Playstation 3 Superior to Xbox, claims Sony

Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony Corp. on Monday announced that its next generation hardware console, Playstation 3 and the software would be available in the spring of 2006, just after the scheduled launch of Xbox 360 by Microsoft.

As Microsoft did with the 360, Sony touted the high-definition capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and its networking features. The device will support the 1080p HD TV standard -- the highest current resolution of HD televisions -- and will have built-in Bluetooth, WiFi and Gigabit Ethernet networking.

The cell processor used by Playstation 3 is jointly developed by Sony group, Toshiba Corp and IBM and is reported to be much powerful than the most powerful Pentium processor in the market.

Playstation 3 also boasts of HD element which touts its Blu-ray disk format as the storage medium for content.

Sony’s current efforts center on maximizing revenue for its new PlayStation Portable handheld device, which launched March 24 and has served to buoy both software and hardware sales for the industry.