At the end of a promotional video played during the PlayStation 3 launch event, the words “Spring 2006” were displayed on the screen and so began the countdown to the PlayStation 3.
Months before hand many people knew that Sony would be offering a next generation console as soon as they could, but they seemed to hold back worried about making the PS2 obsolete in the market.
The three biggest features of the new machine are of course the Blu-Ray DVD Rom, which will hold much more on a single disk than a normal DVD, the Cell processor, which may have applications in next generation super computers, and the full backwards compatibility with the PS2 and PSone.
The Blu-Ray DVD Rom is one of the reasons for its later arrival to the console market as the Xbox 360 will beat PS3 by a few months. Many fans of Sony’s products are not worried as getting first to the market does not always mean a winning hand, and waiting for the Blu-Ray technology might be the ace in the sleeve for Sony, especially since Xbox 360 developers are already coming to the limit of regular DVD capacity.
Out of the box, the PS3 will have the capability to support seven Bluetooth controllers. It will also have six USB slots for peripherals–four up front and two in the back.
The PlayStation 3 will feature the much-vaunted Cell processor, which will run at 3.2 Ghz, giving the whole system 2.18 teraflops of overall performance. It will sport 256mb XDR main RAM at 3.2 Ghz, and have 256MB of GDDR VRAM at 700mhz.
Sony also unveiled the PS3’s graphics chip, the RSX “Reality Synthesizer based on Nvidia technology. The GPU will be capable of 128bit pixel precision, 1080p resolution.
The PlayStation 3 will also sport some hefty multimedia features, such as video chat, internet access, digital photo viewing, digital audio and video. Also, as rumored, the PS3 will have Wi-Fi connectivity to the PSP, which can be used as a remote screen and controller.
The console was put up on Amazon.com with a price of $299.99 USD, and this falls in line with previous PlayStation releases, and puts it in a competitive price bracket against the Xbox 360, and the yet unpriced Nintendo Revolution.