From gamesindustry.biz:
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Sony Computer Entertainment is working on a new controller for the PlayStation 3, which features the ability to 'break apart' into two separate units, each of which contains an accelerometer for 'Wiimote-like' motion-sensing functionality, GamesIndustry.biz understands.

It's not clear when the pad will be officially announced, but it is believed that working units have already been supplied to certain developer partners, according to sources.
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From the press release:
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PS3 Eclipses Xbox 360 Hardware Sales; PS3 Hardware Sales Growth Exceeds 155 Percent Year-Over-Year

PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) continued its break-out year, selling 208,709 hardware units in May. 22,106 more units than Microsoft's Xbox 360 (according to NPD May 2008 sales data).

Spurred by enthusiasm for Grand Theft Auto IV and the exclusive releases of SingStar for PS3 and Haze, 1.26 million software units were sold for PS3 in May, representing an increase of 234 percent from this time last year.

* 442,910 of copies of Grand Theft Auto IV were sold for PS3 in May, with more than 1.4 million of copies of the game sold for PS3 in the U.S. to date. More than 32 percent of U.S. PS3 owners have purchased a copy of Grand Theft Auto IV, a 6 percent higher attach rate than Xbox 360.
* PS3 hardware sales momentum is expected to continue in June, spurred by the highly anticipated launch of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, exclusively for PS3, as well as the introduction of the special edition Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots PS3 bundle.
* Popularity of the PLAYSTATION®Network continues to rise, with more than 20 million pieces of content downloaded from the PlayStation®Store in May (11.6 million for North America), including the monster hit echochrome. There are currently more than 9 million registered PLAYSTATION Network accounts worldwide (nearly 4.2 million in North America) with more than 160 million pieces of content downloaded from the PlayStation®Store to date.
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From next-gen.biz:
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Overall U.S. videogame industry sales in May hit $1.12 billion, up 37 percent, with PS3 beating out Xbox 360 by 22,000, NPD Group reported Thursday.

The console wars continued through the doldrums of May, as Sony's PS3 managed to sell 208,700 units during the month, edging out Xbox 360, which sold 186,600.
For another month, Wii outsold PS3 and Xbox 360 combined, selling 675,100 hardware units.

In May, GTA IV for Xbox 360 led the software charts with 871,300 sold. The PS3 version ranked fourth for the month with 442,900 sold, for total GTA IV unit sales of around 1.3 million for the month.
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From bruceongames.com:
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GTA IV, quite famously, was delayed from being a 2007 release to being a 2008 release because of problems Rockstar were having with the Playstation 3 version of the game. And now Codemasters admit that whilst the Microsoft Xbox 360 version of Grid runs at a solid 30 fps the Playstation 3 version doesn't. These are just two of the latest of a long stream of disappointments with the comparative performance of the PS3. What is happening here?

For the PS3 Sony wanted to have a technology advantage so they developed, in conjunction with Toshiba and IBM, the Cell processor. A clean sheet design with many innovations this took $400 million and four years to develop. The intention was to use two of these in the PS3, one as CPU and one as GPU. However at the last minute Sony realised that the Cell GPU wasn't up to the job so they went to nVidia and bought their 7800GTX GPU. This gave them a number of disadvantages:
* It wasn't designed or optimised as a console GPU. It was designed and optimised as a PC GPU.
* The whole architecture of the console was compromised by the last minute change.
* The 7800GTX has less raw processing power than the Microsoft Xbox 360 GPU.
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From gamesindustry.biz:
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Singulus has revealed that consumers are adopting Blu-ray faster than they did DVD, with the company having received 21 orders for Blu-ray dual-layer machines in the first quarter.

"This means that the orders for Blu-ray in the first year of the dual layer technology already by far exceeded the volume at the start of the DVD eleven years ago with 17 machines," said Stefan A Baustert, CEO of Singulus.
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From gamespot.com:
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SSDs are perfect for notebooks because they're light, they don't consume a lot of power, and they give off very little heat. The good news is that you can slide those same 2.5-inch solid state notebook drives right into a PlayStation 3. We got our hands on a 60GB SuperTalent Master Drive MX SSD to see how it performs in a PlayStation 3. The $400 60GB Master Drive MX specifications state that it has 120MB/s read speeds, but its write speeds cap off at 40MB/s. By comparison, we tested the stock PlayStation 3 hard drive and observed 32MB/s read and write speeds. The MX drive doesn't match up to the 120MB/s reads and the blistering 70MB/s writes of the more expensive $1,300 Super Talent 60GB Master Drive DX, but some upgrades get more difficult to justify when the PlayStation 3 itself costs only about $400.

Conclusion
At a cost of $400, it's hard to justify purchasing a solid state drive, especially when you consider that the money could buy you a whole new console. The argument becomes even more difficult to push when the benefits of said drive aren't universal. Load times improved, but installation times increased tremendously. More expensive SSDs have faster write speeds, but at almost four times the cost. There certainly are benefits to upgrading to a solid state drive, but we wouldn't recommend doing so until the prices and speed are more in line with performance expectations. Fortunately, solid state drive prices seem to halve every year, and performance is improving. We shouldn't have to wait much longer for SSDs with larger capacities, better performance, and lower prices.
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