PS3 Officially Unveiled!!
PS3 now official confirmed for release in the spring of 2006.
PS3 now official confirmed for release in the spring of 2006.
Today saw the second of the big three console makers announce their next-generation platform. At its pre-E3 press conference, Sony Computer Entertainment gave the world its first look at the PlayStation 3, as it now is officially called.
The name was not unexpected, since Sony had been running an extensive teaser-ad campaign prepping the public for the PlayStation 3. The company had laid a blanket of posters around the Los Angeles Convention Center, site of the Electronic Entertainment Expo (aka E3). Bus stalls and billboards around the convention center proclaimed "Prepare for Chang3" in the distinctive PlayStation font with partial shots of the Dual Shock controller's square-circle-triangle-X buttons.
Sony also confirmed the PlayStation 3, will use Blu-Ray discs as its media format. The discs can hold up to six times as much data as current-generation DVDs. It will also support CR-ROM, CD-RW, DVD, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD+R formats. It also confirmed the machine would be backward-compatible all the way to the original PlayStation. It will also have slots for Memory Stick Duo, a SD slot, and a compact flash memory slot. It will also sport a slot for a detachable 2.5 inch HDD somewhat similar the Xbox 360's
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.
Sony also laid out the technical specs of the device. 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, some of the highest HD resolution around. The RSX also has 512mb of graphics render memory and is capable of 100 billion shader operations and 51 billion dot products per second. It also has over 300 million transistors, larger than any processor available commercially today. It will be manufactured using the 90nm process with 8 layers of metal. The RSX is more powerful than two GeForce 6800 Ultra video cards, which would cost roughly $1000 total if bought today.
To show off the PlayStation 3's graphical brawn, Sony showed several game demos, including an Unreal 3 tech demo of what appeared to be Unreal Tournament 2007. In what must come as a relief to developers, Epic Games' Tim Sweeney was on hand to vouch for the PS3, saying it was "easy to program for" and that Epic had received its first PS3 hardware two months ago. He proved the tech demo was real time by showing it again and manipulating the camera and zooming in.
The PlayStation 3 will also sport some hefty multimedia features, such as video chat, internet access, digital photo viewing, digital audio and video. Sony Computer Entertainment head Ken Kutaragi introduced it as a "Super computer for computer entertainment."
Source: www.ign.com
What features will it have?
All of the features it was expected to have, and more! We have put up the full list of technical specifications HERE so you can see a detailled list of everything. Arn't we nice?
How much will it cost?
Typically the last two generations of the PlayStation have been priced at around $300 at launch. Both have continuously decreased in price year on year into their life, its quite likely PS3 will do the same. It's not known how much it will cost but around $300 is probably a fair guess, as this is the maximum price most gamers would be willing to pay. There are some unexpected extra features, such as the 2 HDMI outputs and 3 Gigabit RJ45 LAN connections, that will likely drive the price tag up a fair amount!
Will PS3 play PS2 and PS1 games?
Yes! They will! Sony Computer Entertainment boss Ken Kutaragi has confirmed that the PlayStation 3 will feature backwards compatibility with the PS2 and PSone, ensuring continued support for older software formats in the new hardware. Later it was confirmed again at the Sony’s E3 conference that the PS3 will be fully backwards compatible with PS1 and PS2 games. There hasn’t been any confirmation though if the PS3 will make PS2 games look better when playing like the PS2 did with PS1 games.
What will PS3 look like?
The PS3 design was unveiled at Sony’s E3 conference. It has an “outward feel” compared to the Xbox360’s “inward feel”. The console is approximately 13.5 inches in length and 3.5 inches wide as reported by IGN. This in contrast to the PS2 design is much larger and is closer in size to the original Xbox in size. The console’s “outward” design gives it a larger footprint for the console to stand vertically on its own without an add-on stand. The drive bay sits on the right side like the PS2 but instead of using a tray the discs slide into the drive much like a car CD player. Also the drive sits slightly back in the design giving the console a reminiscent look to the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Finally the console has the words “Playstation3” across the side in a font that is very close to the font used in Sony Pictures’ Spiderman movie.
Links to Pictures here:
Picture 1 | Picture 2 | Picture 3 | Picture 4 | Picture 5 | Picture 6
How powerful will the PS3 be?
On paper, the PS3 is 2x more powerful than the Xbox 360 and 15x more powerful than the Nintendo Revolution. It has a processing capacity of 2.18 TFLOPS, which is put into context when you realise the FASTEST computers in existence can only do 36 Terraflops. It is said to be 35x more powerful than the PlayStation 2 is.
Will PS3 games be playable online?
Yes, at Sony’s E3 conference they confirmed that Sony will have an online service very comparable to Microsoft’s Xbox Live service.
Official PS3 Specs
Here are the official technical specifications for the PS3, taken directly from Sony:
CPU
Cell Processor
PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
1 VMX vector unit per core
512KB L2 cache
7 x SPE @3.2GHz
7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy
total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS
GPU
RSX @550MHz
1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines
Sound
Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell- base processing)
Memory
256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz
System Bandwidth
Main RAM 25.6GB/s
VRAM 22.4GB/s
RSX 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
SB< 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)
System Floating Point Performance
2 TFLOPS
Storage
Detachable 2.5" HDD slot x 1
I/O
USB Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
Memory Stick standard/Duo, PRO x 1
SD standard/mini x 1
CompactFlash (Type I, II) x 1
Communication
Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x 3 (input x 1 + output x 2)
Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g
Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)
Controller
Bluetooth (up to 7)
USB 2.0 (wired)
Wi-Fi (PSP)
Network (over IP)
AV Output
Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
HDMI: HDMI out x 2
Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1
Disc Media
CD PlayStation CD-ROM, PlayStation 2 CD-ROM, CD-DA, CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW, SACD, SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD, DualDisc, DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)
DVD: PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM, PlayStation 3 DVD-ROM, DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW
Blu-ray Disc: PlayStation 3 BD-ROM, BD-Video, BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE
pictures here
http://www.ps3land.com/ps3-pictures/ps3-pictures.php
http://www.ps3land.com/
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