In a Game Developers meeting today in Japan, Sony Computer Entertainment President Ken Kutagri confirmed a delay for shipping the PS3 – the launch will be in November 2006 (in time for Thanksgiving in the US), and will simultaneously launch worldwide.
Other details confirmed:
- the PS3 will depend on a 60GB HD, but it is not yet confirmed if the console will come with the hard drive as standard or as an optional add on. If it is a separate purchase this seems odd since the annoucement also urged developers to develop games to be dependent on the drive being present. It is expected that all games will make use of the hard drive being installed to avoid a situation where some games are developed to make use of the drive and some don’t.
- The hard drive will come with Linux installed, and is expected to have ‘home media server’ type functionality. It has been speculated for a while now if this would also include Tivo like functionality
- Since the operating system will be on a hard drive, the console will be fully updatable, presumably over an internet connection with downloadable patches and updates
- Sony also confirm the development of a XBox-Live like online service, called ‘Playstation Network Platform’, and it was also mentioned in the meeting that the service would be free for users.