PlayStation 3 Slim to use SSDs and network-only storage?

20th December, 2009 by adina
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An interview in Nikkei with Masayuki Chatani, SCE’s technology platform head and strategy planning, revealed that Sony’s designers and engineers considered using network-only storage for the PlayStation 3 Slim gaming console, or even SSDs, although the console integrates typical HDDs. The high price of flash memory and some limitations of network bandwidth were, however, the key-factors behind the decision that Sony made on utilizing conventional HDD storage instead.

Chatani compared network and local storage to convenience store and the refrigerator from home, by saying that although it is very easy to buy something from the convenience store, it is always preferable to have that something in the refrigerator, at home.

Following the normal evolution of the first PlayStation and the PlayStation 2, Sony tried to shrink the case of the PlayStation 3 without sacrificing any features. It also was tempted to pull the power supply out of the box in order to reduce the volume of the system, but the designers dismissed this idea arguing that an external power supply would negatively impact on portability.

Masayuki Chatani suggested that a possibility exists of including monthly fees or even per-item charges in order to expand payment methods and thus support the company to maintain the growing of the PlayStation network. The SCE executive said that servers and others have running costs that could make the company face difficulties if the business depended only on what he called “sell-and-forget” model.


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