One of 400,000.
November 19th, 2006 by Jake
That’s right, you read correctly, and if you can use your awesome inferring skills, you can probably guess I’m talking about a PlayStation 3.
It’s actually a funny (and damn lucky) story of how I came to own one. I’ve got a friend who works at GameStop. He invited me at around 11PM to come and grab a Wii because he knew they’d be getting in extras. I bring a friend, we show up, and unfortunately, he got less Wii’s than he anticipated. Oh well, that’s fine, no big deal. We wait around, watch the Wii Countdown Clock reach zero, and as I’m talking with the manager, he literally says to me, “But yeah… we don’t have any Wii’s, they’re all preordered. I do have a PS3 though.” I’m sure my mouth fell open for just a second because I couldn’t be hearing right. Every place sold out pf PS3s within 5 minutes of opening their doors, how can there be a PS3 at this lowly GameStop almost 48 hours after release? Well it was true, and although it was only a core system, it was in fact a PlayStation 3.
I brought it home, and taped the unboxing. Unfortunately, my friend (who I guess didn’t have much experience with camcorders and tripods) didn’t shoot a very good movie for me while I was unboxing it. Fine, whatever, YouTube will survive without another “PS3 Unboxing Video”. Now, let me clear some rumors about the core-premium system differences. The differences are that the premium system has a 60GB hard drive (versus a 20), WiFi (versus no WiFi), the core system does have HDMI out (that was a bad runor), and no Memory Card slots (on the core system that panel doesn’t even open, it’s just part of the case). Oh, and no silver trim, either. I think I’ll manage.
On first boot, just like a PSP, it asks for your language and the date and time. It then proceeds to boot with a nice orchestrated startup sound and a smooth digital ribbon that floats across the screen, much like the PSP’s. Here’s a screenshot from my TV Tuner (yeah, it’s not the best quality (blame the TV tuner.)):
Sensational. There are a ton of features. Here are a few that come to the top of my mind in no particular order:
- It obviously uses the XMB [Cross Media Bar] Menu Format identical to that of the PSP. They’re supposed to release version 3.0 of the PSP firmware which will allow me to control my PS3 remotely and stream content back and forth. Sweet.
- The power and eject buttons are touch sensitive. To eject a disc, (I have mine upright and I can’t see the button…touch…panel…thing) all you really need to do is slide your finger along it and it’ll catch it at the right point. It makes it feel futuristic, really, it’s cool.
- The controllers are tilt-sesitive (the game has to support it in its own unique way). You can power on and off your PS3 from your controller, as well as just power off the controller. They charge via a MiniUSB cable which you can hook right into one of the PS3’s four USB ports.
- There’s a user account system on the PS3, allowing you or your friends to create their own accounts on the PS3 so each can have his own saved data and preferences. I don’t know to what extent this is customizable (which settings are user-based and which are global).
- You can plug in a USB flash drive, and the PS3 will read its contents, allowing you to play or display the media on the drive. You still need to use the PSP-style folder names (”Music”, “Photo”, “Video”, etc) but be happy that it can read USB flash drives. [EDIT: You can browse the filesystem and search manually for music, photos, or videos. Simply select the drive, press Triangle, and select “Display All”] I need to look into this some more, but this is definately a strong point about the console.
- The PS3 can emulate older PSone/PS2 memory cards (8MB virtual-cards, stored on the hard drive) and will emulate them while you’re playing a PSOne/PS2 game so there’s no need to actually have a memory card anymore.
- Once again, there’s a built-in web browser (this time, obviously, with a bit better resolution). In case anyone’s interested, the User Agent string is:
Mozilla/5.0 (PLAYSTATION 3; 1.00) - There’s a friends network (some people are referring to it as the “PlayStation Hub”), and I registered in time to get the username I wanted. If you’ve got a PS3 and you’re on the friends network, add me: SpikeX
- As far as the PlayStation Store goes (yes, it’s real and working), you can purchase smaller games for a small price (PSOne games are supposedly $14.99), you have a virtual “wallet” where you store funds which can be transferred from your credit card, there are also mini-games you can purchase as well as free demos to download)
That’s pretty much it. Overall, it has some awesome media capabilities, and having it hooked up on a high-def TV is pretty damn sweet. The fact that it’s capable of USB flash drives, mice, keyboards, and more is cool, too, and its design, however big and heavy, is still pretty sleek.
The gameplay is unbelievable. It might be that I picked up one of the better release titles (Resistance: Fall Of Man), but I love how it plays. The graphics are noticeably better and the wireless controller is light and functional and doesn’t lag the gameplay at all (it helps that the controllers are Bluetooth). Here are some screenshots of Resistance (note the bad quality, blame the TV tuner):
The screenshots don’t do it justice, I promise.
That’s about it, here are some pictures on Flickr of the whole setup:
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- Tags: gaming, ps3, reviews, sony
