
The PlayStation 3 (officially marketed PLAYSTATION 3, commonly abbreviated PS3) is the third home
video game console produced by
Sony Computer Entertainment and successor to the
PlayStation 2 as part of the
PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's
Xbox 360 and Nintendo's
Wii as part of the
seventh generation of video game consoles. In sales and market share, it is currently in third place.
[6] The system was first released on
November 11,
2006, in
Japan,
November 17,
2006 in North America and Asia, and
March 23,
2007 in Europe and
Oceania. It is the first console with next-gen primary storage media,
Blu-ray Disc, though it also supports
DVDs,
CDs,
HDDs and with some models
SACDs. It is capable of playing back content from
Blu-ray Disc (BD) at a bit rate of multiplex 48Mbps, the maximum bit rate defined in BD standards.