In a recent article over at PlaystationLifestyle, it seems that the United States Air Force has submitted a purchase request for over two thousands PlayStation 3 gaming consoles, slated to be for military use. Although, many have speculated what the plans for these systems were, it seem that they aren't being used for training troops using Call of Duty. The USAF has finally decided to clear things up and let the public know why they needed so many PlayStations.
The Justification Review Document, written by the USAF, to justify the need for the gaming sysetms said this:
With respect to cell processors, a single 1U server configured with two 3.2GHz cell processors can cost up to $8K while two Sony PS3s cost approximately $600.
It's nice to see the military thinking outside the box when it comes to their servers. I was surprised to find out that the USAF is already using Linux on PS3 consoles in server clusters. The game systems are all connected together to provide large amounts of mathematical calculations to help with research. For now, it is all experimental, but it is proving to be promising enough that they have decided to purchase a larger inventory of game systems.
So this Christmas, if you can't find any PS3s in stock at your local electronics or gaming store, just know that it is because they were all drafted. And, if you are lucky enough to get a gaming system this year, you might be able to as the Air Force if they can cut you a deal on some spare controllers, because it looks like they are going to have a few thousand to spare.
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By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.
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