[ydl-gen] Response of Fixstars to end of ps3 otheros

[Kai Staats]

Nelson,

> > I believe it is a decision of economics, as Linux never _made_ money for
> > Sony. The PS3 itself was rumored to have lost money in the first year or
> > so, and who knows if it makes money now? It is games, and games alone
> > that make money in this cut-throat game box market. So consider (from a
> > purely economic point of view) that each PS3 sold to run Linux,
> > especially the clusters, may never run a single game and therefore invoke
> > 'break-even', at best.
>
> In the cbe-oss-dev someone proposed that Sony could sell the other os
> installer separately, with its cost being at least the money they are
> losing with each console. Also it could be a DLC from the PSN store,
> therefore it would be uniquely tied to that system. Don't you think this
> would sell more than most PSN small games? I mean they are still paying the
> Linux team to support the other model, would it cost that much? I don't
> know the price to break-even, but if they break-even on the console with a
> couple of games, it can't be that high.

Yes, but the sale of that bootloader must equal the cost of maintaining Linux 
support internal to Sony, which is surely a multiple person, many hundreds of 
thousands of dollars annual expense (likely far more).

I am not saying I agree with their decisions, but I believe these are the 
reasons.


> > Now, there appears to be good news, but the details are not yet known:
> > http://www.develop-online.net/news/32378/Sony-unveils-academic-PS3-dev-ki
> >t
> >
> > "Sony unveils academic PS3 dev kit"
>
> Is it at least known if it will support regular distros? I think when this
> representative said universities can always use Linux, she meant as in the
> alternative they had *then* (and in the future with current models after
> all). This was a month and a half ago, the ps3 slim wasn't announced at the
> time, and neither was fw 3.0.

True. And I apologize, but I know nothing more about this. I am going to ask 
my contact at Sony if there is a public page which speaks to this in more 
detail.

kai