Sony Computer Entertainment just announced that it would launch Playstation 3 in early November 2006 in Japan, North America and Europe simultaneously. With a monthly production capacity of one million units, SCEI will push forward a powerful product launch to spread the platform rapidly throughout the world, together with a strong and attractive lineup of PS3 game titles.
All software will be released on the Blu-Ray format for the purpose of preventing piracy. Apparently the HDD is not necessarily standard, Sony is telling developers "develop for it (or it will not succeed)", and encouraging them to use it. The drive itself will be 60GB, upgradeable, and it will support Linux. The HDD will also act as a home media center and allow users to store various forms of media to be viewed elsewhere (similar to the Xbox360). The final development kits will ship sometime in June, Sony said.

As for backwards compatability, Sony announced that the PS3 will be 100% backwards compatible, and all PS2 titles will be displayed at high-definition resolutions (like the XBox360). Sony will also launch the PS online network with the Playstation 3. The basic service will be free, more details coming. We can assume for now that "basic service" is equivalent to the Xbox Live Silver service. The service will be run by Sony Online Entertainment. That is all the info Sony has revealed on this subject. As for price, Sony has said the unit will not cost less than 50,000.00 JP YEN. This equates to $425.607 USD.