A random thought bubble.
BeOS was up for sale post-Apple passing on them.
Sony was beginning to try and get around Microsoft (witness their grand PS2 will do everything proclamations).
BeOS is just about perfect for the PS2 and can scale up to computers and down to other devices to create Sony's ideal no-Windows and total Sony control of everything plan. BeOS is also quite well made (IIRC) to handle the kind of processor the Emotion Engine was and it scales to multiple CPUs super-well.
So let's say the PS2 team (or their management, or the strategic Sony management) decides they need their own OS. BeOS is the obvious choice for something that Sony could control. They buy them in 1998 or 1999. Then what? (Besides renaming it: SonyOS? MediaOS? PlayOS? Something like that.)
I'm thinking they scale up the PSX project (keep the PS2 motherboard so it can play PS2 games, add another Emotion Engine CPU as BeOS works great with extra CPUs, more RAM, a slot for a new GPU for the future, and a HDD as well as the TV tuner/DVR it was IOTL) and use that as a launch-board for a BeOS computer line-up.
With BeOS they might also be able to scale it down and have a standard OS for all their consumer electronics. This could also mean the Emotion Engine and successors becomes a new CPU (probably adopting PowerPC standards like Cell) platform.
If they still contract the XMB team, BeOS could also have a super-futuristic looking User Interface as a marketing bullet point.
Once they see how well Apple is doing with OS X (say 2003-4, around when the PSX came out IOTL) then they can launch the PSX—let's call it the CyberDeck
—and if it's successful, quite possible as it's a PS2 game playing full computer that also controls your TV, they can expand that. Perhaps Emotion Engine + x86 processor so that their computer line-up can play PS2 games as well as dual-boot Windows and have easier porting of programs to BeOS from Windows.
In fact it could also mean Sony can save their Walkman MP3 players (maybe, if Jean Louise-Gassée wrests control of the computing and related division) as well as muster a competitor on the level of the Palm Pre/WebOS to the iPhone.
Fun, interesting, remotely plausible? Comments are free
.
BeOS was up for sale post-Apple passing on them.
Sony was beginning to try and get around Microsoft (witness their grand PS2 will do everything proclamations).
BeOS is just about perfect for the PS2 and can scale up to computers and down to other devices to create Sony's ideal no-Windows and total Sony control of everything plan. BeOS is also quite well made (IIRC) to handle the kind of processor the Emotion Engine was and it scales to multiple CPUs super-well.
So let's say the PS2 team (or their management, or the strategic Sony management) decides they need their own OS. BeOS is the obvious choice for something that Sony could control. They buy them in 1998 or 1999. Then what? (Besides renaming it: SonyOS? MediaOS? PlayOS? Something like that.)
I'm thinking they scale up the PSX project (keep the PS2 motherboard so it can play PS2 games, add another Emotion Engine CPU as BeOS works great with extra CPUs, more RAM, a slot for a new GPU for the future, and a HDD as well as the TV tuner/DVR it was IOTL) and use that as a launch-board for a BeOS computer line-up.
With BeOS they might also be able to scale it down and have a standard OS for all their consumer electronics. This could also mean the Emotion Engine and successors becomes a new CPU (probably adopting PowerPC standards like Cell) platform.
If they still contract the XMB team, BeOS could also have a super-futuristic looking User Interface as a marketing bullet point.
Once they see how well Apple is doing with OS X (say 2003-4, around when the PSX came out IOTL) then they can launch the PSX—let's call it the CyberDeck
In fact it could also mean Sony can save their Walkman MP3 players (maybe, if Jean Louise-Gassée wrests control of the computing and related division) as well as muster a competitor on the level of the Palm Pre/WebOS to the iPhone.
Fun, interesting, remotely plausible? Comments are free