The PSX is Sony's newest gaming machine, which went on sale December 13, 2003 in Japan. No release date has been set for any other region, although Sony has mentioned international availability "in time for the 2004 holidays." The PSX was announced in May 2003 as a hybrid device capable of playing PlayStation 2 games, connecting to a LAN, and recording broadcast and satellite TV programs.
The major hardware changes from the PlayStation 2 are as follows. Deleted and inserted text denotes features affected by a January 2004 firmware upgrade.
A new PlayStation 2-based OS powers the device with a minimalist icon-driven interface to navigate through recorded TV programs, music (ATRAC3 and MP3), and JPEG and TIFF photographic files.
The PSX is seen as a holdover device now that the PlayStation 2 is well-established in the market but the PlayStation 3 is not expected until 2005. In the market for DVD recorders with a built-in hard drive, the PSX is priced competitively but is still much more expensive than current game consoles and Digital Video Recorders. The Sony DESR-5000 includes a 160 GB hard drive and cost ¥79,800 (US$737) at launch. Depending on the quality setting, the DESR-5000 can store between 33 and 204 hours of recorded TV. The Sony DESR-7000 includes a 250 GB hard drive and cost ¥99,800 (US$922) at launch. Its larger hard drive stores between 53 and 325 hours of TV.
Sources:
http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6085553.html
http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6076537.html
http://www.gamespot.com/all/news/news_6076490.html
http://www.game-machines.com/news/100803/sony-psx.php
http://ps2.ign.com/articles/445/445925p1.html?fromint=1
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200310/03-1007E/