I would love to stream music from the web directly from the PS3.

I use my computer to check email and surf the web for 98% of my computing needs. I have computers at work if I really wanted to get rid of my two PCs. PCs are too cheap compared to the PS3.

Very few if any of the software packages use the cell much - if they did you could get some really great performance out of it. That’s going to take a long time - the developer community is very small and disorganised, and there’s a lot to learn.

(i’ve got ubuntu on mine, and i’m playing with spu coding)

There are tons of applications that you can run on them. I haven’t tested the linux distributions myself yet, but I’ve actually tought about getting a second PS3 as my web/office/mail/IM machine to replace (one of) my PC’s

The current PS3 iteration is probably a little too expensive to serve as low-end PC, but when the refresh will come, it should be right there, and hopefully the software will too (here is for hoping Sony will dump the Netfront browser and get a real browser in the PS3, like Firefox 3).

It’s not the tech savvy (which includes absolutely everyone reading this site) and it’s not the tech phobic (you couldn’t *pay* them to touch a video game system). There’s a large audience in between those two extremes that you guys don’t understand.

Think blue-collar adults and children of lower income families. I know many of these people. They like video games, they like HD, but they simply don’t have the patience or interest to use PCs. A more web-capable PS3 would be a hit with that crowd.

Also, think of college students. At home they use their family’s PC, but when they move into a dorm room, they use a PS3 for web acess and word processing, and use a regular PC in school labs or when at home. Instead of having separate TV and computer monitor, they have one screen attached to their PS3 for everything. Sure, most students will prefer a full blown laptop, but there is a sizable market there to be had.

Yes, you can buy a $100 Shuttle PC, but many like convergence. Just like many people would rather buy a $130 PS2 than a $30 DVD player.

The iPhone targets the high end. Everyone who buys an iPhone already has a nice computer. Many of the people buying game consoles, don’t have a PC (or a decent PC).

Its actually faster then some of my friends PCs. But in the end other then some playing around I don’t see myself relying on it more then my PC. Besides I kinda like watching my TV while on the PC.

The new Shuttle KPC is only 99$ and it is about as good as a PS3 at doing PC things.

if you set up your system right, you can steer around the problems, the small RAM the PS3 has, gives us, like using XFCE and the like. The CPU is more than fast enough to run anything, especially if it is programmed right. There is a fork from the MPlayer guys, that use the SPEs to decode the videos, making them playable on the PS3.

You can do nearly anything beside gaming on a Linux PS3. I just hope, the CELL programming gets some boost, as there’s nearly no available software available nowadays (especially CPU intense applications like video encoding or ray tracing…)