support OSX in the same way that PearPC enables a x86 to support OSX (i.e. emulation) but it would be slow as hell. Whether Sony means anything other than that is another question.

    Curious, but I'm leaning towards dismissing this as PR hubris. But give it a couple weeks - if the media get's into a froth about it I'm sure Apple will speak up or Sony will clarify one way or the other.

    • Re:What a curious thing to say... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "The cell could certainly support OSX in the same way that PearPC enables a x86 to support OSX (i.e. emulation) but it would be slow as hell."

      Huh???

      Cell chips are essentially insanely fast PowerPC chips. Apple could have OS X running on a Cell chip in about the same time it takes for them to support any other new PowerPC chip that comes out.

      Not only would it be incredibly easy for OS X to use Cell chips, Apple has spent years setting up the media technologies like QuickTime and all the Core* libraries to se
      • I will agree that Apple went to Intel for primarily financial and business reasons rather than the technical merits/demerits of PPC v Cell v x86.

        It is hilarious(and sad) to think of all that hardwork Apple engineers went through to be ready for media processing monster chips like Cell

        The problem with this argument is that only a small percentage of Apple's business is related to high-end, specialized media-processing. Apple primarily markets general purpose computers to consumers. And even then, Intel prov

      • Huh??? Cell chips are essentially insanely fast PowerPC chips. Apple could have OS X running on a Cell chip in about the same time it takes for them to support any other new PowerPC chip that comes out.

        Sorry, I shoulda been more clear. I wasn't trying to say whether it would be fast, slow, or anything else. I dont have any idea until we start seeing it in the "real-world". My point was that the statement "cell can support any os (such as linux or tiger)" isn't all that shocking because virtually *any* d

        • "But of course, I have no clue and I could be totally wrong."

          You have several clues and you are almost completely right.

          "it just depends on how much of a hit you will take in duplicating and/or emulating the environment (cpu, chipset, sound hardware, etc) that the target OS expects. MIPS, ARM, x86, Cell, you name it. For x86 it's a pretty big hit (for now at least)."

          You don't even need to consider emulation. Most OSes (Linux, *BSD, Windows, etc) have been ported to PowerPC and can run natively.

          "So it's not
      • "Cell chips are essentially insanely fast PowerPC chips. Apple could have OS X running on a Cell chip in about the same time it takes for them to support any other new PowerPC chip that comes out"

        Wrong. The PowerPC part of the cell is quite stripped down compared to the CPUs found in Macs. The bulk of the die is taken up by the SPEs. These are the components responsible for the Cells "insanely fast" numbers. While some parts of OS X can make very good use of the SPEs, the work to make that happen is far

      • "Cell chips are essentially insanely fast PowerPC chips. Apple could have OS X running on a Cell chip in about the same time it takes for them to support any other new PowerPC chip that comes out."

        True.

        However, they would then say "Oh look, these codecs that are fast but everything else is many times slower. We should have gone with Intel chips because more people care about web browsing than encoding HD video in realtime.".

    • Re:What a curious thing to say... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @03:40PM (#13259387)
      I think Sony is trying to form some sort of unholy union with Apple. I think this would make a lot more sense if Apple weren't jumping ship and switching to x86 processors in the coming years.

      Considering that each cell has a PPC core, it's plausible to a certain extent that OS X could be made to run on a PS3 with some changes to take advantage of the cell's abilities and the lack of AltiVec (I'm not even sure how much OS X uses this to begin with), smaller cache, and other changes made to the PPC chip on the cell.

      Sony stands to benefit from this deal because they get a solid OS available to them to run on their PS3. This allows them to say that the PS3 can be used as a computer as well (just make sure to buy our $100 hard drive and the $100 software). They get to sell some accessories, which they seem to love doing considering the amount of stuff (memory cards, multitaps, network adapters, hard drives) that you could use to upgrade your PS2. It's likely they'd also get a small amount of money for each copy software sale Apple makes.

      Apple tends to benefit if they handle things a little more carefully. If they start giving PS3 owners the full version of OS X then the whole clone problem that Apple had in the past rears its ugly head once again. On the other hand, offering a stripped down version of the OS for the PS3 that doesn't have all the bells and whistles attached could easily pursuade more consumers to purchase Apple computers. It would be very similar in result to Windows users purchaing an iPod and deciding to try an Apple computer. Considering that the PS2 has sold over 80 million units world wide, it might be tempting for Apple to give more people a small taste of what they have to offer considering the potential amount of users the PS3 can reach.

      What I really think this is all about though is that Sony wants to get in a little closer with Apple. Sony has wanted to get into the online music business for quite some time now but has found itself falling flat on its face. Apple's iPod and iTunes have been dozens of times more successful than whatever Sony has had to offer. If OS X or some varient of it is ported onto Sony's console you can bet it will have iTunes on it that will be featuring Sony's songs (and maybe eventually movies) available for download. Not only does it give Sony a way to start selling its music through a venue that many people already know, trust, and use, but it will give Sony a digital media box that can do everything a console, computer, and home entertainment center can do. This would be widely popular in Japan where living conditions are more cramped and people would welcome having one box that can do everything.

      Having accomplished what Microsoft has been wanting to do so badly, get into the living room as the media centerpiece, Sony would be able to one up them in a sense. Microsoft has been designing the Xbox 360 to do exactly this. If you don't believe me, consider all the features it has built in that allow it to link to a Windows PC. Apple and Sony could team up and accomplish the same thing in an effort to drive Microsoft out of the console business. Considering the amount of money Microsoft has lost with the Xbox, and it likely to lose early on with the Xbox 360, they can't afford to trail so far behind this generation. If Sony can out-do Microsoft in almost every aspect, they could easily accomplish the feat. I'm quite sure that Apple wouldn't have much of a grudge in hurting Microsoft either.

      Eventually this will hurt Microsoft more than most people would think at first. Considering that Sony is likely to use OpenGL (can't recall where I read this) which Microsoft dislikes because it's an open source standard competing with their proprietary one and that more and more games are being made on consoles rather than on the PC, ports of widely successful games would be made with OpenGL as well.

      Now that I've gotten everyone who hates Microsoft with a passion hopes up, I will kindly point out that none of this is likely to happen. Considering the egos of the two men whose cooperation would be necessary to pull this off, it seems unlikely it will ever come to pass. Conspiracy theory that sounds good on paper, yes. Accurate prediction of future events, no.

      • although a technicality, OpenGL is not Open Source, but the API is. If you want to be OpenGL, you need to buy a license from SGI and submit to their compatibility tests. Libraries like Mesa are OpenGL compliant, but can't say they're OpenGL because they're not certified.

        The main advantage of OGL is it's a cross platform graphics library, much like C is a cross platform programming language. The disadvantage of OpenGL is that it is somewhat slow at adopting new technologies and has a lot of infighting, wh
        • doh - didn't proofread again... I meant the API is Open (as in openly available to read and use), not Open Source.
        • while Microsoft controls the direction of DirectX. I say that's mixed because a single company in control results in a much tighter API (look at the mass of extensions on OGL if you think their API is loose), but can stifle innovation since they tell the hardware vendor what goes in.

          I would agree with this on earlier versions of Direct3D (Up to DX7), where Ms was basically just playing catchup with OpenGL.

          However, DX8.0 and above have all been hardware vendor driven upgrades, pushing the boundaries of capab
    • no chance in hell of this happening. if you notice, they managed to state trademark information for their products mentioned in the article, such as the PSP, but gave no "Tiger is a Trademark of Apple Computer" or whatnot anywhere. this was just to show that it is capable of running the OS. just because it's capable doesn't mean that it will. x86 boxes are capable of running OSes such as linux or Apple's Tiger (for x86) but does that mean that apple is releasing OS X for whiteboxes? only if you're a naive n

  • wow (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by drewmca ( 611245 )
    Wow.

    Just, wow.

    Take an 8-month old report of Apple looking to "work with" Sony. Add marketing speak from the initial burst of info about Cell, and how it is designed to run "multiple OSs".

    Add some Sony fanboyism.

    Add some "Slashdot Anti-Microsoftism(TM)".

    Watch the speculation fly. And watch people make complete asses of themselves.

    This is hands down the stupidest, weakest thing I have read here in a long time.

    • Re:wow (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ivan256 ( 17499 ) *
      Wow.

      Just, wow.

      Take a slashdot article.

      Add some slashdot readers who don't read the article.

      Add some games.slashdot.org Xbox fanboyism.

      Watch people make idiots of themselves as they dismiss information taken straight from an official Sony press release as speculation by PS2 fanboys.

      The parent to this comment is hands down the most blatently stupid comment I've read here in a long time.
      • Very clever.

        Nevermind the fact that the press release says the same thing that Sony has been saying for 2 years, that the Cell processor is can run multiple operating systems. And that saying that, and listing OSX as an example of an operating system, has nothing to do with the chances of that operating system ever being put on the Cell.

        Nevermind the fact that much speculation occurred on Apple fan sites 6 months ago or longer about Apple potentially using the Cell processor in the future. And that the spec
    • +1 Insightful Yet Funny.

  • Already been considered pretty unlikely (Score:4, Informative)

    by catmistake ( 814204 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @03:17PM (#13259256) Journal
    by macworld dude [macworld.com]
  • Since I'm missed out on the PS2 - seems like this would be the thing that justifies the $499 price tag. It would be much better than my mac mini and a playstation.
  • Is this the same spirit of cooperation that caused Sony to refuse to put any music under its label into the Japanese iTunes store, and is also the primary reason there isn't yet an iTunes store for Australia?

    Just checking.

    One thing's for sure... if you tried to run OS X on a PS3, you'd find out why Apple decided not to come out with a Cell-based computer. The PPC implementation isn't all that hot, and the other cores won't help because they don't run PPC code.

  • This is quite a step up for relations between Steve Jobs and Sony... It seems like just yesterday when Steve's approach meant you needed to hide the Sony Rep in the closet [folklore.org]
    • Sony and Apple always had a cozy relationship. Apple monitors were rebranded Sonys for a period. Sony designed the first Apple Powerbooks, and if you look inside your earlier Macs, the power supply is Sony branded.

  • This is the stupidest thing I've ever heard... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ArbitraryConstant ( 763964 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @11:24PM (#13261808) Homepage
    The Cell front end processor is PowerPC. With the right drivers it probably could run OS X. That said, it won't because Apple doesn't want to support OS X on someone else's hardware and Sony doesn't need a general purpose OS.

    The OS X userspace is nice but a bit redundant for a machine that only needs a few utilities and games. The OS X OpenGL implementation isn't the fastest, and the spiffy display technologies (and they are spiffy) aren't necessary. Sony just needs a subset of OpenGL but it needs to be fast.

    The Darwin kernel isn't the fastest either, and Sony can do a lot better whether or not they're willing to pay for it (Linux or NetBSD on the free side, any number of real-time kernels on the other side).

  • Hype, Marketing, and Speculation (Score:3, Informative)

    by chia_monkey ( 593501 ) on Saturday August 06, 2005 @11:25PM (#13261815) Journal
    That's it. That's all it said. "The operating system has also yet to be clarified. The integrated Cell processor will be able to support a variety of operating systems (such as Linux or Apple's Tiger)."

    The companies (MS, Sony) know their machines are being hacked to run Linux and such. Those two sentences up there are worse than the rumor sites and the speculation is even worse. Of course it could run an OS. That's a no brainer. It could probably run any flavor of Mac OS X (being UNIX-based) and also Linux. So...what's the news? It's speculation, hype, and a bit of marketing to get all the geeks all giddy, wondering what Sony has up its sleeve.

    What DOES Sony have in mind? Have you noticed how many commercials for the PSP aren't specific to the gaming platform but more to the video capabilities? Or new videos released "available on DVD and PSP"? Match that with Sony's pissiness about being manhandled by the iPod and it only makes sense that Sony will do what it takes to get itself in the limelight. Mention Apple and heads will turn...

  • This Is Utterly Absurd (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LKM ( 227954 ) on Sunday August 07, 2005 @03:53AM (#13262721)

    This is so stupid, it's hard to imagine how it got into that press release. It's so stupid, it's even hard to imagine how it was considered Slashdot-worthy.

    Yes, it's a PPC chip, so Apple could release Tiger for it. No, they're not going to do it.

    Let's consider the facts:

    • Apple makes money selling hardware. They don't want 300-buck-Macs from Sony taking away their hardware sales.
    • Apple is moving away from the PPC, not towards it.
    • Apple would never let Sony release news like this in a meager press release.

    Sony simply wrote about what their processor could do, not about what they're going to do. Linux? Maybe, they did it before. Mac OS? Definitely not.

    • Apple makes money selling hardware. They don't want 300-buck-Macs from Sony taking away their hardware sales.

      they sure don't, but they could sell a $300 hard drive loaded with OSX attachment to make the PS3 a fully functional computer.
    • Sony and Apple could benefit from the relationship. Sony could get add extra features without having to develop those in Linux. Apple gets marketing by showcasing OS X to Playstation market (much larger market). Because Apple is moving away from PPC and Playstations are pretty static systems, Apple's hardware will be more faster and offer more features. So, it won't necessarily detract from hardware sales.
    • Apple makes money selling hardware. They don't want 300-buck-Macs from Sony taking away their hardware sales.

      It's not that simple. Gaming console is - well - a gaming console. To turn it into a functional equivalent of a computer, you have to invest in a proprietary harddrive and VGA adaptor. Add a price for MacOS X and your setup is already more expensive than the low-end Mac Mini. And a cheaper Mac Mini would still be better bang-for-buck if you just consider computing, not gaming. They wouldn't caniba
  • When was the last time you saw any piece of hardware that ran Mac OS have a large library of games available for it?
  • Remember the early demos of the new Xbox that were running on G5s? Now consider that Playstation might be able to run OS X. Suddenly the two major game consoles are theoretically capable of running OS X. That would rock!

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