Gaming worlds and virtual characters are about to take a significant step closer to realism.
PlayStation 3 will "open up creative horizons" for games developers and allow movie-quality special effects, according to Phil Harrison, executive vice-president of Sony Computer Entertainment.
Mr Harrison, who oversees all Sony game development around the world, says PlayStation 3 delivers a "creative convergence" for the games industry and Hollywood.
"PlayStation 3 makes a bigger horizon for existing developers and allows non-gaming content creators, like movie special effects companies, movie directors or special effects visualisers to express themselves," he says.
At the recent Electronic Entertainment Expo, Sony imported CG data of actor Alfred Molina from Spider-Man 2 onto PlayStation 3. The astonishingly realistic animated character illustrated the console's power and potential.
Sony has sold more than 90 million PlayStation 2 consoles and dominated the game industry for a decade. But the company's plans are more ambitious.
"Our vision is a PlayStation under every television," Mr Harrison says. "That hasn't changed. What we've done is put a super-computer beneath everyone's television."
Mr Harrison is confident PS3 will offer a range of games. "You need great software to express the capability of the hardware," he says.
"We're a research and development-led company, both technically, creatively and business-wise. We want to push ourselves. And we should be confident, the industry has responded so well and they are going to support us."
Mr Harrison says PS3 will be the most powerful next-generation console.
"PlayStation 3 is going to eat up huge amounts of content. We need 50GB of storage on a disc in order to really bring those games to life. There's no way Xbox 360 can compete because they're only using DVD."