PlayStation 3 in 2006

Daisuke Wakabayashi and Yukari Iwatani Kane

LOS ANGELES: Sony Corp. unveiled its PlayStation 3 video game console on Monday and pledged that its high-definition graphics and broadband connectivity would ensure its spot atop the $10 billion a year video game industry.

The electronics and entertainment conglomerate said the new machine, due for launch in the spring of 2006, will feature a graphics chip with 300 million transistors.

That is more than the combined processing power of the current-generation Microsoft Corp. Xbox, Nintendo Co. Ltd. Game Cube and the PlayStation 2.

Having led the worldwide console gaming market for the last decade, Sony is counting on the new machine to dominate in all aspects of networked home entertainment -- games, movies, music and more.

"PS3 truly is the system to be placed in the center of living rooms in homes around the world," Ken Kutaragi, the head of Sony's game unit, said at a press event ahead of the start of the E3 annual industry trade show.

Kutaragi, known as 'the father of the PlayStation', beamed as he stood next to a display of the curved PS3 offered in three colors -- black, silver and white -- and a boomerang-shaped game controller.

Sony said the PS3 would have twice the processing speed of the Xbox 360, the console Microsoft is expected to release in November with up to 40 software titles.

"Sony's console looked like a next-generation game machine and in comparison to the graphics of the PS3, Microsoft's looked like Xbox 1.5," said Takashi Oya, analyst at Deutsche Bank.

But speed in games is often as much a function of the way the games are written as it is the capacity of the hardware, and Sony's drive to leapfrog the Xbox 360 technology comes as the Japanese electronics giant concedes what could be a valuable several-month head start to Microsoft.

CELL-POWERED

The PS3 is powered by the "Cell" chip, which aims to be significantly more powerful than Intel Corp.'s Pentium 4, the most common chips for today's PCs, and any other existing game machine processors.

Sony developed the microprocessor with International Business Machines Corp. and Toshiba Corp. and its super-powerful "RSX" graphics chip with Nvidia Corp..

With a built-in Ethernet port for high-speed Internet access, PlayStation 3 allows gamers to surf the Web while playing games.

"In addition to games, PS3 will, of course, be able to perform non-gaming functions such as digital music, movies and photographs even during game play," said Kutaragi.

The PS3 will feature Blu-ray, a next-generation DVD format backed by Sony. Blue-ray discs have far more capacity than current discs but their commercial development has been bogged down in industry standards debates reminiscent of Sony's lost battle in the 80's to promote its Betamax videotape standard.

It supports the simultaneous use of up to seven control pads, which can connect wirelessly via the Bluetooth standard to the console.

A patent suit over the PlayStation 2's controllers, in which Sony was ordered to halt U.S. sales of its consoles and pay nearly $91 million infringement damages to a California company, would have no impact on PS3, analysts said, because the new machine was so completely different from the old one.

Sony has said it plans to appeal the March decision.

PS3 also features wireless Internet access, a removable small hard drive, and will be compatible with games from the earlier PlayStations. The console is about the size of a standard mid-size laptop computer.

Sony's PS2 seized control of the current generation of game consoles by beating Microsoft and Nintendo to market by about a year, winning over many game publishers to secure exclusive rights or initial releases to popular titles.

Game publishers Electronic Arts Inc. and Square Enix Co. Ltd. both said they plan to fully support PS3. EA is the world's largest video game publisher and its full support is crucial to the success of any console.

A number of details about the PS3 are yet to be announced, including the price of the console and the number of games that will be available at launch.