Sony Playstation 3 (PS3)

Last updated: 2006-10-15 

The long awaited Playstation 3 is first due to be released in Japan, USA and Canada in November 2006. It will be on sale in Europe and Australia in March 2007.

Initially, there will be two versions available, one with a 20GB hard disk the other with a 60GB disk.

The cheaper unit is expected to retail at $499 in the US and £375 in the UK.

Processor

The Sony will be equipped with the new IBM Cell processor, which has been specifically developed for the PS3.

• Cell CPU running at 3.2 Ghz, a.k.a Cell Broadband Engine
  
• comprised of 9 cores
  
• 218 GFLOPS at single precision, about 26 GFLOPS at double precision

Graphics

Supports HD-TV in a variety of modes, plus standard TV sets via analog AV connector. 

• RSX which is an nVidia G70 (NV47) GPU
  
• 256MB of GDDR3 VRAM runniing at 650MHz
• GPU can access system memory

Audio

• Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1, LPCM 7.1 & AAC
• handled by the main Cell processor
• optical digital output connector
• analog AV output connector
  

System Memory

• 256MB of Rambus XDR DRAM

Networking

The PS3 will connect to Sony's PlayStation Network Platform (PNP) which is under development at this time. The PlayStation Network will offer online gaming and PlayStation Store — a shopping service. Access to PNP is free of charge.

• Gigabit Ethernet port
• Four USB ports
• Bluetooth 2.0 EDR

Storage & Drives

• 20Gb or 60GB 2.5" SATA150 hard drive
• Optical drive supporting many CD and DVD formats and Blu-Ray
  
• Memory stick, CompactFlash and SD/MMC media supported
  

the Sony PlayStation 3 console

A PS3 controller

Photo of the PS3 main menu

Peripherals & Accessories

• Keyboard and mouse to be supported 

Software & Games

F.E.A.R. Factor