New Sony console announced!

E3 has hardly even begun, and it's already a juicy show for hardware enthusiasts. We’ve already seen a full spec sheet for the Xbox 360, and it’s not often that you get two console announcements in as many days. That said, it’s not exactly been a secret that Sony would be announcing their new console early on this E3 – it’s for exactly that reason, in fact, that Microsoft unveiled their new machine the day before the official start of the event. Nor is the new Sony platform’s name a surprise – after PlayStation and PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3 is something of a logical progression. Though Xbox 361 might have infuriated Microsoft more.

PlayStation 3 is what it’s to be called. Visually, its appearance is not a great deal different from the PS2, perhaps inflated a little. But it has got a whole lot more slots and whatnot. For starters, there are six USB ports in total, four at the front and two at the back. These will be used for peripherals. There are no slots for the controllers, because the new controllers will be wireless, using Bluetooth technology, and the system will support up to seven of these at a time. So PS2 fans who plan to get one will be relieved that there’ll be no multitap adding another dollop of money to the initial outlay – with the change left from that they can replace their now obsolete Dual Shock 2 controllers. The controller itself is a rather frightening affair, with long, tapering ‘handlebars’ that look a little rude to say the least.

Backwards compatibility is there when it counts though, and the new machine will be able to play all games from the last two PlayStations, leaving Microsoft as the only player in the Big Three not to have confirmed some degree of retro friendliness for their baby. The disc reader will support CD-RW, CD-ROM, DVD, DVD-ROM, DVD-R and DVD+R formats, though the games themselves will be using Blu-Ray discs, the new format that can hold around 6 times as much information as a standard DVD.

In terms of saving information, we’ve moved on a fair way from the pricey, proprietary 16Mb Memory Cards. Not only does the PS3 have slots for Memory Stick Duo, SD and Compact Flash, it also has a large hole that will accept a 2.5 inch detachable hard drive, just as the Xbox 360 will.

Moving onto the more techy side of things, the unit’s main processor will be the hefty Cell, which runs at an eye-watering 3.2 Ghz. This can deliver 218 gigaflops of overall performance. Running at 3.2 gig it’ll support 256Mb of XDR RAM, and at 700Mhz it will have 256Mb of GDDR VRAM.

As for the graphics card, Sony haven’t been able to resist inventing a nonsensical term to make it sound cooler, calling the graphics chip ‘The Reality Synthesizer’, or RSX. While ATI are the gfx ppl of choice for Nintendo and Xbox, Sony’s GPU is built using nVidia architecture, and contains 300 million transistors. If you’re reading that twice, it’s because there’s no chip yet available commercially that boasts as many. On screen, that translates to 128bit pixel precision and 1080p resolution. There are 512Mb of graphics render memory which will enable 100 billion shader operations and 51 billion dot products per second. We’re talking serious power here people, equivalent to double the power offered by nVidia’s own top spec cards on the market today.

So there you go; a pretty impressive spec that, dare we say it, out-Microsofts Microsoft. It does more than just play games too. With products from digital cameras to iPods now offering all manner of media storage and playback, Sony are increasing the range of jobs your PlayStation can do. As mentioned above, it will support DVD playback, you can also view digital images, play video and audio, use the internet and even have video chats with your mates – the future is here!

SCE head Ken Kutaragi described it as a super computer dedicated to entertainment, which when you look at those numbers is not really exaggerating. Developer Tim Sweeney of Epic Games provided a testimonial, describing the device as easy to develop for. The layout is far more similar to a PC, which is good news when you consider how much the PS2 was held back by its convoluted inner workings, both at launch and now, in the latter days of its lifespan.

So there you have it - another day, another console. What delights will tomorrow bring? Check back here at SPOnG for all the info that matters, as it breaks.

Until then, check out the machine's full technical spec here, and details of the first batch of confirmed titles.