The PlayStation 2 development kit being used in-house at Sony runs on Linux alone, according to Next Generation, an online games magazine. As an OS vendor, Silicon Graphics Inc doesn’t even get a look-in – although Sony has adopted an SGI art tool. Fans of the open source operating system shouldn’t break out the champagne just yet; word has it that there will still be room for proprietary operating systems in PlayStation development.
Sony VP Phil Harrison explains that the mandated use of Linux will end with this generation of development kits. A much more open architecture is planned for when the kits are released later this year. On roll-out, the hardware is expected to consist of a PC communicating with a custom chipset – the PlayStation 2 motherboard – via a PCI bus. The PC will function as an Ethernet client, meaning developers can plug the kit into their Mac, NT or Linux network, compile code for their platform of choice and execute it on the PlayStation motherboard.
