Slick

For all of you waiting and wondering about what's going on with the PS3, here's some info for ya -

During Sony's pre-E3 press conference Monday, SCEA (Sony Computer Entertainment of America, Inc.) President and CEO Kaz Hirai officially announced the launch date and pricing for PlayStation 3. Various news items, large and small, and in no particular order, follow.

North American and European launch date: November 17th, 2006
Pricing as follows:
PS3 with 20GB HDD and, ahem, "Certain features missing": USD$499 / EUR?499
PS3 with 60GB HDD, which is not "crippled": USD$599 / EUR?599

Analysis: As the PDF file straight from SCEI (Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. [Japan]) clearly indicates, unless a horrible mistake was made by Sony's webmasters and PDF designers, the $499 PS3 is essentially "crippled" lacking the HDMI output necessary to playback Blu-Ray movies at full 1080i/p resolution, the Memory Stick slot, and the Bluetooth wireless adapter. So, essentially, the $499 PS3 is an extremely limited bundle of very questionable value, whereas the $599 PS3 is actually "feature complete". Note that unlike the Xbox 360 "Core System" bundle, it would be unlikely the user could upgrade PS3 "Crippled System" bundle to have the same features as the PS3 "Complete System" bundle, since presumably it would not be easy to add an HDMI output port. Furthermore, the high pricing of PS3 at launch would put the "Complete System" a steep $200 above the Xbox 360 "Premium System", though the $599 PS3 would have a 60GB HDD. Also note that Sony has finally given up all pretenses about the PS3 having 2 HDMI outputs for dual-screen output, and the proposed function of the PS3 as a router or hub for network traffic with 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports has also been unceremoniously dropped, to nobody's surprise. Sony also announced an integrated online service similar to Xbox Live in scope and design, and also said that it would be completely free.

PlayStation 3 "DualShock3" controller announced

In the second big surprise of the day, SCEI President and CEO Ken Kutaragi demonstrated the new PS3 controller. It is physically identical to the old PS2/1 Dualshock controller designs, indicating that Sony was indeed not going to go with the infamous "Batarang" controller design previously shown. Furthermore, presumably due to the fact that Sony lost a high-profile lawsuit over the incorporation of Force Feedback in their controllers, coupled with the impending arrival of the Nintendo Wii, which has a unique gyroscopic controller, the PS3 controller incorporates a gyroscope which Kutaragi claimed has "six degrees of freedom" instead of Force Feedback technology. The PS3 controller is also wireless, at least, if you buy the $599 "Full System" which has the wireless adapter built in. The PS3 controller looked otherwise identical to the PS2/1 controllers. A demonstration of the game Warhawk was shown, with the player tilting and yawing the controller to make the Warhawk on screen roll and pitch. The player was able to do barrel rolls and Immelman loops by tilting the PS3 controller back and forth, and even to land on a platform like a Harrier jet using the controller's tilt functions.

Partial list of games confirmed and announced at Sony press conference:
Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Final Fantasy XIII
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Gran Turismo HD project
SingStar
Genji 2
Heavenly Sword
Eight Days
Getaway 3
Motor Storm
Resistance: Fall of Man
unnamed Naughty Dog project
Armored Core 4
Warhawk
Lair
Madden NFL 07
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07
NBA Live 07
Hot Shots Golf PS3