PlayStation 3

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Sony's PlayStation 3.

Nipping at the heels of Microsoft who just unveiled it's formidable Xbox 360 gaming console last May 12 (read my previous post here), Sony upped the ante with its May 16 press conference at E3, introducing its next-gen console, the PlayStation 3.

The PlayStation 3 flaunts its much hyped "Cell" processor, which consists of a 3.2 GHz 64-bit IBM PowerPC core and eight 32-bit "synergistic processor elements" or "SPEs." It also has 256 MB of XDR RAM running at 3.2 GHz for its main memory, and 256 MB of GDDR3 VRAM for its NVIDIA RSX chip running at 550 MHz. The previous generation PlayStation 2, if you can still remember, utilizes a proprietary "Graphics Synthesizer" graphics processor, while the original Xbox uses a custom NVIDIA NV2X GPU. The new Xbox 360, uses a graphics processor from ATI.

Optical storage comes in the form of a Blu-ray BD-ROM drive, and while it can accept a 2.5" hard disk drive with a capacity of up to 160 GB, it is still to be determined whether the Playstation 3 will ship with one as standard.

It was also confirmed that the PlayStation 3 will be downward compatible with existing PlayStation 2 games, though the degree of compatibility still remains to be seen.

For more pictures and technical details, read this article on 1up.com.

You may also want to check out this article about the game console competition brewing between Sony and Microsoft posted on ExtremeTech.

Expect to see the PlayStation 3 on store shelves by early to mid 2006.


PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 Quick Comparison
ConsoleCPUMemoryVideoHard DriveOptical Drive
Sony PlayStation 3"Cell" Processor - 3.2 GHz IBM PowerPC based core with 8 "Synergistic Processor Elements"256 MB XDR RAM550 MHz NVIDIA RSX (256 MB dedicated GDDR3)Up to 160 GB"Blu-ray" BD-ROM
Microsoft Xbox 3603.2 GHz IBM PowerPC based512 MB GDDR3500 MHz Custom ATI (10 MB embedded DRAM)20 GB12x DL DVD-ROM

Comments

Punzi said…
Hello fellow gamer, and a trekkie too!

I'm a console gamer myself. I got a PS2 a merely months after its release. And this taught me one thing: Never to be overeager because the first ones still have the bugs.

I think that my approach to PS3 will be to wait a while. Wait for the prices to go down. Wait for all the "mods" to be in place. If the thing's backward compatible (it will probably be, is it?), I think I will stick with Sony.
May 22, 2005 10:15 AM
Ronald Allan said…
Yeah. It's probably more prudent to let some time pass for the market to stabilize, for the prices the come down, for all the bugs to be worked out, and for the "mods" to be available.

I plan to stick around with Sony as well, but with platforms being more and more alike from a technology point of view, the main factor I guess will be the games, and not the platform.

Whoever has the best games will definitely win in this round. :-)
May 22, 2005 11:00 AM
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