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Here is some information from Wikipedia about the PS3:

The PlayStation 3 (abbreviated PS3) is Sony's seventh generation era video game console in the PlayStation series. It is the successor to the PlayStation 2 and will mainly compete against Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii. The PS3 is scheduled for release on November 11, 2006 in Japan and November 17, 2006 worldwide, and will ship in two initial configurations.

The PS3 was officially unveiled on May 16, 2005 by Sony during an E3 conference, where the console was first shown to the public. A functional version of the console was not at E3 2005 or the Tokyo Game Show in September 2005, although at both events, demonstrations were held on devkits (for example Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots) and comparable PC hardware, and video footage based on the predicted PS3 specifications was produced (for example for Mobile Suit Gundam).2

Thus far, public reception of the console has been mixed with the Sony stock market price declining partially due to worries about the future of the PlayStation brand and its profitability. However, Sony's chief has cited its widespread developer support and advanced "future-proofed" technologies such as Blu-ray and the Cell microprocessor, as ensuring the continued success of the PlayStation platform.

System configuration
Sony's current retail strategy for the PlayStation 3 will involve two different configurations that are detailed in a Sony press release. The "premium" version of the PlayStation 3 will come with an internal 60 GB hard drive, Wi-Fi connectivity, HDMI output, and multiple flash memory card readers out of the box.

The second and alternate configuration of the console will have a 20 GB internal hard drive but will not feature Wi-Fi, HDMI, or a memory card reader. The hard drive is upgradeable, and memory card and Wi-Fi support can be added through adaptors, but the HDMI support is not upgradeable.

The lack of HDMI output in the 20 GB model (as with the Xbox 360 or player lacking HDCP) could potentially cause problems with restricted output resolution on Blu-ray video. An ICT flag can be set by content producers, which forces non-HDCP video down to a pixel resolution of 960×540 (50% greater than DVD-Video at NTSC resolution, and 35% more than PAL resolution). SCEA president Kaz Hirai stated that it is "too early to speculate at this point" whether movie producers will activate the ICT feature. According to German publisher Spiegel, a behind-the-scenes agreement was made to not enforce the ICT flag on next-generation optical formats until at least 2010, or possibly even 2012.

Launch games
(subject to change) It has been stated by Kazuo Hirai that at least 15 games will be avaliable for launch.
Resistance: Fall of Man First-person shooter
Warhawk Flight / Third-person shooter
MotorStorm Racing game
Formula One 06 Racing game
Ridge Racer 7 Racing game
flOw PS3 Hub Download
Fatal Inertia Racing game
Full Auto 2: Battlelines Racing game
Bladestorm Strategy
Sonic the Hedgehog Platform game
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance RPG
Call of Duty 3 First-person shooter
John Woo Presents
Stranglehold Third-person shooter

Other major titles
Metal Gear Solid 4 2007 Tactical shooter
Devil May Cry 4 TBA Action
Final Fantasy XIII TBA Role-playing game
Final Fantasy Versus XIII TBA Role-playing game
Tekken 6 2007 Martial Arts / Fighting game
Heavenly Sword 2007 Action-adventure game
Monster Kingdom 2007 Action / Role-playing game
Lair TBA Action
Coded Arms Assault 2007 First-person shooter
Gran Turismo HD 2007 Racing game
Eight Days TBA Action
The Getaway 3 TBA Action-adventure game
Killzone PS3 TBA First-person shooter
Mobile Suit Gundam TBA Mecha
Virtua Fighter 5 TBA Fighting game
Assassin's Creed 2007 Action-adventure game
Unreal Tournament 2007 2007 First-person shooter
Resident Evil 5 TBA Survival Horror
Grand Theft Auto IV 2007 Action-adventure game
Half-Life 2 2007 First-person shooter
Heavy Rain TBA Adventure
Tom Clancy's Rainbow
Six: Vegas 2006 Tactical shooter
Need for Speed: Carbon 2006 Racing game
Armored Core 4 TBA Mecha
Time Crisis 4 TBA Arcade Shooter
Mercenaries 2:
World in Flames 2007 Action-adventure game

Developer support and price point
There have also been statements by Sony suggesting games may cost more than US$60, the standard for higher-priced games. Futureshop, a Canadian electronics store, has priced each game at C$ 74.99 (about 66 USD). Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) President and CEO Kaz Hirai has stated that PS3 games will cost around $60 as consumer expectations dictate.

Multiple developers and publishers, like SCEI, Electronic Arts, Konami, Namco, Ubisoft, Capcom, Square Enix, Sega and many others have announced games for the PS3.

At the E3 2005 press booths, Sony showed some pre-rendered and some real-time videos of games in development with the codenames Eyedentify, Vision Gran Turismo and MotorStorm.citation needed Also shown at E3 was a Final Fantasy VII technical demo of the opening sequence remade for the PlayStation 3.citation needed Square-Enix has stated it has no plans to remake FFVII.

Backward compatibility
Sony has stated that the PlayStation 3 will have backward compatibility with the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, and that every PS1 and PS2 game that observes its respective system's TRC (Technical Requirements Checklist) will be playable on PS3 at launch.

At the 2006 PlayStation Business Briefing, SCE president Ken Kutaragi asked developers to adhere to the TRC to facilitate compatibility with future PlayStations, stating that the company was having some difficulty getting backward compatibility with games that had not followed the TRCs. "Either it's accidental or on purpose; there's actually a lot of games that don't follow the TRC.".

The July issue of Japanese magazine Ultra One reports that the current design of PlayStation 3 includes the core PS2 chipset. IGN says that this presumably means that initial PS3 units will include the Emotion Engine/Graphics Synthesizer combination CPU/GPU chip used in slim PS2.

The PlayStation 3 does not include interfaces for legacy PlayStation devices such as the DualShock controller and PS1/PS2 memory cards. It is not known at this time whether USB devices for PlayStation 2 will be compatible with PlayStation 3.

PlayStation 3 can use Memory Stick media to store save data for PlayStation and PlayStation 2 software. It is not confirmed whether current PlayStation and PlayStation 2 save files can be used on the PlayStation 3.

Online services (PNP)
Main article: PlayStation Network Platform
In response to Microsoft's successful Xbox Live network, Sony announced a unified online service for the PlayStation 3 console at the 2006 PlayStation Business Briefing meeting in Tokyo; tentatively titled "PlayStation Network Platform". Sony has confirmed that the service will be always connected, free and include multiplayer support. However developers are permitted to charge a subscription fee, as is common with MMO games. It is being jointly developed by Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Online Entertainment.

Interface and operating system

Interface
The PS3 will use the Cross Media Bar (XMB) already used in the PlayStation Portable and PSX devices. The version demonstrated at E3 2006 (video) included options for different user profiles, the ability to explore photos, play music and movie trailers from the hard drive, compatibility for a USB Keyboard and Mouse, a full Internet browser and a Friends menu. In a separate demo Sony also presented the "Marketplace" where players can buy and download music, and have a profile.

Operating system
It has been confirmed that Linux will be pre-installed on the PS3 hard drive. Sony hopes that with its wide variety of features, PS3 will supplant the PC in the home and replace the home computer. In addition, Sony hopes that the presence of Linux in every PS3 will encourage independent content creation such as homebrew games.citation needed

Because we have plans for having Linux on board the PS3, we also recognize Linux programming activities… Other than game studios tied to official developer licenses, we'd like to see various individuals participate in content creation for the PS3.
—Izumi Kawanishi on the presence of the Linux in the PS3.

Currently it is unknown if Linux will be the operating system used to run everything, including the Cross Media Bar, or if the system will operate as a dual boot environment, where Linux would be loaded from the Cross Media Bar menu.

Hardware specifications
Unless otherwise noted, the following specifications are based on a press release by Sony at the 2005 E3 Conference,25 and slides from a Sony presentation at the 2006 Game Developer's Conference.

In a slide show at their E3 conference, Sony presented the floating point capability of the PlayStation 3's Cell CPU, and compared it to other CPUs. In their official press release, the floating point performance of the whole system (CPU + GPU) was reported to be 2.18 TFLOPS25. PlayStation 3's Cell CPU achieves 256 GFLOPS single precision float and is reported at around 26 GFLOPS double precision.

Central processing unit (CPU)
Main article: Cell microprocessor
3.2 GHz Cell processor: one PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" and seven 3.2 GHz Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs). The PPE has a 512 KB L2 cache and one VMX (AltiVec) vector unit. Each of the eight SPEs is a RISC processor with 128-bit 128 SIMD GPRs and superscalar functions. Each SPE has 256 KB of L1 cache/software-addressable 4.8 GHz SRAM, called the "Local Store".

Only seven SPEs are active; the eighth is redundant, to improve yield. If one of the eight has a manufacturing defect, it is disabled without rendering the entire unit defective. Additionally, one of the seven active SPEs is reserved for use by the system's OS, leaving six SPEs directly available to applications.

Controller

E3 2005 showcased Sony's "boomerang" design, which was abandoned due to poor public reaction and replaced with an upgraded wireless version of the DualShock 2 at E3 2006. The new controller features finer analogue sensitivity, more trigger-like R2 and L2 buttons, an Xbox 360 like central button, and a USB mini-B port for charging the internal battery and use for wired play. There are four numbered LED indicators, to identify and distinguish multiple wireless controllers. The major feature revealed was the ability to sense both rotational orientation and translational acceleration. Games that use this feature will come with an option to turn it off.

Sony has stated that because of these sensors, the rumble feature of the previous controllers has been removed, reasoning that the vibration interferes with motion-sensing. Haptics developer Immersion Corporation (who successfully sued Sony) expressed skepticism of Sony's rationale, and has since introduced tilt and motion-sensing which filters out vibration in software.