Over 2,300 PS3s Have Been Drafted for Military Duty
Photo: SFGate
Recently the United States Air Force submitted a formal public request to purchase more than two thousand PlayStation 3 consoles for military use. Many have wondered how the USAF plans to utilize the large number of PlayStation 3 systems as well as what purpose they have over standard computers and supercomputers. The USAF has opened up and unveiled some public documents to let the public know exactly why the United States military has chosen the PlayStation 3.
According to the Justification Review Document written by the USAF, the PlayStation 3 is a much cheaper alternative to other options. The JRD states the following:
With respect to cell processors, a single 1U server configured with two 3.2GHz cell processors can cost up to $8K while two Sony PS3s cost approximately $600.
As seen in the above image, the USAF is already utilizing Linux on 336 PS3 consoles within a server cluster. These PlayStation 3 consoles are intended to provide massive mathematical calculations to assist in research for urban surveillance purposes. At this point it’s only at an experimental stage, but the USAF has already planned to purchase more than 2,000 more consoles to add to the cluster.
An interesting side note is that the USAF tested chips from Intel and IBM but found the Cell processor within the PlayStation 3 to be the most price efficient. At any rate, while the Cell processor has been under critical evaluation since the PlayStation 3’s inception, it has done a great job amidst the harsh criticism with the cancer curing Folding@Home and now United States military surveillance.
Now this does beg to question, what exactly are they doing with all the controllers?
[Source] Thanks Brent!
12 Responses to “Over 2,300 PS3s Have Been Drafted for Military Duty”
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December 10th, 2009 at 9:17 AM
hello …
i’ve read somewhere : this is the biginning of SKYNET !!!!
as for the controllers … please send me 1 or 2 thank you. My Sixaxis doesn’t work anymore & can no longer be beaten by the wify in MK vs DC or VF5
… or help her out in LBP
well all this in Linux, reminds me that i need to find time installing YDL on the big beast.
hummm, now that we can do DATA transfer with 2 PS3, why don’t SONY allow MP over LAN … would be so nice for those having slow net connexion ….
cheers!
December 10th, 2009 at 11:13 AM
Playstation helping the military. EAT THAT XBOX AND WII! YOU’LL NEVER GET THAT HONOR!
December 10th, 2009 at 11:22 AM
@Richy2k9
lol PS3’s are running SKYNET. That is awesome.
@Legoman24
ya would definitely suck if military did this with the xbox. Think about it if they RROD’ed all at the same time.lol
December 10th, 2009 at 12:16 PM
I’m guessing the Air Force didn’t go to Walmart to purchase all those PS3’s. The Wii being used by the Air Force! Hah!
December 10th, 2009 at 12:30 PM
cool
December 10th, 2009 at 3:18 PM
Looks like the PS3 really “does EVERYTHING!!!”… lol..
December 11th, 2009 at 3:33 AM
hello …
i can picture this:
2300 PLUS PS3 … humm, a real high speed Internet connection …
hey how about an MP party of Uncharted 2 …
***********snip*****************
i removed what was about to be a short remake of star wars vs MW2 & UC2 .. in the ’sauce’ war of the world
***********snip*****************
Hell no, too many soldiers on UC2, i won’t make it alive …
cheers!
December 11th, 2009 at 10:07 AM
they are having the largest MW2 party every
December 11th, 2009 at 1:58 PM
awesome
December 14th, 2009 at 3:11 PM
@Legoman24, you are wrong they already have gotten that honor. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/4266106.html
December 15th, 2009 at 1:33 PM
can you imagine the phone call to sony to place this order?
“hI, SCEA, how can i help you?”
“Hello, this is the internal operations branch of the US military, I’m looking to purchase 2000 PS3’s to be delivered to our base for…research”
“…..”
January 23rd, 2010 at 3:07 AM
@ R3PT1L105 : you are wrong, no where in there did i see Xbox3s***ties or pii’s CONSOLES, it’s easy to know why they used a piimote, anyone heard of LASER TAG? also, the 3s***ties controller is great for the pc gaming style, no need to install drivers either, already there in XP or higher, set the controller in the right game and you even get the rumble feature!, it took hacks to use the PS3 controller on the pc, and still wasn’t wireless, 3s***ties wireless controller extender was used to make the wireless controllers work for the the pc. nothing new kid, keep trying though. I am retired US ARMY, laser tag was used in basic training. same basic concept as the piimote s***. Can use that tech in the weapon simulator too, for BRM training..
Yeah, no console has ever been drafted by the military, the only other draft of a console i know of, was with the making of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, they used like 5 or 6 PS2’s wired together to do the graphics rendering and finalizing processes for the movie. thats about it.