From gamesindustry.biz:
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"I'm not sure we're going to beat Sony in Japan this generation. Maybe," he adds. Xbox 360 launched in Japan on December 10th but was soundly beaten by sales of all the other consoles in the period that followed, particularly Nintendo DS, which outsold everything else in the region by a significant margin.

Ballmer's no stranger to fighting talk, of course, and he had plenty for Sony, whose PlayStation 3 console he openly derided on features and price. "[N]obody knows when PlayStation 3 is going to come. The rumours are it will come out in the spring, but only in Japan. And nobody knows what PlayStation 3 is going to cost. PlayStation 3 has a (Blu-ray Disc) drive built in, so who knows what the heck they're going to charge for the thing, because those are very expensive drives. Who the heck knows what the games are going to look like for PlayStation 3?" he joked. "So, a lot of questions. And Sony has no strategy for an online service."
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From gamesindustry.biz:
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As the industry awaits confirmation on the release strategy for Sony's next-generation games console, the company has confirmed that its forthcoming developers conference will focus exclusively on the PlayStation 3.

Scheduled to take place from the 1st-2nd March at the Atlantis Gallery in London's Brick Lane, the two day event will cover all aspects of game development for the new console, including graphics, audio, networking, middleware and the PS3 Cell architecture and operating system.
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From gamasutra.com:
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According to an official report, Sony, Toshiba and IBM have jointly announced that the companies have renewed their co-production partnership which helped created the Cell chip, to be used in Sony's PlayStation 3, for another 5 years.

So far, the three firms, which have revealed significant details on the Cell chip over the past few months, have invested around $400 million in the tech, with the PS3 chip the first major consumer application to be spun out of the project since it started in 2000.
However, the firms also intend to continue Cell development for other consumer electronic devices such as high-end televisions and audio equipment, though interestingly, Reuters has issued a correction over claims of possible medicinal and military use for the Cell, removing these uses from its initially released list.
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From money.cnn.com:
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Sony hasn't commented on specific pricing figures, though Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Consumer Entertainment, reportedly told attendees of a 2005 corporate meeting "it'll be expensive." Analysts and many video game developers, though, suspect the system may debut with a price tag reaching nearly $500.

"[Sony] could now consider launching its PlayStation 3 at a price range of $399 to $499, with the $499 price point more likely," said American Technology Research's P.J. McNealy in a note to clients Monday.

"We haven't made an official announcement about pricing yet," said Ryan Bowling, PR manager for Sony. "At this point, that's all speculation."
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From theinquirer.net:
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The problem is that people working on PS3s tell me that it is far from done. Several companies are hip deep in hardware debugging as you read this. Not that it is hugely surprising, after all, it isn't out yet, but one would expect that the hardware is nearly finalized and the bulk of the work is on the games right now.

Now, if Sony fixes the bugs tomorrow, due to the time it takes to push a spin through the fabs, you won't see final PS3 silicon until March, April for boards and consoles in small quantities. Add another month for ramp up, and you are talking May for availability if absolutely nothing goes wrong.
Sources have told us that this rosy scenario is at odds with the work going on right now, expect debugging to go on for quite a while yet. Add minimum 4 months to the end date, and you have a possible release time. The long and short of it is, don't expect a PS3 before E3, and even that is a very long stretch.
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From spong.com:
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The seeming reluctance to show the PlayStation 3 saw some wild speculation, with Internet fakers successfully duping some sites into believing that Sony next-generation is floundering - with SCE unable to lock down hardware specifics and developers failing to cope with the 4,000 or so SDKs already shipped.

According to several gaming executives and developers we spoke with, this is simply not the case, in fact it is easy to develop for. It is widely believed that, rather than pressure itself into an early launch - likely riddled with software support, supply and reliability issues - Sony will wait. It will force what was described to us as '...the perception [amongst consumers] of a different generation. Like Next-generation point five.' The idea is simple. It lets Microsoft have its day, sell as many Xbox 360s as it can make and completely distances itself from the machine. It waits a year and then launches with what will be heavily marketed as a generational advancement on anything that has preceded it. In doing so it bides its time, avoids any issues associated with a time-pressured launch and builds a stronger case for consumers to again part with cash for hardware.

From what we've gathered, the PlayStation 3 will launch in later summer 2006 in Japan, following a significant campaign pressing the connectivity features between the home console and the PSP. Sony will ignore the Xbox 360, relegating to a different, older generation of home console thus justifying your further investment in game-playing machinery.
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From computerandvideogames.com:
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With the announcement of some of the first Blu-ray movie players from Samsung and Pioneer (the BD-1000 and BDP-HD1 respectively) due to come to market this spring and expected to cost around 1000 USD and 1800 USD, the PS3 - which ships with a Blu-ray drive - starts to look more of a bargain.

Okay, we still don't know the price of the PS3 itself yet, but with expectations around the 400-500 USD mark, Blu-ray movie playback could be an important factor in driving initial sales, just like DVD playback was for the PS2. By contrast, the first HD-DVD players from Toshiba will also debut in March with the HD-XA1 priced at 799.99 USD and the HD-A1 costing 499.99 USD.
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