Playstation 3 is the video game console of the seventh generation era and the third in the series of the Playstation. PS3 is Sonys response against Nintendos Wii and Microsofts Xbox 360.
The launch will be done in November 2006 in the United States and Japan. In Australasia and Europe, the PS3 will be available in the market in March 2007. The delayed date of release in the Australasian and European regions has been charged to the shortage of blue-ray drive diodes.
Sony announced that the Playstation 3 will be released in two configurations. The first one is the premium version. Units with this configuration come with a Blu-ray disc drive, USB ports, Wi-Fi connectivity, memory card readers, and an internal 60-Gb hard drive. The alternate version, on the other hand, has only a 20-GB internal hard drive and does not come with Wi-Fi features and memory card readers. However, the user has the option to upgrade the hard drive and connect memory card readers via adapters. The Wi-Fi feature, however, cannot be installed.
With the blu-ray drive, PS3 users can play movies and game discs. Because a blu-ray disc has a capacity of holding up 54 GB of data, users will not have to want additional media space.
The portable hard disks provide the system with the required storage space needed for Playstation Network applications, downloads, and other files. For the games, the hard drive will also be used for saving game points.
In the United States, the expected pricing release of the 20-GB is $499 and $599 for the 60-GB. In Japan, the price lists about $430 for the 20-GB. Sony has chosen to set an open price for the Japanese retailers for the 60-GB model. Meanwhile, for the European release, the 20-GB and the 60-GB versions cost $550 ad $660, respectively. In Australian regions, the premium model will retail for $680 while the 20-GB will retail for $570.
The PS3 console is elegantly designed to feature pleasing lines and curves. The sides of the PS3 appear to expand outward, hardly enclosing the hardware in it. Moreover, the PS3 case is outlined with a highly developed cooling system to deal with the heat output released from the system power supply and the Cell processor. Many would expect that because PS3 consumes much power, the system would sound significantly noisy. But actually, the PS3 operation is remarkably quiet.
Early models of the Playstation 3 consoles were in silver, white, and black. However, the initial release will only include black. To add an extra touch of sophistication to the design, Sony made use of quality material choices. In official previews of the design, the exterior of the PS3 console looked to be opaque and glossy black. The system casing, however, appeared to be dark and partially transparent black. And with the curved shape of the console top, users will have to stack the PS3 at the topmost layer of their equipment. The PS3 console weighs 11 pounds and its dimensions measure 12.8 x 3.8 x 10.8.
The PS3, just like the other consoles, can sit horizontally or place vertically on common AV racks. Users of the PS3 do not have to worry about unintentionally damaging their movie or game discs while changing the position of the console.