U.S. Air Force Buying 2,200 PlayStation 3s

What are they paying per unit?

I bet it's just for playing God of War III
when it comes out....

anyone else going to buy Sony stock?

Why not just order whatever they need as a custom device instead of buying the actual console? Seems kinda odd that the U.S.A.F. has to purchase a retail product - a gaming console at that - to get their hands on some technology they seem to want. I don't know, it just seems like something a developing nation would do....not the USA.

Agreed with Omni!

This is a very clever way to score high powered CPUs at Sony's expense, it's a wonder Sony hasn't come out with some sort of "patch" that blocked clustering from taking place. Is this the reason that the new slim PS3 has no linux support? Sony finally got tired of taking a loss on all these supercomputer projects?

For those curious, the IBM Roadrunner supercomputer uses a variant of the Cell chip, 12,000 of them in fact. The extended cost per chip is $10,000 (including support hardware). If the Air Force can get their PS3 network running for $300 per chip plus a little extra (say $300 more per station) for support equipment like network, power, and cooling, they will still only be paying $600 per node compared to $10,000 per node the 'old fashioned way'.

Now that's a government spending reduction I can get behind!

Thats silly, IBM sells cell based blade servers that can run whatever you want, take as much RAM as you want, and have faster processors than what comes in the PS3.

Obama said he was going to help us out of this recession you know...

Probably paying $600 each for them knowing how government contracts end up.

... and so Skynet is born from a bunch of PS3s

I would have to see what they're spending for this project. I thought they could buy older quadcore CPU pulled from Dell upgrades at bottom cheap prices if they just wanted processing power.

Let me try this again:

SONY. TAKES. A. LOSS. ON. THE. PS3.

Do you get that, at all? They are buying them because the blade server version is a TON more expensive (at least 5x, maybe close to 10x depending on loadout). The PS3 has a well understood CPU and a comparable Intel or AMD equipped server would be at least 3x more per socket.

this reminds me of that urban legend from when the PS2 came out and there was a shortage... that Saddam was buying them to get around the US embargo on Iraq because they were considered games/toys and not computers, or something like that.

If they're buying at market value Sony is going to lose huge amounts of $ on this.

MS and Sony run on the Gillette model. Give the handle away and we'll make it up on them buying the razors. In this case the console isn't free, but they lose $ on each sale assuming you'll go and make up the loss in game and accessory sales.

Also to those saying why not buy x CPUs, the PS3 can stomp any current x86 based processor in calculations. Also, to buy a PC then an advance GFX card that equals the PS3s processing power is more expensive in both hardware and development. The PS3 just requires minor changes to be made to programs written entirely in C and C++ to run thanks to Linux support. With 2,200 PS3s they have a massive super computer at a fraction of the cost in both hardware and development. I do hope they buy them at real cost ($500-$800) since Sony will never see a real return on it. Even at that price its a better buy then an equivalent super computer.

interesing.... i wonder how many will be taken home for "combatablity test"

Hm maybe they need to make another super computer completely made up off PS3s. Problem is, what will it be called? (codename)
PSS for Play Super Station?

I don't think Sony loses much on this in terms of profit since a few thousand PS3 consoles only represents less than 0.1%...

I think you shouldn't be surprised - the us can easily be classified as developing country nowadays - after the two years of recession together with the uk have somewhat fallen behind the most develloped countries.

It's a sly way of stealing / utilizing japanese technology without having to buddy buddy w\ them.

Can you imagine if they were tapped into everybodies ps3 and using them like a folding @home kinda deal while you're idle?

I suppose it is pretty cheap for what else it could be used for? A similar PC would be more expensive I think.. Maybe..

thats one hell of a LAN party...

makes me wonder why did they choose ps3 over xbox360...
I guess this solves all the fanboy-ish issues in terms of superiority and power (not including the outdated graphic card).

unfortunately sony won't make a single dime outta this sale coz as THEEEEEEEEY say, the manufacturing cost is still higher than the sale price (yes I know... am talking about the slim ps3).

This reminds me of the rumored ps2 shortage when it first came out with Sadom buying them for missile guidance systems but that was a smelly load. Cheers to whom ever picked these since they are bang for buck as one other poster had stated. It is a shame that the cell is being killed off at IBM.

I thought Sony divested in all future Cell technologies and sold all their rights to it, so Roadrunner etc. wouldn't matter to them. If that's the case wouldn't this still be in Sony's favor since the Air Force is buying a Sony product vs. an Intel/AMD solution?

Yeah this does solve the fanboy crap. I guess they figured out that the PS3's weren't good for gaming, so they found something that the PS3 can succeed at.

Congratulations Sony.

This is all bullshit if you ask me. So far noone yet after they released Slim all this PR is killing me. The fact that NOW that the slim is out they have blocked Linux etc from the console , they are seriously telling me that they are buying PS3s for researches? with what sceptical is that happening? Tesla would be their answer. Power servers from Nvidia if they need the power and HD capabilities for their researches and shit.. Not PS3s that are now blocked fully. It just doesnt make any sence. I would love someone from the press ( Toms you guys woud be great ) if you asked one by one all those, like the police and now them , saying they buy PS3 for research with no linux capabilties. What for? How will they use them? It just doesnt add up if you ask me.




The onlyone that smells like a fanboy is you for making that comparison, yet every clueless fanboy that would start comparing and shit, like you right now for example, will be able enough to tell you that the 360 is graphically way more capable than the PS3... Which isnt relevant to the cell processor in the way they want to use it in those cases but I guess you need some pointers to get that right. Its like you compare an Ati 9000 with a 8800GTX. ( have had both models over the years .. miss the good Ati years )

its very simple. cost is the reason. if they buy 2200 consoles at 300 each ($660,000), it has all the hardware integrataed into it, it is a low power (relatively), have a small footprint, and are highly mobile.

if they were to go out and build or buy a custom set up, the way the government has piles of red tape and contracting fiasco's it would probably cost more than double (this is a defense system, so its not as simple as setting up IT).

if you can save money and achieve your objective, there is absolutly nothing wrong with that. Now if the rest of the government would spend money as wisely as this group.... just think of how much the budget of the US would drop

no one is say this isn't true, but the cost/performance offered by the ps3 is unmatched. in the University of São Paulo there is a small cluster of 10 PS3 doing some calculations related to the genoma project.
Every single person involved in the project said that the PS3 cluster reduced costs both in energy and the real cost of the hardware.

they do know they can't run linux on them any more?

and yeah, they will be using the cpu, that is probably still many times more powerful than the i9, not the crappy outdated nvidia 7800 equivalent gpu. this has nothing to do with which console is best.

the cell chip has been discontinued anyway.

A part of me agrees with you, but a part of me doesn't. To this day, the US government is engaged in research and development of technologies, particularly in energy and military projects. I just found it odd that they would be out to buy PS3s to extract the component(s) they need. That sounds the same as if the Canadian government would be buying 2200 blenders because it needed the blades for something in their CANDU nuclear reactors. Come on, we're talking about the U.S.A.F. here. Just get the parts you need - why buy the entire product. Not to mention, they should have put out a fair bidding proposal. Who knows, maybe Walmart would have been able to get it for them for less

Why don't they just buy the CPU instead of the whole PS3 unit????

Because they're gonna strip the PS3's board down anyway - unless they plan on watching Blu-Ray movies while they monitor Air Force activity...

@manos: i don't have a PS3... now how ya gonna erase all the things you said about this fanboy who has not a PS3... ummm i wonder.