http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199000285&subSection=All+Stories


I think along with the savings from cheaper manufacturing and this business opportunity, Sony could really pass saving along to the costumer. What do you think? Am I just dreaming.

Sorry if this has been posted already.

What are they going to do? Offer discounts on PS3's with no power button or switch....that will erase all game saves if unplugged? Do they really think that every person that buys a discounted console will leave it on 24/7? Not likely. People will jump all over that for the discount and thumb their nose at any "agreement" they made to leave it on.

Hell, I don't leave my PC's on all the time....no way in the world I'd leave my "supercomputer-in-a-shoebox" on constantly. These things aren't built to handle it IMO.

the reason why folding@home works is because its on a volunteer basis. as soon as someone is selling to someone what my computer can do in my house then the whole folding@home thing will fall apart. im a volunteer. i am not volunteering when sony is going to lease something of which i purchased.

however if they were to give the ps3 to me for free that would be a different story.

What are they going to do? Offer discounts on PS3's with no power button or switch....that will erase all game saves if unplugged? Do they really think that every person that buys a discounted console will leave it on 24/7? Not likely. People will jump all over that for the discount and thumb their nose at any "agreement" they made to leave it on.

Hell, I don't leave my PC's on all the time....no way in the world I'd leave my "supercomputer-in-a-shoebox" on constantly. These things aren't built to handle it IMO.


Dude the PS3 was built just like every computer to stay on 24/7

Also the PS3 was built to stay on 24/7 and last 10 years!

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=56396

I can see it both ways;
I like that we have a volunteer system with folding at home, I don't feel pressure to do it for any personal gain and I don't feel a loss if I forget to turn it on overnight. The F@H program is also pretty well defined as to what it's goals are. I'd be afraid of losing that knowledge if my computing power was sold to the highest bidder, what if it is sold to a company that I don't think is using it towards worthy causes. Also who watches Sony to make sure they are giving us a fair value compared to what is being paid to them.

On the other hand there are some interesting compensation packages that could be offered for allowing them to do this, first we could be given PS store credit up front for registering to do this. Another thought I had was since so many people are worried about leaving the machine on why not offer a free yearly renewal of the warranty as long as your PS3 completes a certain level computing. You could have the upfront benifits to get us in the door and the warranty extensions / production based compensations to keep us working

It will be interesting to see where they might go with this idea

Dude the PS3 was built just like every computer to stay on 24/7

Also the PS3 was built to stay on 24/7 and last 10 years!

http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=teampage&teamnum=56396


???????

So the PS3 was manufactured to survive almost 90,000 hours of constantly being powered on? Where'd that figure come from? You want to volunteer yours to test that out?

Also, the PS3 isn't built like every other computer. It's in much smaller case which makes heat a bigger issue. Have you seen pictures of one opened up? Everything is touching everything else.

Not saying that it can't handle being left on, but it's different with a PC. If something in my PC fries, I can take it out and replace it for cheap. Doesn't work that way with a game console unless it's the hard drive. It's about the only user replaceable component in the PS3.
What happens when the bearings go out in the cooling fan? Can't really order another one from Newegg and replace it in 10 minutes.

It's the same way I'd never leave my laptop on all the time. That little SOB gets HOT with all of those components packed in so tightly.

See, I was thinking about getting into an agreement with Sony but like someone noted it could be determined by how much computing your PS3 did. Where you get serious PS Store credits and free renewal of your warranty if you do certain amounts of hours. I can see people jumping on this if they have the choice of how many hours they would want to contribute and you get rewarded accordingly. I wouldn't leave it on 24/7 but I would leave it on more than normal.

It would have to stay volunteer based.

FWIW, my PS3 has been on 24/7 for 22 days with no over heating problems.

Isn't this what the "free" internet providers of the late-nineties did to try to offset their costs?

My PS3 has been on pretty much non-stop as well for weeks without major issue.
The only thing I am seeing an issue with is sometimes when coming out of the Folding program, I have to turn it off and then back on to get it to access a disc for movie watching.