Sony PS3 - UK launch

The next-generation of PlayStation has landed! Read on for reviews and impressions of Sony's new super console.

So what do you get for your outlay? As well as the latest games you get an inbuilt Blu-ray player and connectivity for file-sharing and more with PSP. Plus you get a 60GB hard drive and Wi-Fi connectivity out of the box. Sony’s online service is free and includes online gaming and voice/video chat, but the really exciting stuff is PS3 Home (a virtual world where people can interact, watch videos and see their gaming acheivements) and LittleBigPlanet (create your own game in this lovely organic game)

What is Blu-ray? As with DVD and PlayStation 2, Blu-ray offers the boon of next-gen video playback. Sony claims future PS3 games will also come to rely on the new format's massive storage capacity.

As for the initial line-up of PlayStation 3 titles, these are on par with quality already seen on Xbox 360, though they generally lack the online features of the 360.

The iconic PlayStation controller has been enhanced with motion-sensitivity and renamed "SIXAXIS". This has been at the expense of the rumble feature, and the controllers feel much lighter as a result. The motion-sensing works similarly to Nintendo's Wii controller, although it is not nearly as clever.

Ironically, the backwards compatibility for which PlayStation has also made its name will be limited at first for UK PlayStation 3 consoles. Over time Sony has promised to release software updates to perform the same task. But this doesn’t make up for the fact that Europeans are paying at least £100 more for less than Japanese and US punters are already getting.

PlayStation 3 isn't perfect. It is expensive. Nonetheless, judged on its own merits Sony's new super-console remains very desirable.

Read on for reviews of all the main launch games and more impressions of the console itself.