Playstation 3: Coming to North America (and the world) in 2006

Check out Joystiq's continuing updates of Sony's Playstation Conference for more information, but lets get down the key facts:

• Worldwide (Asia, Europe, North America) launch in early November

• 1 million units shipped every month, total of 6 million shipped by the end of 2006

• 100% backwards compatible with existing PS1 & PS2 titles, will upconvert to HD resolutions

• Latest HDMI connectors (1.3?)

• 60GB HDD "required", supports Linux, acts as a media server

• All PS3 games will ship on Blu-ray discs to prevent piracy
  

• PS3 online service will feature matchmaking, downloads; free "basic" service

• Developers will get final kits in June

• PS3 is "4D"

• The conference is over, no games, no price announced

Well there we have it, more hardware details, and still so many questions. But at least it is launching in 2006, I don't know if we could survive another Christmas without "true" high definition. One thing is for sure, just when it looked like Sony might be slipping, they have come back with a big plan for continued worldwide dominance. Anyone want to place odds on if they can pull it off?