The Playstation 3 is Sony's next generation gaming console. It will be the
only real competition to Microsoft's Xbox 360, as I believe the Nintendo Revolution Wii will
be marketed more towards non-gamers. I believe that Sony had a chance to
totally dominate the home entertainment market and destroy Microsoft, and in
this article I am going to give my opinion on how they could have done it.
*Please note that I have updated some information in this article since it was originally written.
The importance of the future
Microsoft and Sony know that the game console is soon to become the entire entertainment center for families. While the Playstation 2 and Xbox could play MP3s, DVDs, or games, the game consoles of the future (maybe not the PS3 and the Xbox360, but the next ones) will be able to do all of these things at one time. The single device will be able to play the music, movies, and games for the entire household instead of one individual. They will also use wireless networking to interface with PCs and other devices. The hardware side of the home entertainment market is currently worth billions of dollars. These new consoles will also have internet capabilities that will allow you to buy new music in digital form, streaming audio and video content, downloading new expansions or updates for games, and play multiplayer games. The content side (movies, games, and music) is currently worth billions of dollars. If Microsoft can gain the lead in both of these markets they will also come to dominate content distribution formats, digital rights management, and the physical media that content is distributed on.
The PS3 hardware and the companies behind it
The Cell processor is composed of a POWER core with seven SPE sub-processors (with one more SPE for redundancy) and will have a clock speed of approximately 4GHz.
Sony is the main company behind the PS3. They are co-creator of the Cell processor, co-creator of the Blu-Ray high definition DVD, and make millions of dollars on music and movies. This is why they want to be able to dictate (or at least keep Microsoft from dictating) the future standards of our digital entertainment.
Toshiba is a co-creator of the Cell processor and the HD-DVD format (that is used in the Xbox 360). Toshiba has indicated they have an interest in building HDTVs with the Cell processor.
IBM is by far the most interesting company involved with the PS3. IBM is a co-creator and manufacturer of the Cell processor. IBM is also the manufacturer of the PowerPC processor that is in the Xbox 360. They also gave birth to PCs and have supported Linux lately, which is quite important (keep reading to find out why).
Why Google should get involved
Google currently has nothing to do with the PS3. I believe that they have
missed a giant opportunity to defeat Microsoft. Google could have taken
a Linux distribution and slightly modified it to work like Google
Compute, so that it takes the extra processing cycles, a little bit of
the hard drive, and the spare bandwidth to become the largest distributed
computing grid ever. Sure Google already
has this, but this will also serve two other functions: to scare Microsoft
with the introduction of a Linux based Google Operating System and to
introduce a Google branded device into peoples' homes. In return, Google could
use some of its large cash reserve to subsidize the expected
$500 $500
or $600 price tag of the PS3, making it more affordable for consumers.
They could also host a Microsoft Xbox
Live type service to connect gamers with other gamers.
The End of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office
The only two divisions of Microsoft that make any real money are Windows and Office. If you can remove the need for these two products, you can severely cripple Microsoft's monopoly. Google has recently announced that it will help OpenOffice by helping Sun distribute it and by assigning programmers to help improve it. If Google were to bundle OpenOffice with it's version of Linux (both of which are free), then you would have supercomputer entertainment system that can mostly replace your Microsoft Windows/Office loaded PC as well as your entire home entertainment center. Because Microsoft Windows was specifically programmed for the X86 family of processors, if people began to use a computing system with different processors they would be unable to run Windows. While it could be possible to port it to the Cell architecture, it would be a costly (in both time and money) and buggy process. Linux runs on virtually every processor there is and already works on the cell architecture.
Conclusion
This would require a monumental effort of the part of Google and Sony to work together on one single product in a way that (to my knowledge) has never been done before. Microsoft also has a cash reserve of about $30 or $40 billion dollars which will allow them to compete on price in a way that Sony and Google combined will be hard pressed to match. Toshiba and IBM have a stake in both the Xbox 360 and PS3 and therefore will not be willing to risk one platform by helping the other. Also, as Robert X. Cringely said, the PS3 is doomed without software.