NEWS Playstation 3 - Unveiled

Sony's next world-beater won't ship until sometime in the spring of 2006 but the company has released photos of the console and specs. PS3 Specifications ▪ Cell cpu rated at 3.2GHz (2 teraflops or 2 trillion computations per sec.) ▪ nVidia graphics processing unit "Reality Synthesizer" rated at 550MHz ▪ Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM ▪ 256MB of GDDR video ram running at 700MHz, 256MB XDR main ram ▪ Blu-Ray disk format (BD-ROM) which holds 50GB ▪ Built-in Ethernet ports (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 10000BASE-T) ▪ Wireless networking function - Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 b/g ▪ 2 HDMI outputs, 1 Multi-AV output, 1 S/PDIF optical output ▪ Wireless joypad with Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity or USB2.0 ▪ Backward compatible with PS1 and PS2 software Links Official Playstation 3 site Sony PS3 Press Release Random Thoughts ▪ The sleek design of the PS3 is reminiscent of the PC-Engine Duo-RX and it's curved surface makes it difficult to stack stuff on top. We tend to stack 5-6 PS2s on top of each other for testing purposes, demos, quick storage, etc. ▪ The boomerang controller design has been used by other manufacturers with moderate sales success. The elongated grips are perfectly fine if you have more than 5 fingers on each hand. For mere mortals however, the extra 2-3" of grip is a waste of plastic. We expect Sega to release the Saturn pad in it's original shape and size on the PS3 quickly after launch to save the day. Hori will also likely bang out a few old style Dual Shock 2 controllers... ▪ Estimated launch price after shameless, rapacious markups: US$950. Start saving.