Playstation 3 is the video game console of the seventh generation era and the third in the series of the Playstation. PS3 is Sony’s response against Nintendo’s Wii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360.

The launch will be done on November 2006 in the United States and Japan. In Australasia and Europe, the PS3 will be available in the market on March 2007. The delayed date of release in the Australasian and European regions has been charged to the shortage of blue-ray drive diodes.

Sony announced that the Playstation 3 will be released in two configurations. The first one is the premium version. Units with this configuration come with Blu-ray disc drive, USB ports, Wi-Fi connectivity, memory card readers, and an internal 60-Gb hard drive. The alternate version, on the other hand, has only a 20-GB internal hard drive and does not come with Wi-Fi features and memory card readers. However, the user has the option to upgrade the hard drive and connect memory card readers via adapters. The Wi-Fi feature, however, cannot be installed.

With the blu-ray drive, PS3 users can play movies and game discs. Because a blu-ray disc has a capacity of holding up 54 GB of data, users will not have to want for additional media space.

The portable hard disks provide the system with the required storage space needed for Playstation Network applications, downloads, and other files. For the games, the hard drive will also be used for saving game points.

In the United States, the expected pricing release of the 20-GB is $499 and $599 for the 60-GB. In Japan, the price lists about $430 for the 20-GB. Sony has chosen to set an open price for the Japanese retailers for the 60-GB model. Meanwhile, for the European release, the 20-GB and the 60-GB versions cost $550 ad $660, respectively. In Australian regions, the premium model will retail for $680 while the 20-GB will retail for $570.

The PS3 console is elegantly designed to feature pleasing lines and curves. The sides of the PS3 appear to expand outward, hardly enclosing the hardware in it. Moreover, the PS3 case is outlined with a highly developed cooling system to deal with the heat output released from the system power supply and the Cell processor. Many would expect that because PS3 consumes much power, the system would sound significantly noisy. But actually, the PS3 operation is remarkably quiet.

Early models of the Playstation 3 consoles were in silver, white, and black. However, the initial release will only include black. To add an extra touch of sophistication to the design, Sony made use of quality material choices. In official previews of the design, the exterior of the PS3 console looked to be opaque and glossy black. The system casing, however, appeared to be dark and partially transparent black. And with the curved shape of the console top, users will have to stack the PS3 at the topmost layer of their equipment. The PS3 console weighs 11 pounds and its dimensions measures 12.8” x 3.8” x 10.8”.

The PS3, just like the other consoles, can sit horizontally or placed vertically on common AV racks. Users of the PS3 do not have to worry about unintentionally damaging their movie or game discs while changing the position of the console.

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A Quick How To

Visit any video game outlet and you're bound to get overwhelmed by the hundreds of choices available - especially if you're new to gaming. Interestingly, children and teens seem to know their way around these places as if they were their second home. But for the adult, the typical video store looks like some sort of color paint explosion and sooner or later, all the games start to look the same. This guide is for the adult who's buying a game for a younger person perhaps as a birthday gift or as a bribe. Whatever the reason, you're going to appreciate the following tips.

1. Research this strange phenomenon before setting foot inside a video store. There's plenty of information available about video games online, so to reduce frustration offline, fire up your web browser and do a little homework. Visit the website of the gaming outlet nearest you and then look for a link to the games section of the system that your youngster plays. Here's a helpful chart to explain what all those strange letters mean.

Wii = Nintendo's Wii System
EA Sports = Entertainment Arts System
PS3 = PlayStation 3 System
XBOX 360 = Microsoft's XBOX 360 System
PC = Personal Computer
PS2 = PlayStation 2 System
PSP = PlayStation Portable System
DS = Nintendo's DS System

The key is to locate the system on the store's website first. The system, it's accessories, and all of the games that work on that system will follow. If not, you may need to use the website's internal search engine.

2. After locating the appropriate games section for your youngster's machine, check out the ratings of each game and create a temporary shopping list of age appropriate material. The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) gives each game a rating in an effort to inform parents what their children are playing. Here's a handy reference to what the ratings mean:

C = Appropriate for Early childhood
E = Appropriate for Everyone
E 10+ = Appropriate for Everyone aged 10 and older
T = Appropriate for Teens
M = Appropriate for Mature Adults

3. Within your temporary shopping list, try find a game that's built from the latest movie release. Little people love the new animated movies put out by Disney and Pixar, and they really enjoy re-living precious moments in the movie in a video game. That's why when these movies come out on DVD, their producers put a few games in the "Special Features section" of the CDs.

4. If you can't find a game that's built from a movie that the child likes, try to find a game that centers around a popular cartoon character or one that attempts to educate.

5. If you still can't find one that resembles something that you've heard this particular person rambling on about, first give yourself a slight slap on the hand. You should pay better attention. Then point your browser to the nearest Blockbuster or Hollywood Video website. Follow the same procedure outlined in steps 1 - 3 only this time, elect to rent 5 or 6 games that look appealing. This will give your tot a chance to play some games and select one to keep forever while you return the others.

6. If on the other hand, you did find a game in step 3 or 4, you can either check out online, or drive up to the store and buy it there.

They say you can't judge a book by its cover, but the illustrations on the both video and PC game cases do a pretty good job of representing the game's content. So if you see an illustration of fighting warriors, chances are the game will be more violent than you prefer. If on the other hand, you see an illustration that resembles what you'd see on the cover of an interesting children's book, the game should be age appropriate.

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