The 360 and the PS3 are in the middle of a war of bullet points: who has the best high-definition connections, who can do more multimedia stuff, who can cure more diseases... okay Ben Kuchera made that last one up. Or maybe not.
After Sony launched their mega-successful Folding@Home program on the PS3, Microsoft has been hinting that they may offer the same thing. When Jack Tretton of SCEA sat down with GamePro, he made his displeasure at this fact known:
"Would they be even having this conversation if we weren't doing it? I don't know. I would guess that the medical community would take help from anywhere they could get it, but the commentary that I heard is that Stanford isn't sure that [the Xbox 360's processing abilities] would help them very much, which is odd to me because if it helped at all, it seems like they would welcome it with open arms.
It's really ugly territory to get into, but let's take fighting a disease and see if we can get some credit for that. It's not a cool game to play one way or the other, so I don't want to even give the impression that that's our motivation, and I'd be very disappointed if they're looking for PR value or to try to suck off some of the goodwill that we're doing."
Allow he to editorialize a little bit: Jack, shut up. I'm not one of those people who thinks that because celebrities give millions to charity for PR, their money spends any worse. With the hype over the power of the Cell and the help it's given Folding@Home, these comments didn't come only from the giving part of your heart.
If Microsoft wants to do the same thing, let them. The classy move would be to say that you're glad they're following your lead, and you only wish they could do as much as the PlayStation 3 to help move Folding@Home along. Be gracious; this is a big win for you, and questioning someone else's motivations when they want to help out in the fight against cancer makes you look petty.
What a silly thing to get petty about.
Maximum PC: Walking into the Pande Lab at Stanford University is somewhat of a hardcore geek’s ultimate dream. This is, after all, where the real work gets done—or should we say, work units. For the various desktop systems and consoles scattered around the area are all a part of a larger initiative that likely you and I, as well as Stanford graduate students, researchers from around the globe, and consortiums of geeks and enthusiasts alike, have all contributed to.
Dr. Vijay Pande, an associate professor of chemistry, structural biology, and computer science over at Stanford—as well as the longtime director of the Folding@Home distributing computing project, which his aptly titled “Pande Lab” oversees—estimates that around 400,000 systems actively “fold” at the current moment. Given the program’s fairly linear growth of around 40,000 new systems a year, Folding@Home should be able to push past half a million “connected” PCs easily before its crystal anniversary.
Amazing project.
Amazing feature on PS3 to help the project.
Critical Gamer writes: There has been a lot of hype about the power of the Cell processor residing inside the PlayStation 3. Whether or not we will see its full power being exploited remains to be seen, but it has been put to good use by medical researchers in America with the folding@home project.
I’m sure a lot of PS3 owners are unaware of the program folding@home residing on their PS3. This little piece of software has been designed by boffins at Stanford University in the USA, and is used to perform mathematical calculations of proteins when they misfold in the human body. I know you’re probably wondering what I’m wittering on about, so here’s what it is all about.
I know that pc's use folding@home as well. I think all computers should use this as every little helps. Wii doesn't have it as it doesn't really have the power for the tasks at hand, and Stanford university said that the 360 is of limited help to them
http://n4g.com/news/37648/x...
PS3 CPU is 3 times more capable than Xbox.
"And in terms of performance measured in gigaflops, the PS3 tops out at nearly three times that of the Xbox. "- IGN
http://gear.ign.com/article...
for a same gen console, that is extremely large difference. Also the reason why 360 does not have folding@home as Shadow Flare said
Didn't heal my shoulder injury. I better go to a real doctor. /s
do you realize the importance of protein folding to finding cure to many diseases and many other scientific advancements??
only injury you have is stupidity. and no doc can fix that
My problem is I can't do anything with my PS3 when using folding@home if it was in the background I would use it more
If I'm using my ps3 just to play some music in my room, then I'll put on folding@home since it plays music while it does it
I'm going to start doing it because my ps3 is very rarely on. Might as well do some good for the world.
I don't own a 360 you spacker. It may come as a blow, but some people don't worship a piece of plastic and metal the same way you do.
EDIT:It's amusing how you get labeled as being a 360 owner because you dare to downplay anything wrong with the ps3. I haven't owned a 360 for over 2 years, I sold it because it had nothing out I wanted.
Which would be the same fate for my ps3 if it had nothing coming out next year. This year has been dismal.
yeah gow iii, heavy rain, 3d dot heroes, wkc, rof, ffxiii, modnation racers, 3d dot heroes, demon souls (eu), move, sports champions, start the party,tumble
thats alot of game/peripherals already out this year that i bought alone, not to mention upcoming games such as time crisis, the fight, gt5.
if that is a lack of games then i call you blind
Microsoft should be supporting folding@home as well on the 360. Bill Gates is always seen donating money to charity, so why not help with this project? They should try and get it integrated into the OS of PC's, Mac's and all the consoles, and have it running in the background.
yea the 360 fans would never us it. Not because they dont care per say but because they dont want to risk it overheating and causing RROD.
MS won't support folding @ home on the 360, and I'll tell you why:
The TFLOPs fact reports like this one.
A task like protein folding is something the Cell processor is exceptionally good at (as you can see from the numbers) -- and the 360 would look weak, in comparison, despite its being a decent games console.
MS will never, ever, do something that would make the 360 look markedly inferior to the PS3. Like having folding@home. Doesn't matter to them if it saves lives or not. It would be bad publicity, and would hurt their brand, and that's all they care about. Sad but true.
Honestly the RRoD issue mentioned in a comment above is also a concern. MS doesn't want *every* old 360 coming back for a free refurb. The publicity issue is the main reason, though.
I use my console for gaming and blu-rays, sorry. I also turn off my console when it's not being used for said activities.
How a couple of egos and extrinsic motivations turned Folding@home into a bloody cold war competition, where work units were as valuable as kill counts.
I wonder how many people would fold is they gave out trophies for certain number of work units....
Looking at the lights (Places where Folding@home users are supposed to be). I noticed a few of them where in places I don't think I'd ever expect them to have any sort of technology, much less a PS3, EVEN moreso Folding@home. Such as:
- An isolated island
- The middle of Atlantic (No Island here, WTF)
- Some where in the nether mountain regions of Nepal (possibly Shangri-la)
Damn, PS3 you scary...
-End statement
lls good post. Funny story. I'm tempted to start a Folding war with some of my buddies now :)
it's all fun and games until your PS3 gets YLOD from folding 12 hours a day :(
a ridiculous article for "hits" to your web site.
@mp
Hes getting jumped on pretty badly for his article on the site by other users. People actually read the whole Q&A with Jack tretton and they all saw how he completely took a few quotes and generalized it into an un-necessary post.
Pathetic, while its admiral to help fight these diseases, then why don't industrys just use millions of ps3's etc for the cause.
Because like everything in the world, all people give a s^it about is money.
I think old jack has a point in any case, if micronoobs wanted to help in the first place, they would have considering there xbox360 has been out alot longer. But its just not the fact.
And sorry to bust your bubble, Cell is in noway overhyped.
They already have cell at 6ghz with more spu's.
Basically cell could call conroe, its b^tch.
This worries me, "Would they be even having this conversation if we weren't doing it? I don't know. I would guess that the medical community would take help from anywhere they could get it, but the commentary that I heard is that Stanford isn't sure that [the Xbox 360's processing abilities] would help them very much, which is odd to me because if it helped at all, it seems like they would welcome it with open arms." This guy only cares about PR and Marketting.
Folding can be done with low end computers running even at 300MHZ. Before the PS3 was there the PCs were the ones helping the cause...
I can't believe some of you Sony Fanboys are so sensitive when it comes to having extra hardware to push the cause. You only care about Sony being on top... There are enough research to be done to help cure sickness...
Let me see how I can best describe your atitude...
Fundation: We need help to help all those kids in x country that are dying because they dont have money to buy food or medicine.
Rich Company #1: This can be a great oportunity for us.. it will help us market our product + we can get a tax break. We will contribute 1 Billion.
Fundation: Thank you for your great kindness.
Rich Company #2: oh oh... I guess rich company #1 for helping the needed was a great thing to do and something that everyone should be doing... at the sametime it can also help us to market our products.
We will do the same.
Rich Company #1: NO! GET TF OUT! You can't contribute! We did it first! You @#$@#$ copy cats... you can't help the needed too! Go away!
Fundation: Company #1, we appreciate you helping the needed.. but the money you gave does not cover even 2% of the people in need. Why dont you @#$$#% up, and let others contribute, since it can only benefit the needed.
It is disturbing how some of you @#%$$% fanboys have a problem with Microsoft helping... who care what their intentions are.. or if they are trying to sell more consoles. You don't think Sony is trying to do the same... if it benefits people that are not even interested or can afford a console or play games because they are too sick to do so... then why not? You should be ashame of yourself. You and this Sony PR.
"if micronoobs wanted to help in the first place, they would have considering there xbox360 has been out alot longer" ohh yeah.. thats the right attitude... we will not take contribution or help for the needed because you didnt come earlier... yes.. that make sense...
Well, I don't know what Sony or Microsoft's intentions are, but if it IS for PR (on either side), that's pretty pathetic. Right now I'm just glad I can run such a program to help, as it's an easy way for me to help.