Another PS3 news digest…

The PS3 will be launched globally in early November 2006. However, rumoured screw-ups with the compiler mean the launch titles may fall well short of the console’s potential. There is still no confirmation on whether it will ship with a hard-drive or if this will be an extra. The controller for the PS3 will be shown at E3 in May but until then there will be no information on this front.

The PS3 will be region free in terms of games and so it is possible to release one version of a game for the whole world (with all the necessary data on the high-capacity Blu-Ray disk). Whilst this initially looks positive I think it unlikely that they will take the time to translate all the games released in Japan into English. So you can play the latest games from Japan but you cannot understand them 🙁

The Playstation Hub will launch with the PS3 and it remains to be seen how good this will be. All the usual buzz-words such as “episodic” and “bonus content” are flying around but time will tell if it can rival XBox Live. It is a tall order to get such a complicated service right the first time….

For a much more in-depth view of the latest PS3 news, go to GameSpot – my source for all this info.