Ahhhh, the Playstation 3, the pinnacle of my childhood. I remember spending countless hours playing games like “God of War,” “Call of Duty,” “Black Ops 1 and 2,” along with good ol’ “LittleBigPlanet.” The PS3 was the epitome of gaming in the early 2000s, with its sleek design (excluding the PHAT design) and cutting-edge technology. It was the go-to console for anyone who wanted to experience the latest and greatest in gaming.
But as the years went by, the PS3 began to show its age. The graphics were no longer as impressive as they once were, and the games started to become less exciting. Many people assumed that the PS3 was no longer relevant in today’s gaming landscape, and it sadly and slowly faded into obscurity… But if it was really forgotten, why are you seeing an article about it? Shining light on my favorite console, and it was WAY more powerful than anything at the time. Jaw-dropping graphics, longer games, better storytelling, and loads of games with replayability potential. But what if I told you that the developers of this old console barely scratched the surface of the Playstation 3’s performance? You wouldn’t believe me, without proof!
Early this year, I picked up my old PS3 from the dusty storage unit, bringing it home with the equivalent excitement that I once had inside the car in 2012. Getting home, rushing up my stairs, and throwing my PS4 out the window (not really) to make way for the console I haven’t touched in more than four years! Booting it up, and the angelic sound of the disc drive spinning up, and then the startup sound played, the horizon of gaming was upon me. Seeing my old games, picking some of the free demos I used to play, and restarting time and time again. But you may be wondering what I meant by the developers not scratching the surface of this old beast.
Well, I was wondering what was truly inside the Playstation 3, and when I saw the specs, I was blown away. The way the PS3 was built, was in a way that was unheard of at that time. Usual consoles were based on a platform called x32 or x64, but for the PS3, Playstation switched it up a little. They used a platform called cell processing. This platform, at the time, was very hard to learn/code for. But the thing is, it was much faster than people thought it was. So fast, that the U.S. Air Force used 1,760 PlayStation 3s, in what was called the Condor Cluster. This super computer was affordable for the Air Force and was used to process satellite imagery. It was the 33rd most powerful supercomputer in the world. Sadly, it was taken down by Sony’s own hand when it tore down the project with one firmware update. The cluster fell, along with many more.
The Playstation 3 is my favorite console; I played on it for hours, months worth of playtime. But this may be the last time any PS3 is alive without being repaired, the Playstation 3s are slowly going extinct with a hardware fault in the console, causing the number of them to slowly diminish. If you own a Playstation 3, take it out of the closet, and play some old games, because this might be the last time you’ll ever play it…
