For a run down of what Sony said during its press conference this morning, check the Joystiq site. Most of the info comes from IGN reports, but the IGN coverage is in about 15 different posts, starting here. If you read Japanese, it's at Watch impress, which is worth a visit because it has pics of the slides (see above).
Briefly, the Sony strategy is to copy what Microsoft has done with the Xbox 360 -- a global almost simultaneous launch -- but with fewer units to meet what I expect to be much greater demand. (On our Gamesblog, Keith Stuart reckons it's 2 million units.) Sony will also attempt to repeat the success of Xbox Live with a service from Sony Online Entertainment.
Any real news? The PS3 will require a 60GB hard drive, so there presumably won't be any lower-price packs as there are with the Xbox 360. The 60GB drive will also be able to store movies (home media play) and support Linux. Final PS3 dev kits "will be shipping out to production houses in June," giving them four or five months to complete their games. Finally, Sony will not cut the price of the PS2 -- which is hardly surprising since they won't be able to meet demand for the PS3.
According to GamesReports (unconfirmed): "As for price, Sony has said the unit will not cost less than 50,000.00 JP YEN. This equates to $425.607 USD. Oh boy."
Comment: The info on dev kits means Sony has known for some time that it was never going to make a spring launch.
