At least the home computer part of that was a shtick to avoid some european import taxes. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2003/oct/01/business....

I've heard on the grapevine that the PS3's OtherOS facility was internally thought of as another go at the same idea. "Look, judge, it's a general purpose computer for reals this time. Your own universities are using it in super computing clusters, without ever launching a game".