The Playstation 3 was released in the US on November 17, 2006 with a price of $599.99 USD for the 60GB Hard Drive and $499.99 for the 20GB Hard Drive. In Japan it was released on November 11, 2006. Within the box of a 60GB premium model, the user would find a Playstation 3 60GB version system, wireless controller, AC power cord, AV Cable, Ethernet cable, USB cable, instructions, and a Blu-Ray version of the movie Talladega Nights. Talladega Nights had not yet been released when the system came out, so this was a little comfort to those who were able to secure a system at launch.

Release day games include Need for Speed: Carbon, Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom, Call of Duty 3, Madden NFL 2007, Resistance: The Fall of Man, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007, Genji Days of the Blade, Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire, NBA 2007, NBA 2K7, NHL 2K7, Ridge Racer 7, Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and Tony Hawk's Project 8.

At release it was estimated 100,000 units would be available in Japan and 400,000 released in the US. However, a scant week before the system was released in the US Sony cut the number of launch systems to 150,000 within the US. This caused some tough competition for those who were not lucky enough to preorder it in the few places that dared to place reserves on systems. Across the country there were dozens of stories about stores being broken into, people being robbed, stabbed, or shot. Prices on eBay skyrocketed, reaching $12,000 USD. Personally I find this hard to believe, many of the users that were causing these prices to appear so high were low or no feedback bidders who, upon checking the auction again later, had been NARU'ed. A day after the system's release, prices were down to some semblance of normalcy, only fetching about twice the retail price.

Once again, like the Playstation 2, the Playstation 3 was toted as a movie player in addition to a game system. This time the emphasis was on Sony's Blu-Ray technology which they hope becomes the next standard in movie media.

Although backwards compatible, there are supposedly 8,000 games that will not work on the Playstation 3, due to sound, texture, loading, etc. difficulties.

	Playstation 3 prototype unit. E3 2005
	Playstation 3 prototype unit. E3 2005
	Playstation 3 prototype unit. E3 2005
	Playstation 3 prototype unit. E3 2005
	Playstation 3 prototype unit. E3 2005
	Playstation 3 prototype unit. E3 2005
	Playstation 3 prototype unit. E3 2005
	Playstation 3 prototype unit. E3 2005
	Playstation 3 controller prototype unit. E3 2005