This is probably old news and has most likely been carried on every gaming website out there, but what the hey.

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PLAYSTATION(R)3 Launches Worldwide in Early November 2006

TOKYO, March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) announced today that it would launch PLAYSTATION(R)3 (PS3) in early November 2006 in Japan, North America and Europe simultaneously.  With a monthly production capacity of one million units, SCEI will push forward a powerful product launch to spread the platform rapidly throughout the world, together with a strong and attractive lineup of PS3 game titles.

PS3 incorporates the final specifications of BD (Blu-ray Disc), and with the overwhelming computing power of PS3, it enables playback of BD software at a high bit rate.  With a maximum storage capacity of 50 GB (dual layer) and robust security, BD is a highly anticipated storage medium that delivers digital entertainment content such as games and movies at an unparalleled level of image quality.

PS3 is compatible with a vast lineup of television sets currently out in the market, from standard-definition TV to full high-definition TV.

Users can also connect PS3 to high-speed broadband network through Gigabit Ethernet and comfortably enjoy a wide-range of rich and exciting content and services over the network.

SCEI, together with the support and cooperation of game content creators around the world, will strongly promote the creation of a new world of computer entertainment available on PS3.
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"playback" of "BD software" "at a high bit rate", what the heck are they talking about?

Buzzword BS that basically means it'll make Blu-Ray movies look pretty.

Yeah... I really wish everybody would have bullshit bingo built-in so that completely silly stuff like that aren't taken serious anymore and finally vanish from all the business releated papers. (One can dream, right?)

In light of Datschge's wanting this to remain a strictly business article, the main line keyword focus should be right here:

"...and robust security..."   

Alternate Meaning: 'we are forced to utilize a new & different media format to protect our archaic physical sales model against those newfangled-torrent-thingies and online user-distribution coupled with the rampant availability of home-burners, so the general public hopefully won't have access to BluRay-Writeables until we say so, a couple years from now'

And what alternative do you suggest?  Broadband is way too slow to accomodate full length high def games.  I'm not interested in waiting 9-10 hours (best case scenario over a 6 Mbps cable line) to download a 25 GB PS3 game.  Also, with digital distribution, content is generally locked to a specific piece of hardware to prevent you from sharing your ID/PW with your friends, so what happens when your PS3 overheats and burns out?  And then there's good old fashioned showing off.  What if you're going to visit a friend and want to show him your new game?  You going to drag your whole system over there?

Big sized games are part of their hardware strategy too - if they keep ballooning the size up bigger and bigger then it gets harder to transfer around. 

While people do expect graphics these days, but there's no hard requirement that says "new games" MUST be gigged-out to the maximum, especially when we used to get exactly as much enjoyment and fun playing games that were 128kb and 16mb and 32mb in size.

The method is working for mobile phones, and if people pay to download games onto PHONES, then why not pay to download and burn games for a home console too?   

They could do the dual route: make new games physical-purchase only at the store, while enabling all the old PS1 game library (650mb or less!) to have the online-store option to buy+download+burn at any time.   

It's not like we have to drop physical products altogether, start offering both online versions and physical versions and see how the system can be improved.  Put all those "OLD" games (which are small!) which aren't being sold anymore online to buy & download.
There's gonna be somebody who would grab a few 90s games for nostalgia along with whatever new blockbuster is out at the time.

Sony being a media company, is interested in creating both media content and proprietary formats such as BlueRays, but since they are ALSO in the business of Distributing many of their own media products it seems they should be spending some time improving the capabilities of the Distribution side of their business as well.

Putting money into the PS3 isn't going to change anything - it still does the same thing every other game console has done - pop in a game and start playing it.   
I'm still happy with the capabilities of my PS2!   

It's just another short term hardware device that will inevitably be replaced in 5 years by whatever new BlueRay^2 the PS4 will use, and the same replacement cycle starts all over again.

As for the questions in debate to online distribution:

>> I'm not interested in waiting 9-10 hours (best case scenario over a 6 Mbps cable line) to download a 25 GB PS3 game.

Scenario 1: You need the game right away when it comes out. 
You won't notice an 8 hour download when it's loading on the day before the release date, while you're sleeping, so you can still wake up and play it on the 0-day at launch. 

All Other Scenarios: If you decide to wait a week/month(s) after release to buy it, then you surely didn't need it enough to have it playable right-this-moment at any given time of day anyways.

>> What if you're going to visit a friend and want to show him your new game?  You going to drag your whole system over there?

Whenever I've wanted to show a new game to a friend, I invite them to come over to my place and see it.  Is that so odd??  And for parties at other locations, yes I have brought a whole system or two over there, is that such a weird occurance too?

If they actually tie a game disc to a specific game console and lock it out from use on other consoles, I'm not going to buy it.

Carl, they are doing that with PS1 games for the PSP, which was also announced.  I don't see why they wouldn't do this for PS2 games on the PS3 though.  Doing this is actually wise---it kills the used game market that is wasting shelf space that could go to showing off current PSP/PS3 games.

Digitally downloading games at cost is not going to please pirates... demos should be free and accessible (like Fight Night's on 360) for legitimate gamers to get a taste of what they want.  $50 is already too high; this $60+ nonsense is helping to justify piracy in the eyes of those that aren't a multi-billion dollar company and industry.  Otherwise, Bob downloading a game right now off of a torrent is not doing so because he is allergic to the sun and isn't welcomed into stores because he never bathes.

Ryu: Do they have an official download shop for placing full PS1 games directly onto your PSP Memory Stick??  Or do you mean they just resell PS1 games on physical UMD discs?

Would this happen to be the page? ..but you have to be PSUnderground Member to do so..
http://www.us.playstation.com/psp.aspx   then clicking
javascript:popUpSection('PSPGames&media=PSP')

Four words: "Metal Gear Solid Four".

That's enough for me to preorder the system right there.

While I would normally be inclined to agree with you (I love MGS as much as the next guy), it won't be enough to make me want to buy a system I don't really care about. Now, if they were to re-make FFVII like it has been hinted at, and maybe create a new Zone of the Enders, then we'll see. Maybe an Initial D game? I also remember Bandai merging with Namco (read about it in PSM), and this maybe means that we'll see a ton of awesome anime tie-ins. Bandai has no lack of good liscences, so that should be exciting. Can you just imagine a Zeta Gundam game on the PS3? *drools profusely*

From IGN (and GAF too, but you can't CAP there stuff):

"Sony's Ken Kutaragi continues to drop PlayStation Portable news during the company's PlayStation Business Briefing 2006 as he's just announced that the PSP will see "E-Distrubution" features added sometime in the future.

"Users will be able to boot software directly from their Memory Stick, all official-like this time around (you know what I mean). The first major announcement for use of this will be a series of PSOne games - yes, you will be able to download classic PlayStation titles and play them on your PSP. No word yet as of whether or not you'll be able to transfer games directly via disc or not, or which games we should see first, but more news on this as it comes in."

Personally, I would hate to play a PSX game on such a tiny screen as that of the PSP's!  At least the games which are PSP specific are designed to have large sprites, or polygons...  At any rate, what I would like to know more about is this "locking out" mechanism?  How can a game be used only on one system?  If you purchase a game, and then play it on your system, you should be able to take it to your friend's house and play it there!  I'm not sure what the deal is.  Does the game send some key to a server which then blocks you from playing the game on another system until you've taken it off the initial system?  Is the PSP such? 

In terms of downloading old games, I think this has potential.  I know Nintendo is going to do this.  It's nice in the sense that you get a bonus (free game) if you preorder this really new and expensive game (I can see this gimmick making tons of money off people who just have to have another copy of Super Mario Bros.  or FF VII)!  Nintendo said they might "update" classic games.  That would make it worthwhile, otherwise it's just a gimmick to me.  Personally I like games that come with maps, manuals, a pretty box...it adds to the enjoyment!  Furthermore, what if your system gets damaged?  Do you just lose ALL the games you downloaded or can you save them on disk?  I doubt the latter, considering the possibility of easily pirating the games in such a scenario.  Anyway, very interesting topics...

cheers,

-avatar!

avatar, I notice it says "a series of PSOne games."  I think that means that they will cherrypick certain PSOne games based on how well it would sell and how well it would play; if Intelligent Qube is one of them, then that would be the second temptation for me to get a PSP (the DC-J version of SPF2T being the other).

Otherwise, I'm not overly concerned about having boxes and instructions for older games, especially if they are cheap enough for me to overlook it.  For an N64 or a PSX game, I would really have a hard time paying anything close to $20 a download.  So, price does play a part.

In regards to the Revolution, I would consider $5 the max for an NES game, $10 the max for SNES, and $15 the max for an N64 game.  I'm curious if they are going to price them based on system only, or will it be based on how much info transfers over (like 1MB= $1, or something).  I suppose E3 will answer that question... hopefully.

Boy, my b/f would really love that. He's totally into this one particular PS2 Gundam game -- I forget which one it is, but I've played co-op with him for a few missions -- and he sometimes talks about how great it would be to have more games based on the older Gundam series.

As for me, I'll wait until the price on the PS3 goes down before buying it, simply because I have no time to play many games anymore (as I've said before). That's been my attitude toward all the next-gen systems -- I have such a backlog of games that I can wait before buying the games and their respective systems. Unless I get cool preorder bonuses. ^_~

Where are you getting this burn stuff from?  I guarantee you that any game downloading service Sony may offer won't include a burn option.

Ummm... yeah, ok, but it's not like digital distribution is going to change that.  Unless the Revolution crushes the PS3 and X360, you're still going to see ever more powerful pieces of hardware come out.

Dragging a system around is a weird occurence unless you're a LAN party freak.  No way I'm lugging that gigantic PS3 around.  As for houses, there is one friend's house that is a hub for us.  We all meet at his place and bring whatever we've got to show.

I don't know my Zeta Gundams from my [some other kind of Gundam], but I do know that Bandai announced a new Gundam game for PS3 some time ago.

IQ is already coming to PSP from Sony.  I can't remember the exact title, but it's basically a mix of the three PSX games.

Any and every downloading service should enable you to create a backup burn.

Amazon.com is starting talks with movie studios about the idea of selling movie ISO images that users would download & burn onto blank DVDs, which is exactly the type of service I'm talking about here for games.

Afterall, having a purchased+burned disc in your hands is no different whatsoever than having an official pressed disc in your hands from the store.  There's no practical reason to view a burn option as being "more dangerous" and it wouldn't lead to any more piracy than what would happen with normal game discs, as they are identical pieces of media.

Or even, the home-burned discs can only be less compatible than store-bought discs, and probably easier to copy.

Also, if they remake FF7 to look like that tech demo, that ALONE would be enough to prompt me to pay $300-$400 for a console.  If it costs more than that though (likely), I'd wait it out a bit.

no matter what people are saying - PS3 WILL SELL INCREDIBLY WELL.
thats the reality, I know the day it will come out, I'll be standing day before the launch in line at best buy or frys(exactly like it was with xbox 360), its actually interesting to see how video games evolves, personally I'm in favor of Nintendo Revolution the most, but definetely I'm not anti to any system - I love games and each system will offer their own exclusive killer-aps.
though I dont know if I would ever want to pay for "burned copy", where game has been legally purchased-downloaded and recorded(no case, no manual, plain old disc).

RE: PS3 WILL SELL INCREDIBLY WELL. Man, you're so right. I think it says something about the situation of gaming when a system will sell based mostly on the brand it is. I remember the original PSX selling moderately well, here in Canda, but it couldn't top the N64. After word got out that Metal Gear Solid and FFVII (two of the system's best games, in many people's eyes) were Sony exclusive, sales skyrocketed.

Do you remember the controversy surrounding the aesthetic design of the PS2? PSM can be quoted as saying once that, in retrospect, it probably could've looked like a potato, and still sold like gangbusters. It's the marketing promise of the system that drives it off the shelves and into gamer's hands.

And it's so strange. If you look back at Sony's track record for their video game development, not all of it is glitz and glam. The original, first run Playstations suffered from disc reading errors (skipping numerous frames in CGI playback) and overheating (which Sony has consistenly denied, much to the chagrin of gamer's everywhere, who experienced said phenomena). The original PS2's were plagued with similar issues, not being able to read DVD's correctly, which would eventuall lead to the system not working with even first generation PS2 titles. Of course, for some, this is still an issue, even with many late model PS2's. Finally, the PSP suffers from dead pixels, low battery life (although I'm not entirely sure that that particular problem can be helped, considering how powerful the unit is), and also from sticky buttons. Even with these problems, the systems generally outsell the competition, and in some markets, leaves them in the dust.

I do agree that it is the software that makes the console what it is, but it isn't worth it to have a system that could go on you at any time. This is the main reason that I am going to be skipping the PS3. At least until they get any prevelant bugs fixed . . .

My adivce for potential consumers would be to hold off on buying one outright. Looking at Sony's track record is enough of a justification. I know people who have gone through more than 3 PS2's, and it costs so much . . .