Filed under: Gaming, OS, Rumors
OS X Tiger on a PS3
If this is true, then I am buying a PS3 as my next computer.... MacSlash is reporting that a recent Sony article indicates that the Cell processor in the PS3 may have the ability to run Tiger.Here's the article, and here is the interesting snippet: "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)." I don't buy it, but then again, why would Sony be so specific as to say "Tiger" rather than just OS X? What do you think?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Derek said 4:14PM on 8-04-2005
Because using the word "Tiger" will get more search results than, say, "Panther" in a Google search. ;)
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meatmcguffin said 4:30PM on 8-04-2005
uh.... doesn't the EULA prevent this?
and if apple change it, won't it mean massive amounts of lost hardware sales for apple? i don't get it!
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james said 4:34PM on 8-04-2005
"why would Sony be so specific as to say "Tiger" rather than just OS X? What do you think?"
Well because if it's true, Apple will be sure to try and prevent this in future versions, but Tiger is already on the market so obviously it would not have any such limitations.
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Alex said 4:39PM on 8-04-2005
um.. well.. if all these programs have to be optimized from PPC chips to Intel chips when the switch happens, what makes people think these apps will be supported by the cell? it does use a PPC true, but it also has those spe's
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stalker said 4:45PM on 8-04-2005
Derek got it - some PRs got clever to mac fan boy searches
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The Jeremy said 4:55PM on 8-04-2005
I like the idea. The Sony exec is putting pressure on Apple to license the OS for inclusion in the PS3. He's not advocating a homebrew option because Sony doesn't advocate that sort of thing (witness the PSP currently). Having a stripped down version of OS X on the PS3 would be awesome. That means iTunes + the iTunes Music Store, meaning Sony might be willing to walk away from the Sony Connect failure now. Finally getting Sony on board with the iTunes Music Store reduces the charges of monopoly on the part of Apple and truly will make it the standard officially, and not by default. I sure hope Apple jumps on board with this. It means millions of users throughout the world being touched by OS X who might not ever consider it before. And even if Apple only gets something like $10 in royalties per machine, that's $10 more per machine that they currently are receiving. It might also be a sly way for Apple to continue developing OS X for PPC (since they'll be doing that for the next four years anyways) and it is good insurance just in case Intel/AMD slip in the next few years with x86 and IBM and the Far Eastern chipmakers embracing PPC actually produces something stunning. Mac fans (and Apple shareholders) should support this proposed endeavour. Who knows? Perhaps Sony will buy a stake in Apple and exit their own PC manufacturing business as has IBM, and soon enough, HP.
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The Jeremy said 4:58PM on 8-04-2005
Furthermore, based upon some of the posted comments, some people apparently think Apple won't release OS X 10.5 "Leopard" or 10.6 for PowerPC based Macs. I think that's laughable considering Apple is stressing Fat Binaries from now on, making the Company "processor agnostic" just in case some other company can beat Intel's volume discounts and offers a reliable roadmap and a decent production track record.
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meatmcguffin said 5:09PM on 8-04-2005
"And even if Apple only gets something like $10 in royalties per machine, that's $10 more per machine that they currently are receiving."
I disagree im afraid. If tiger was developed for the ps3 then many people would have no reason to buy a mac mini. same kinda pricepoint, same basic computer features (ie, not for power users), same kinda usage as a home media center. If the PS3 comes it at under 500 sterling, which is very likely, i'll buy from sony instead of apple leaving apple with a sale of minus 490 quid.
i guess apple could hope for a halo effect but console and computer users belong in very different demographics.
like i said, i don't get it. Apple wont ship playstation osx without itunes so sony's music service goes unused. and what if the majority of people decide tiger is better than windows and, when it comes to getting a new pc, get an apple which cuts into sony's pc sales. what on earth do sony hope to achieve by this?
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Randy said 5:21PM on 8-04-2005
Maybe because anything with "Tiger" in would be instantly picked up and give them some free press? [and I don't mean that as an insult - it's valid news with some shrewd planning from Sony's PR group]. Or possibly because they [and the world] knows that a G5 was the dev box for early XBox 360 developers?
Paints them in a very "we're against Microsoft" light, either way... the better question is will it just run the kernel or will it have drivers for all of the peripherals, if it does run there...
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Brett Berish said 5:24PM on 8-04-2005
I think that the original writer from Sony was misinformed, and might not know so much about technology. They probably heard "The PS3 could run a unix-based OS from it's hard drive.' somehow 'could' became 'will,' and without knowing the workings of the buisness, they're thinking 'well, linux is unix-based, and Tiger is unix based, so I guess those could both be it.' I'm drawing this out of the fact that they said "Apple's Tiger." It seems like a funny way to say it. Wouldn't you say "Apple's OS X" "Mac OS X" "Apple's OS X Tiger" or some other combo? It seems weird, like they're misinformed and think Tiger is something different from regular OS X.
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janeiro said 5:42PM on 8-04-2005
the quote says the PROCESSOR will support Linux or Tiger, not the PS3. if the processor supports the full G3 instruction set (maybe even just the PowerPC instruction set), it will support Tiger. PearPC supports OS X because it emulates PowerPC, not because Apple deemed it so. IBM sells tons of POWER processors that support the PowerPC instruction set, and could possibly support Tiger, but doesn't market it that way.
this is solely a marketting ploy by Sony. It may be 100% correct, but chances of OS X running on the Xbox 360 or PS3 are probably pretty slim.
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Chris K said 6:02PM on 8-04-2005
If you're not at all familiar with Sony's gaming division PR, let me sum it up for you: "Throw it against the wall and see if it sticks."
I'll bet there's a site out there that lists all the outlandish claims and stunts that Sony has made over the years regarding their Playstation. There's some doozies!
They claimed the PS2 would deliver graphics that matched Toy Story. It's not even CLOSE, nor will the PS3 be.
They got the US government to classify the PS2 as contraband, so they could say it was "powerful enough to guide a missile". (Note: a 68000 out of a Mac Plus is more than powerful enough to guide a missile.)
They claimed processor power more than twice what the actual unit delivers (PS2).
They quote performance numbers for the PS3 by adding together the computational power of all the processors in the system, including the DSP-like chips, which are horrible at general computation. That would be like claiming your Mac mini is 2GHz cause the video chip runs at 500MHz (I don't know what the clock speed of the video chip is...). Yet people who don't know better parrot the Sony PR line as "PS3's Cell is twice as powerful as XBox's PowerPC CPU".
They tried to pass off prerendered video as actual game footage. Both with the PS2 and PS3.
They (currently) are telling people the PS3 is more a computer than a game machine; that it's more of a computer. And it might be priced like a computer. They've pulled this before, too. They paint the product at the edge of what's acceptable (ie: expensive), and then deliver much better, so as to play mind games with the consumer.
There's tons more of course, but I'd just like to illustrate that Sony is merely using you guys as a tool to advance the PS3. They have no intention of doing half the stuff they claim, they just want to keep the PS3 in the spotlight.
After all, who would buy an XBox that merely plays games, when the PS3 MIGHT run OSX! (They've also hinted they're developing their own desktop-like OS.)
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Matt Gillies said 7:09PM on 8-04-2005
It's interesting to hear this. It's probably just a PR ploy, but Sony does have quite a history with Apple (for instance, they helped design the original PowerBook.)
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The Jeremy said 7:23PM on 8-04-2005
meatmcguffin, there's no way a PS3 sale robs anything away from Mac Mini sales. Its a totally different market. Nobody is going to buy a Mac Mini to "game" on. Its not realistic. Gaming is the primary function of the PS3. That and being a cheap Blu-Ray drive for HD content. Sony has a reason to sell the PS3 at a loss, and that is to ensure Blu-Ray is the successor to DVD and pushes HD-DVD off the market. Apple does not have such a reason to deeply discount the Mac Mini by placing a Blu-Ray drive in the $499 base model next year. So again, no sale lost over it. In turn, Apple would make something like $10 per PS3 sold for licensing an OS X Lite version to Sony. If anything, that will raise Apple's profile even more amongst consumers worldwide and increase their marketshare because those gamers will enjoy the multimedia functioning of OS X Lite and will look for similar the next time they need a new computer. To me, your argument is as unfounded as claiming that the Sony PSP is in competition with the iPod just because it can playback MP3 songs. Apple seriously should license iTunes compatibility to Sony for the PSP because it cements the iTunes Music Store as the market standard. Anyone that buys a Sony PSP and declares they don't need an iPod because the PSP does music too is most likely a consumer that never would've purchased an iPod anyway because their next Nokia phone can play MP3s as well.
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leojsoap said 7:42PM on 8-04-2005
Apple would never license, if the PS3 is as powerful as said, then there will be no reason for people to buy powermacs for $2000+ but instead, they could go pick up a PS3 and a version of OS X for $500+ and still have a much faster computer.
but Tiger might be able to be hacked onto there, hmmm, no Leopard though.
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Kanwar Fagoora said 9:02PM on 8-04-2005
One word... XGrid. Wouldn't PS3 be a perfect cheap client for this? It could become the unofficial low-end Mac.
Also, OSX comes with basic Web Server, SQL database, etc. standard so it would be just the thing to make PS3 a powerful all-purpose machine. Faster than a Mac Mini, cheaper, and a game console as well... it's too good to be true.
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meatmcguffin said 9:20PM on 8-04-2005
-the jeremy
Nothing at all to do with gaming. i see where your coming from but sony also seem to be heavily pushing this as a multimedia device as opposed to nintendo's revolution which is gaming only. If you look around at the various websites that have cropped up specifically to advance the mini as a home theatre device it would seem that a significant percentage of users have bought a mini for this reason. For most people i gather its either a switcher machine or a second mac for another room. I doubt most people bought the mac mini as anything else.
This would be fine except sony are heavily pushing the ps3's multimedia bitsnbobs. Blueray, high def, ethernet ports, surround sound? This is much more than gaming. You suddenly have a computer much more powerful than the mini which has great games and can be used for all the same purposes that most people buy the mini for in the first place (at the same price). Even if it runs a stripped down osx but can stream and display media in the living room well then where's the incentive to buy a mini to do the same? and that, not the gaming possibilities, would eat into mini sales.
I agree with you that it wouldn't affect sales to those who would use the mini for the purpose it was created for. I guess it depends wether the ps3 halo effect and licensing income could make up for sales lost to home theatre peeps and those who want a osx system with awesome games as opposed to those who want an osx system without.
i doubt any of this would happen anyway - a osx system with decent games? 0_o
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ben said 9:30PM on 8-04-2005
Hey, if it does run Tiger, that'll give me exactly ONE reason to buy a PS3.
HA!
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The Jeremy said 10:58PM on 8-04-2005
meatmcguffin -
Valid, but I am not convinced. The Mac Mini is not suitable for a home media center in terms of HD content at this point. The single core G4 chip is not powerful enough to output 1080p resolution to a HDTV whereas the PS3 will be able to do so (movies) easily. Notice I made the distinction between movies and games, because there are plenty of reports stating that 720p is the realistic approach to game rendering on the PS3.
The Mac Mini is also not a suitable TiVo replacement at this point. If they threw in a G5 or a P4/M/whatever and some decent graphics processors to decode/encode, it could do HD content easily. But again, licensing an OS X Lite to the PS3 won't hurt the Mac Mini sales because the PS3 will still be a *dumb console*. You aren't going to be able to edit movies on it, like on a Mac. You won't be able to do anything like Garageband on it. Its for playback, and hopefully purchasing music and movies through the iTunes Music/Video Store. Casual surfing the web. Casual emails and instant messaging. Hell, if Apple layed its cards enough, this would be a secondary market to sell the iSight cameras to to take advantage of iChat on the PS3.
And again, the Mac Mini WILL NOT be equipped with a Blu-Ray drive at the cheap end like the PS3 will STANDARD.
Repeat after me, there's no downside to licensing a stripped down version of OS X for the Playstation3. It would bring in an untapped revenue stream for Apple - which in turn could continue funding OS X on PowerPC for the non MacTel machines for the next 4 years, and it also brings better exposure to gamers and the general public about the greatness that is OS X.
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The Jeremy said 11:00PM on 8-04-2005
leojsoap -
The Cell processor is not powerful enough to match a PowerMac on general applications. Microsoft and Apple both have stated that. It will be a fantastically powerful graphics system, but do you seriously think PhotoShop or RenderMan is going to run on it?
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