Although Sony's recent comments on different hardware set-ups and upgrade cycles for the Playstation 3 have been a thwack in the middle of the forehead with a big rubbery one, one curious thing we've noticed is how insistently Harrison and Kutaragi have been to describe the PS3 as a computer, not a game console.

You might remember Sony trying this before, about six years ago. For the PS2's European launch, Sony made a concerted push to classify it as a computer, not a game console. The reason is because importing game consoles into the EU is a huge tax drain for companies, where as computers are not. Sony was so desperate to get out of paying those multi-million dollar tax bills that they actually released Linux for the PS2, in what has to be the most useless first party title ever except for the fact that it convinced the EU to finally consider the PS2 a computer. It's essentially a Sony tax shelter.

I have no idea if Sony is actually going to go ahead with fragmenting gamers on countless iterations of gaming hardware. I suspect that all of this lip service recently to the PS3 being a computer is being made for only one reason: so Sony can dodge the tax man. Don't be surprised if Linux for the PS3 is announced as a launch title. Florian Eckhardt

Previously: The PS3 Ain't No Game Console, Igt's a Computer!

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