PlayStation 3 Release Date, Lineup, and the $599 Blu-ray Gamble
The PS2 conquered the world. The PS3 nearly lost it all. A sky-high price tag, a Europe left out in the cold for four months, and a multi-billion-dollar Blu-ray gamble: the inside story of the launch that brought Sony to its knees against the Wii and Xbox 360—before a spectacular comeback.
PlayStation 3 release date by region
The arrogance of a champion
160 million consoles sold. Over 4,000 games. An entire generation raised with a controller in hand. Following up the PlayStation 2 wasn’t a challenge—it was a trap. Ken Kutaragi—”the father of PlayStation,” architect of the PS1 and PS2’s success—chose to charge ahead: more power, more ambition, more technology… and a price tag nobody saw coming.
Development of the PlayStation 3 began as early as 2001, built around a revolutionary processor: the Cell Broadband Engine, co-developed with IBM and Toshiba at an estimated cost of $400 million. An 8-SPE core architecture clocked at 3.2 GHz, so complex it would torment developers for years. Kutaragi envisioned the PS3 as a living-room supercomputer, not just a gaming console. His ambition: a device so powerful that gamers would be willing to work extra hours just to afford it. That quote, delivered in an interview, sums up Sony’s philosophy—and its fatal miscalculation—at the time.
The console debuted at E3 in May 2005, featuring a controller with the infamous “boomerang” design that sparked immediate backlash. Sony eventually reverted to a DualShock-inspired design, adding Sixaxis motion detection—a belated response to Nintendo’s Wiimote. For backward compatibility, the early models packed PS1 and PS2 hardware, granting instant access to the massive PlayStation catalog. But the most consequential decision was the Blu-ray drive: in the middle of a format war against Toshiba’s HD-DVD, Sony bet on using its console to force its standard onto the market. A multi-billion-dollar gamble.
PS3 release date: timeline of a turbulent launch
Losing $300 per console to win the war
In 2006, a standalone Blu-ray player cost between $800 and $1,000. The PS3, at $599, was technically the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market—the exact same strategy Sony had used with the PS2 and DVD six years earlier. Except this time, the general public deemed the price prohibitive. Sony, meanwhile, was hemorrhaging money—losing roughly $300 on every console sold and racking up $3.3 billion in hardware losses through 2008. The stakes were existential: if Blu-ray lost the format war to Toshiba’s HD-DVD, the PS3 would become a bottomless money pit. If it won, Sony—co-founder of the format alongside Panasonic and Philips—would collect royalties on every Blu-ray disc and player sold worldwide for decades. For two years, the outcome hung in the balance. Then, in February 2008, Toshiba surrendered: Blu-ray had won—and the PS3 played a major role. The most expensive bet in gaming history would pay off.
Every game available on PS3 release day
A legacy forged in pain
By putting a Blu-ray drive in every PS3, Sony flooded the market with compatible players. In February 2008, Toshiba abandoned HD-DVD. Without the PS3, Blu-ray might never have won. A ruinous bet in the short term, decisive in the long run. Twenty years later, Sony still collects royalties on every Blu-ray sold worldwide.
$599: that price tag, widely deemed outrageous, cost Sony its crown. The Wii, priced at $249, sold 101 million units. The Xbox 360, launched a year earlier at $399, built a lead Sony spent years chasing. It wasn’t until 2013 and a PS4 priced at $399 that Sony reclaimed the throne—proof the lesson had been learned.
Catastrophic start, triumphant finish. Thanks to price cuts, the 2009 Slim model, and exclusives that became legends—Uncharted, The Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid 4, God of War III—the PS3 clawed its way back to the Xbox 360 by the end of the generation. Production continued until 2017, a full four years after the PS4 release date.