Sony finally announced their Play Station Three release dates and prices.  There will be two price points like Microsoft has for their xbox 360, but the cheep PS3 will be $100 more than the most expensive xbox 360 package.  The cheep xbox 360 package is called the core package, but by those who game it has been called the retarded package.  When you buy everything it would take to get the core to equal the premium package you would spend more than the hundred dollar difference.  Now Sony has the same thing in place but unlike xbox 360 it does not look like there is an upgrade path for the cheep PS3 to get the same specs as the more expensive one.  The big thing Sony is pushing with this console is the Blu-Ray drive.  They are hoping that the PS3 is the trojan for that format like the first PS2 was for DVD.  If you ask most gamers their first DVD player was their PS2.  It made the higher price for the console easier to swallow as you knew you were getting a DVD player out of it too.  From what I have read, you will need the HDMI output to play the HD content for movies.  Well on the cheap PS3 there is no HDMI and no way to add it later from what I have seen.  You can look at the chart below to see what you will be missing if you don’t spend that extra $100 on your new PS3.  The only reason I would ever get one of these things is for the drive to play movies as most of the stand alone players look like they will be $1,000 at the start.   The $600 PS3 looks like a quite a deal at that price point.

 
Now lets move onto looks.  Most shots of the new PS3 are from the top.  It gives you no idea of size or shape.  Well there are some more photos out there now.  Have you seen this thing from the side?  It looks like it could be a waffle maker or a George Forman grill.  Ugly!

 
For this console release there is so much going against Sony.  There are rumors that the xbox 360 will be lowered in price by $100 when the PS3 is released.  The graphics on the PS3 don’t look any better than what can be done on the 360.  Nintendo’s Wii will probably be half or less as much as the new PS3 and on top of all that there will be a shortage when they finally do sell this holiday season.  There will be lots of Xbox 360’s on the shelves at a cheeper price and in this world of I need it now I can see lots of people picking up the 360 when they can’t get their hands on a PS3 for Christmas.  Not to mention that 360 will be in their next round of games.  Launch games always suck most of the time.  Halo and Mario for the N64 are the only stand outs for good launch titles.  What Microsoft and Nintendo have coming out this November for games looks really good.  Sony is doing everything they can to mess up this launch for their PS3.  The only thing they have going for them is a large install base of PS2 users.  If it wasn’t for that PS2 install base I think the PS3 would end up like the Dreamcast, dead after a year.  The old story is the first one to 10 million units sold wins.  Microsoft is already halfway there and will have the other five plus out there to sell this holiday season.  Sony says they will have 5 million ready to sell but most experts believe it will be between 1 to 3 million.