PlayStation Now to Use Custom Built PS3 Hardware

Hot on the heels of the PlayStation Now reveal at CES, Digital Foundry has stated that Sony is planning on customizing its PlayStation 3 hardware to best support the streaming service. After Sony acquired Gaikai, the cloud gaming service, many had wondered what their next move was. At CES, Sony showed their plan with PlayStation Now, a streaming service where their back catalogue of games would be redly available to consumers through their PlayStation brand products. It is now revealed that Sony intends to create what Digital Foundry says is “shrinking the equivalent of eight PS3′s onto a single motherboard, housed in a slimline silver cabinet.”

While the original idea was to use retail PS3 units for the data centers, Sony found that a number of technical problems would not make that option viable. Rather, they instead would take the guts of the system and optimize it for the new custom hardware. Rich Leadbetter of Digital Foundry said, “In creating new PS3 servers for the PlayStation Now, the team worked closely with their new [Gaikai] colleagues in engineering, creating a new PS3 adapted to the cloud streaming challenge.” One of the many improvements that Sony is able to make will affect end-to-end latency, which will give cloud gaming a nice push in the consumer’s direction.

Written by: Guest Contributor Ninja Boy