Debunked PlayStation 2 Myth: Not True, Yet Not Completely Outlandish

In the year 2000, a fascinating urban legend circulated about Saddam Hussein’s alleged plan to buy thousands of PlayStation 2 consoles to create a supercomputer for missile guidance. This rumor capitalized on the console’s powerful Emotion Engine chip, but was eventually debunked. However, recent revelations have resurfaced, indicating that the Japanese government expressed concern over the PlayStation 2’s potential military applications due to its extraordinary capabilities for consumer hardware at the time.

Military Concerns Over PS2’s Power

In an interview marking the 25th anniversary of Final Fantasy IX, developer Kazuhiko Aoki shared insights into the concerns surrounding the PlayStation 2’s technical prowess. Speaking from his experience at a Square Enix development studio in Hawaii, Aoki recalled being asked to verify if FFIX could operate on PS2 equipment. He noted, “The PS2’s CPU was so powerful that there was a possibility it could be diverted for military use, and so exports were restricted.”

The PlayStation 2’s Remarkable Capabilities

The PlayStation 2’s performance was indeed impressive, boasting a 128-bit SIMD-capable Emotion Engine capable of 6.2 Gigaflops, vastly outpacing the 1.0 Gigaflop of a high-end Intel Pentium III PC at the time. Its two Vector Processing Units made it suitable for highly parallel mathematical workloads, such as trajectory calculations, enhancing its appeal for military applications. Ultimately, the PlayStation 2’s affordability, priced at $299, offered “supercomputing” power at a bargain, raising concerns about its potential use by foreign militaries.

Consumer Consoles in Military Networks

The concerns about consumer consoles being repurposed for military applications were not unfounded. A decade later, this fear materialized when the US Air Force constructed the Condor Cluster using 1,760 PlayStation 3 consoles, showcasing the real-world military interest in leveraging consumer hardware for advanced computational tasks.