The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on November 11, 2006, in Japan, November 17, 2006, in North America, and March 23, 2007, in Europe and Australia. The PlayStation 3 competed primarily against Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles.
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 2005, and is the first handheld installment in the PlayStation line of consoles. As a seventh generation console, the PSP competed with the Nintendo DS.
The Universal Media Disc (UMD) is a discontinued optical disc medium developed by Sony for use on its PlayStation Portable handheld gaming and multimedia platform. It can hold up to 1.8 gigabytes of data and is capable of storing video games, feature-length films, and music. UMD was the trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment for their optical disk cartridge (ODC).
Empire Interactive was a British video game developer and publisher based in London. Founded in 1987 by Ian Higgins and Simon Jeffrey, it was acquired by Silverstar Holdings in 2006 and went out of business in 2009.
2007 saw many sequels and prequels in video games. New intellectual properties included Assassin's Creed, BioShock, Crackdown, Crysis, Mass Effect, Portal, Rock Band, Skate, The Darkness, The Witcher, and Uncharted.
Various accessories for the PlayStation 3 video game console have been produced by Sony and third-party companies. These include controllers, audio and video input devices like microphones, video cameras, and cables for better sound and picture quality.
Remote Play is a feature of Sony video game consoles that allows the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 to transmit its video and audio output to another device; previously this could only be a PlayStation Portable or PlayStation Vita. In 2014, it was expanded to include the use of PlayStation TV, Xperia smartphones and tablets, and PlayStation Now. In 2016, it was expanded to Microsoft Windows PCs and macOS. In 2019, support for Android and iOS devices was eventually added. Support for remote play of PlayStation 5 games to other devices was added in November 2020 just prior to the new console's launch.
The PlayStation 3 system software, is the updatable firmware and operating system of the PlayStation 3. The base operating system used by Sony for the PlayStation 3 is a fork of both FreeBSD and NetBSD known internally as CellOS or GameOS. It uses XrossMediaBar as its graphical shell.
The seventh generation of home video game consoles began on November 22, 2005, with the release of Microsoft's Xbox 360 home console. This was followed by the release of Sony's PlayStation 3 on November 17, 2006, and Nintendo's Wii on November 19, 2006. Each new console introduced new technologies. The Xbox 360 offered games rendered natively at high-definition video (HD) resolutions, the PlayStation 3 offered HD movie playback via a built-in 3D Blu-ray Disc player, and the Wii focused on integrating controllers with movement sensors as well as joysticks. Some Wii controllers could be moved about to control in-game actions, which enabled players to simulate real-world actions through movement during gameplay. By this generation, video game consoles had become an important part of the global IT infrastructure; it is estimated that video game consoles represented 25% of the world's general-purpose computational power in 2007.
Dynasty Warriors 6 is a hack and slash video game set in Ancient China, during a period called Three Kingdoms. This game is the sixth official installment in the Dynasty Warriors series, developed by Omega Force and published by Koei. The game was released on November 11, 2007 in Japan; the North American release was February 19, 2008 while the Europe release date was March 7, 2008. A version of the game was bundled with the 40GB PlayStation 3 in Japan. Dynasty Warriors 6 was also released for Windows in July 2008. A version for PlayStation 2 was released on October and November 2008 in Japan and North America respectively. An expansion, titled Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires was unveiled at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show and released in May 2009.
The PlayStation 3 technical specifications describe the various components of the PlayStation 3 (PS3) video game console.
PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a division of Sony; the first PlayStation console was released in Japan in December 1994, and worldwide the following year.
The PlayStation 3 was originally launched in Japan on November 11, 2006 and in North America on November 17, 2006 with two SKUs: a 20 GB version and a 60 GB version. Both of these models included hardware backwards compatibility for PlayStation 2 games. In January 2007, Sony announced that Europe's 60 GB version would exclude hardware backwards compatibility for PS2 titles and instead would provide compatibility through software emulation of the PS2's hardware. During the course of 2007, Sony announced several new PlayStation 3 SKUs and discontinued others. The new 40 GB, 80 GB and 160 GB PlayStation 3 models do not feature software emulation of PlayStation 2 hardware. In August 2009, all previous models were discontinued, as the new PS3 Slims were released, in 120GB and 250GB editions, priced at $299 and $349, respectively. One year later, in August 2010, the 120GB version went out of production, to be replaced by a 160GB counterpart, which was also priced at $299.
Exient Entertainment is an independent video game developer and publisher based in the United Kingdom and Malta. Mainly developing for handheld gaming systems, Exient grew a name for itself shrinking popular series' games to portable systems. It is known for its ports of various games in the Madden NFL, FIFA, Need for Speed, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour series for Electronic Arts and for developing numerous titles in the Angry Birds series. The company was incorporated in 2000 and began operations in January 2001.
Toy Story 3 is a 2010 platform game developed by Avalanche Software and published by Disney Interactive Studios. The game is based on the 2010 film of the same name. It was released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, and Microsoft Windows. The game was ported to OS X by TransGaming. A Nintendo DS version was developed by n-Space, while Disney Mobile Studios developed and published an iOS game based on the film. Another version was developed by Asobo Studio and released for PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable.
The PlayStation Vita is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international territories beginning on February 22, 2012. The console is the successor to the PlayStation Portable, and a part of the PlayStation brand of gaming devices; as part of the eighth generation of video game consoles, it primarily competed with the Nintendo 3DS.
Sony has released a number of previously released PlayStation video games, remastered in high-definition (HD) for their newer consoles, a form of porting. A number of related programs exist, the most prominent two being "Classics HD" and "PSP Remasters". The former consists of multiple PlayStation 2 games compiled on one Blu-ray Disc. The latter are individual PlayStation Portable games republished on Blu-ray. These games are not direct ports, but remastered versions in high-definition, to take advantage of the newer consoles' capabilities. The remastering of the games include updated graphics, new textures, and Trophy support, and some of the remastered games released on PlayStation 3 have included 3D and PlayStation Move support. Some HD remasters have also been released individually or in bundles as downloads on the PlayStation Store; others are released exclusively as downloads.
The PlayStation 3 (PS3) video game console has been produced in various models during its life cycle. At launch, the PlayStation 3 was available with either a 20 or 60 GB hard disk drive in the US and Japan, respectively— priced from US$499 to US$599; and with either a 40, 60, or 80 GB hard disk drive in Europe, priced from £299 to £425. Since then, Sony have released two further redesigned models, the "Slim" and "Super Slim" models. As of March 2017, the total number of consoles sold is estimated at 87.4 million.
