This contrasts with the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii, both of which cost less to produce than they sell for, making Microsoft and Nintendo a profit on each unit sold. That wasn’t initially the case with the Xbox 360, but Microsoft have been able to squeeze out manufacturing efficiencies to such a degree that they are no longer selling Xbox 360s at a loss, and that is an impressive result.

Of course more impressive still is Nintendo who were selling consoles at a profit from day one, although with lower manufacturing costs to begin with due to a less technologically complex technology platform that Nintendo has proven can compete with against high-definition media center do-it-all games console entertainment machines from Sony and Microsoft.

Sony also wants to stop losing money on each console sold, and have said publicly that manufacturing costs will be brought down. The first casualty in this effort was full compatibility with the entire PS2 library of titles. Already that promise was broken with US and Japanese PS3’s which couldn’t run every single game flawlessly, but still ran a lot of games and more afterwards with firmware updates improving compatibility.

But the European and rest-of-the-world PS3 omitted some of the chips that guaranteed better PS2 compatibility to save US $27 per manufactured PS3, resulting in a lower number of compatible PS2 titles, initially promised to be 1000 games, with more to come in future updates.

But it hasn’t all been bad news for the PS3, with some interesting developments having taken place. One is the arrival, later this year and after a quite extensive beta testing program, of Sony’s own ‘social network’ that looks a lot like Second Life for PS3 users to interact with each other, play games together, decorate apartments, buy clothes, watch movie trailers, collect and display achievements and more, called ‘Home’, and touted as a ‘Game 3.0’ environment akin to but even better than the Web 2.0 enhancements for web sites. Unlike the Nintendo, which has cartoonish ‘Mii’ characters, or avatars for use in different games, the avatars in ‘Home’ are much more detailed, much like those found in Second Life.

Sony have also joined Stanford University’s ‘folding@home’ program to help in the challenge to find cures for cancer and other diseases using the spare processing power of your PS3 when it is not being used and it is connected to the Internet. Given that the PS3 is rated as 40 times more powerful than the PS2, it certainly has plenty of grunt that can give the folding@home program a real boost.

So, how many games can PS3 buyers in the ‘rest-of-the-world’ expect to be able to choose from starting March 23? There are 36 to choose from, with most arriving on a Blu-ray disc, but with some to be made available for paid download via the ‘Playstation Network’ online service, with more promised to come throughout the course of the year. The games are listed at the end of this article.

So, Sony is launching with a good lineup of games, although there are clearly plenty more on the way, and have to face strong competition from numerous Xbox 360 titles and the Nintendo Wii’s innovative gameplay.

Sony is no doubt hoping the upcoming launch will go off with a big bang, with consumers clamoring to get their hands on Sony’s most impressive home entertainment, gaming, computing, web surfing and more do-it-almost-all device ever.

Despite the Wii having done so well, something that can be seen in my previous article ‘World loves the Wii’, and the Xbox 360 having stunning success with Gears of War and will undoubtedly have even more excitement still when Halo 3 launches, the strengths each system displays make them all worthy of purchase for different reasons. So, now that Sony will finally make the PS3 available (virtually) everywhere around the world, round two of the next-gen games console wars can really start. It’s going to be one heck of a ‘Street Fighter’ style… FIGHT!

The games on disc include: Resistance: Fall of Man; MotorStorm; Genji: Days of the Blade; Formula One Championship Edition; Ridge Racer; Call of Duty 3; Marvel: Ultimate Alliance; Tony Hawks Project 8; Gundam - Target in Sight; Full Auto 2: Battle Lines; Sonic the Hedgehog; Virtua Fighter 5; Virtua Tennis 3; World Snooker Championship 2007; NBA 2K7; NHL 2K7; Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII; Enchanted Arms; Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent; The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion; Def Jam: Icon; Fight Night Round 3; NBA Street 4 Homecourt 2007; Need for Speed Carbon; The Godfather: The Don's Edition; Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007; Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom; and F.E.A.R.

Games that can be purchased from the Playstation Network include: Gripshift; Tekken: Dark Resurrection; Lemmings; Go! Sudoku; Go! Puzzle; Blast Factor; flOw; and Super Rub’a’Dub.{moscomment}