In the wake of Sony's successful non-profit partnership with Stanford University for the Folding@Home program on the next gen PS3 videogame console, several companies have begun discussions with Sony about "possible commercial applications" for the PS3.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Masa Chatani, chief technology officer at Sony Computer Entertainment, revealed that Sony had received numerous inquiries regarding the "distributed computing" model they are using for Folding@Home.

"This kind of computing model could be used in a commercial application," Mr Chatani said. "For example, a start-up or a pharmaceutical company that lacks a super-computer could utilise this kind of infrastructure. We are discussing various options with companies and exploring commercial applications."

Chatani admitted that a commercial endeavour would be more difficult to launch because it would be hard to convince users to let profit-making companies use the power of their PS3s for free. According to the Financial Times, Sony is "currently studying whether it would need to offer incentives, such as free products, to persuade PS3 owners to participate" -- the answer to which is (for this writer, at least) quite obviously "Yes".