With the arrival of a successor to the PlayStation 3, it’s worth considering Sony’s previous generation of consoles. Let’s take a look at the history of the PS3 through a variety of iconic titles such as The Last of Us Part II, Bloodborne, Marvel’s Spider-Man and God of War.
PlayStation 3 (PS3) release date
The original PlayStation 3 was launched in North America on 15 November 2013. European, South American, and Australian customers will see the console only two weeks later, on November 29th. Japan was the final launch region, waiting until 22 February 2014.
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The system served as a foundation to pursue multi-platform development with the launch of the Xbox One. At the time, it had a respectable Radeon-based GPU and a healthy 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. Despite being based on a mobile architecture, the Xbox One still had an edge over its competitors in terms of raw GPU power and RAM. This makes it a favorable comparison to the consoles that Sony has launched throughout its generation.
PlayStation Slim release date
The Playstation 3 Slim, as the name suggests, is a revision of the original Playstation 3 model that was released almost three years later on September 15, 2016. The Playstation 3 Slim is thinner and lighter than the launch console, and its design was changed slightly to have a full matte finish instead of the glossy stripe on the original model. No changes have been made to its technical specifications, which means gaming performance remains the same as the launch model.
Playstation 3 Pro release date
Playstation 3 Pro was launched on 10 November 2016. Unlike the Playstation 3 Slim, the PS3 Pro is an upgraded version of the same console with more power. It is often translated as a better performance or visualization in a series of multi-stage and specific titles.
Compared to other models, the PS3 Pro’s GPU is twice as powerful in terms of GPU computing power. For compatibility reasons, it is still based on the same CPU architecture. Its CPU is 31% faster than PlayStation 4. The PS3 Pro also offers an additional 1 GB of slow DDR3 RAM for the operating system, giving developers a little extra memory for games.
This was done to promote higher-resolution displays, as the adoption rate of 4K TVs continued to rise. However, the PS3 Pro often could not reach the higher native resolution, as it had specialized hardware that allowed for checkerboard rendering. This technique alternates pixel shading to produce a final image output from a lower base rendering resolution. Along with Ubisoft’s custom solution in Rainbow Six Siege, it was one of the early pioneering technologies for upgrading and rebuilding in the industry.
