In 1994, Sony made a significant impact with the release of the original PlayStation, which reshaped a gaming market dominated by Sega and Nintendo. The device’s success prompted the company to develop its successor, a powerful console that was considered potentially dangerous: the PlayStation 2.
Ken Kutaragi, the designer of the original PlayStation, started working on the PS2 in late 1994, shortly after the PS1’s launch. By 1997, rumors about the PS2’s release were already circulating, although Sony officially denied them.
Finally, on March 2, 1999, Sony announced the PlayStation 2 (though it wasn’t immediately released). During the announcement, Kutaragi introduced the term “Emotion Engine,” which referred to the advanced graphics coprocessor that played a crucial role in the PS2’s capabilities. Kutaragi also confirmed that the new console would be backward compatible with titles from the original PlayStation.
The PlayStation 2 officially went on sale in Japan on March 4, 2000. It featured several exciting new attributes, including a DVD drive that contributed to the format’s rising popularity. However, the launch had its challenges. The game library was limited, and Sony initially had only one million units available. As a result, customers camped out in stores for days to purchase a console. Availability remained an issue for months.
However, an even larger concern emerged during this period.
Missiles and Drones on the Horizon
The Japanese government realized that the PS2 could serve purposes beyond gaming. The Emotion Engine possessed remarkable three-dimensional image processing capabilities for its time. The chip featured two vector processing units that calculated the positions of elements in physical space.
While this was beneficial for video game developers, it also raised the possibility of military applications, such as being used in missile guidance systems.
Japan had previously faced issues with the military applications of its domestically designed technology. In 1998, after a North Korean submarine sank, it was discovered that Japanese radar systems were among its components.
Japanese authorities were concerned about exposing the country to the same risk, given that they believed the PS2’s technology could potentially be used for military purposes. As a result, they required a special export permit for the PlayStation 2. Anyone who wished to buy the console in Japan and take it to another country had to obtain a permit.
Sony eventually reached an agreement with the Japanese government that allowed the company to export its consoles worldwide. However, several countries, including Libya, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, remained banned from purchasing them.
Despite the ban, some countries managed to circumvent it. The FBI investigated a shipment of 4,000 PS2s to Iraq, fearing that these consoles (or parts of them) might be used to create a supercomputer for military purposes. Some media reports suggested that Saddam Hussein, the then-President of Iraq, might be considering using the PS2 to gain global dominance.
Intelligence sources expressed genuine concerns, saying, “Applications for this system are potentially frightening.” According to these sources, experts estimated that combining 12 to 15 PS2s would generate enough computing power to control an Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicle. In 2000, the term “drone” wasn’t widely used.
Moreover, other sources said that armies could potentially use these PS2 supercomputers to calculate ballistic data for long-range missiles or to design nuclear weapons. Although the United Nations had banned the sale of technology to Iraq, video game consoles weren’t included in that prohibition.
The Supercomputer Made From PS2 Consoles Was Ultimately a Failure, Unlike the PS3
Concerns regarding the viability of building a supercomputer using multiple PS2 units were soon confirmed. In 2002, Sony released a Linux kit for the PlayStation 2, which prompted the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) to propose a project to develop a supercomputer based on the console.
Engineers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign assembled a cluster of 60 to 70 PS2 units at a total cost of around $50,000. They mounted the consoles in a specially designed rack and connected them to an HP switch to explore potential applications in supercomputing.
The system was used to perform calculations in the field of quantum chromodynamics. However, NCSA officials later confirmed that it had a short lifespan. They also described it as more of a proof-of-concept than a genuine effort to create a production-level system.
This initial experiment seemed to influence future projects. For instance, when Sony launched the PS3, the U.S. Army purchased 1,760 units and combined them with 168 GPUs to create a supercomputer for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).
The Condor Cluster was once one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. | Image: Phys.org
The cluster, named Condor, combined the power of 1,760 Cell processors, which were a remarkable technological achievement at the time. At the time, the Condor Cluster became the most powerful computer in the Department of Defense.
At its peak, Condor had a computing power of 500 TFLOPS and was ranked the 33rd most powerful supercomputer in the world. According to the AFRL, it cost about $2 million, which was only 5-10% of what it would’ve cost to build it using traditional components.
In addition to its power, Condor was highly efficient, consuming about 10% of the energy used by comparable supercomputers. The DOD utilized it for various applications, including the analysis of high-definition satellite imagery. However, it remains unknown whether Iraq employed those PS2s for any military purposes or if they were simply used for their intended purpose: gaming.
Image | Wikimedia Commons
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