Print Article: PlayStation 3: First Impressions



		PlayStation 3: First Impressions November 14, 2006

Summary: JCal gives us his first impressions of the PS3 that arrived unexpectedly at his door.

Introduction Page:: ( 1 / 2 )

The retail PS3 unit comes with the console itself, a Blu-Ray version of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, a power cable, one wireless SIXAXIS PS3 controller, a short USB cable for charging up the controller, and an AV connector for the TV. Not in the retail box but included in our review unit was an HDMI cable. Folks who want the full 1080p experience for the supported PS3 games and the Blu-Ray movies will have to pay extra for the cable.

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Setting up the PS3 is pretty simple. You put the power cord in the back of the console, then plug it into the socket (yeah, that’s pretty elementary but guess how many people don’t do this). We used the HDMI cable to hook it up to our 42 inch plasma TV from Toshiba. The PS3, like the PS2, has a switch in the back that needs to be pushed that powers up the console. A red light then starts glowing on the front. Then comes the cool part. The actual PS3 on/off button isn’t really a button at all, It’s a slightly raised symbol on the flat surface just below the Blu-Ray slot loading drive that you just push ever so slightly. When that happens the PS3 starts to come on.

If you haven’t done this beforehand, now is the time to plug in the SIXAXIS controller via the USB cable. You push the PS button in the center (similar to the Xbox 360’s center symbol button) and then you are taken to the set up screens where you put in your user name for the console, date, time zone and so on. Finally the system shows you the main PS3 screen (with a violin orchestra opening). As you may have seen from previous photos taken of the PS3 UI, it looks pretty similar to the UI for Sony’s PSP console.

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We immediately went to try out the integrated WiFi and the console quickly found our WiFi network. However, we had to immediately download a rather large update to the PS3 in order to continue being online. This 1.10 update took several minutes to download (and we have a 10 Mb cable download). Once the download was complete it asked us to install the update which we did. The 1.10 update now gave us access to the PS3 web browser which we gave you a preview of on Monday.

Since some of you had some concerns about the web browser, let me give you my impressions. Sony’s PS3 browser can be used with the controller but it’s a lot easier just to plug in a USB PC keyboard to type in URLs and a PC mouse to navigate the pages (and yes we did do both). The browser doesn’t appear to be all that advanced in terms of supporting features. The Flash support is outdated (several sites asked us to upgrade to the latest version to see their site correctly) and there doesn’t appear to be a way to play Windows Media Player or QuickTime videos inside the browser either. All in all this will not be replacing my Firefox 2.0 on my PC anytime soon.

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Quick Thoughts Page:: ( 2 / 2 )
Here are a few more observations before I go to bed..remember, this is just some quick thoughts about the PS3 from a few hours of playing.

I’ve played through a few hours of Resistance: Fall of Man and have been enjoying it a lot. It’s a fairly standard run and gun shooter in terms of the gameplay and the graphics, while solid, are not indicative of the PS3’s potential. However, it looks like developer Insomniac has created an overall presentation (the alternate history storyline, some scary alien-monster-thingies and more) that surpasses its flaws.

By the way, the SIXAXIS motion features are used in Resistance if you find yourself being bitten by one of the monsters. You can literally shake the controller to push the creature off you in the game.

I also played the new Genji game briefly. While some of the visual effects are pretty (the fire effects are nice) this game is another typical hack and slash action game that looks and feels like many, many similar games (Dynasty Warriors, anyone?)

The PS3 controller is very light compared to its Xbox 360 counterpart. You may have heard that the batteries for the wireless controller can’t be replaced and that you will have to get rid of the controller itself when its internal battery fails. While Sony claims it will take years for this to happen I think I would prefer a battery I could take out and replace?

One of the settings in the PS3 UI says to “Install Other OS”…hmmm, what does that mean?

As you can tell from the pictures provided in the article, the PS3 is very, very shiny. As a result it’s going to get dirty in our home and I suspect in other people’s homes very quickly.

I have to say the slot loading Blu-Ray disk drive is very cool. Not only is the power on/off “button” not really a button, the eject “button” for the disk drive isn’t one either. Again you gently push down the slightly raised eject icon just below the disk drive to pop out your PS3 disk.

I watched the Blu-Ray version of Black Hawk Down and was a tad disappointed to see that it looked a little darker than what I was expecting (keep in mind that my TV is “only” 42 inches and that home theater experts say I need a 65 inch TV to fully appreciate Blu-Ray).

The console runs pretty quiet even in full on game playing mode and it’s also surprisingly cooler than one might expect.

The web browser can only hold about three or four separate windows before the PS3’s memory causes it to tell you to shut down one of them.

The good news; the online Playstation 3 store is online but the bad news is that you only have the Japanese versions available. We think another system update will be needed before Friday to get the US version up and running. Until then there’s no multiplayer and no downloadable games.

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That’s all for now..look for more details impressions later this week.

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