"Sony CEO Howard Stringer gave the public a brief glimpse of the company’s upcoming Playstation 3 game system at the Consumer Electronics Show here Thursday (Jan. 5), though did not say when the successor to Playstation 2 would be available.

Speaking at the first keynote session of CES, Stringer showed a brief demo of the graphics capabilities of the long-awaited gaming system. He said Playstation 3 would support the Blu-ray Disc format and be backward compatible with earlier Playstations. Stringer added that 4,000 Playstation 3 development kits have been distributed globally.

But Stringer did not give a firm release date for the new game system. Instead, he cited statistics on the success of Playstation 2, perhaps as a ploy to sustain that system’s momentum.

At a press conference here Wednesday several Sony officials told EE Times Playstation 3 would emerge sometime in the Spring.

Stringer’s keynote speech skirted any mention of the business challenges facing the troubled electronics giant. Instead, Stringer took a light-hearted approach, marching in celebrities Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, and CBS sportscaster Greg Gumbel to help tout the virtues of the company’s next-generation electronic technologies." [link]