During the E3 opening keynote, Sony has revealed that the Playstation 3 is to launch on the 17th of November. There will be two versions of the console, one for $500 and another for $600, which will include a motion-sensitive controller.
The PS3 will come standard with a hard drive - in combination with a 20 GB version, the console will cost $499; with a 60 GB version, the price climbs to $599. Hirai promised that there will be two million consoles available at launch. Another two million will ship until 31 Dec 2006.
The new PS3 controller will very much resemble the current PS2 controller, except that it will integrate Bluetooth wireless capability and will also sense hand movements. This will mean that, instead of pushing buttons, players will be able to simply move the controller to control characters on the screen.