PlayStation 3

Hardware specs

Trivia & Fun Facts

• If the font on the original "Fat" PS3 looks familiar, it’s because it is exactly the same font used for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man movies. Sony Pictures owned the rights, and the designers thought it looked "heroic" and high-tech.
• The PS3’s Cell Processor was so powerful at floating-point math that the U.S. Air Force built a supercomputer called the "Condor Cluster" using 1,760 PS3 consoles tethered together. It was used for satellite image processing because it was much cheaper than buying enterprise servers.
• Early 20GB and 60GB models actually contained a physical PS2 chip (the Emotion Engine) inside them to play old games. To cut costs later, Sony removed the chip and tried using software emulation, before eventually removing PS2 support entirely.
• Sony originally allowed users to install Linux on the PS3, marketing it as a "PC-like" device. However, they removed this feature in 2010 via a firmware update due to "security concerns" (hackers were using it to bypass protections), which led to a massive class-action lawsuit.
• For years, PS3 owners could donate their console's spare processing power to Stanford University’s Folding@Home project. It helped simulate protein folding to research cures for Alzheimer’s and cancer, making the PS3 community one of the most powerful distributed computing networks in the world.
• Just like the PS2 "won" the DVD war, the PS3 is credited with winning the high-definition disc war against HD-DVD (Microsoft's backed format). By including a Blu-ray player in every console, Sony ensured their format became the industry standard.

Games