What's the difference between NTFS and FAT32?

This is simply idle curiosity. And I'm very much a layman, so answers in terms I can understand please! I wanted to be able to hook up a portable hard-drive to my PS3 but have found the PS3 won't recognise it. A little searching online tells me it's because it's in "NTFS" format and needs to be reformatted as "FAT32". I'm simply curious - what's the difference and why won't my PS3 recognise NTFS? I'm suspecting it's more of Microsoft's world domination strategy... For the record, a remarkably helpful site has explained a painless way to accomplish the reformat ( a href="http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer-tips/formatting-external-hard-drive-to-fat-32/" rel="nofollow"http://www.online-tech-tips.com/computer…/a ) so I'm all good to go. All other sites recommend that flippin' Switchblade programme, which just kept crashing on me.