I wrote an entry a few weeks ago about the PS3, in which I mentioned its lack of games at the moment, but its appeal to me as a bluray player and multimedia device. Being the weak willpowered individual that I am when it comes to electronics, I am now the owner of a PS3.
Sorry about the crappy pic quality, I don't know what happened. I own a pretty high-end camera, but the PS3's shiny black case I think acts as a blackhole and sucks all light into it, resulting in the blurry picures (that's my story and I am sticking to it).
I just received it yesterday. The box includes the system, one wireless remote, one mini USB cable, an ethernet cable, power plug, and standard RCA jacks. I still think it is extremely stupid on Sony's part to tout the PS3 as the ultimate HD experience and then ship it with cables that are not capable of carrying a HD signal. But that is fine, I planned ahead and I had a shiny new HDMI and Optical cable ready to go.
Before I could connect it I had the daunting task of disconnecting EVERYTHING from my tv, dust and clean all applications, untangle the huge mess of wires, then start connecting everything from scratch. It took me 2 ½ hours, but I think it was worth it. It looks a lot neater back there now and I got rid of a lot of dust, which is not good for the tv and components.
So, around 11pm I FINALLY hit the power button. A quick note, turning on the PS3 is the coolest thing ever. The power "button" located on the front is not even a button, just some heat sensitive section on the glossy front. You place your finger on it (no pressure is even necessary) and the system comes to life. Same with the eject button. VERY damn cool. A second note, I had heard how quite this system is, but damn, you can't hear a peep from it. After getting used to the 360's constant humming, this was a jarring contrast.
Upon firing up the system I am greeting with the menu system, which is basically identical to the PSP menu system. It has a nice, plain, clean look to it. Not as flashy or colorful as the 360's Dashboard and Blades. It is a nice change, but overall, I like Microsoft's interface a lot more.
One of the first things I needed to do is download the latest firmware update. Looks like updating the PS3 is slightly less user friendly than the 360, since you need to sit through the downloading screen, then after that, it needs to install the actual update, which has you sitting though another loading screen. The same goes for downloaded game demos. Very annoying, especially once you have gotten used to being able to access your content immediately after downloading them on the 360.
Another hindrance is that the PS3 has yet to implement background downloading (one of the best additions done to the 360 dashboard), so once you start downloading a demo you are stuck staring at the DL screen until it is complete. I know Sony is going to implement this in a future firmware update, but you would think it would have been done for the system's launch, considering people moaned and complained about this very issue a year prior with the 360.
Since I will not have a Bluray disc to test out until tomorrow (getting Over the Hedge through Netflix) I was not able to test out the main reason I purchased the system. I popped in two dvds (Batman Begins and Finding Nemo) and both looked fine, no big difference either way compared to my progressive-scan player (which has now been demoted from the entertainment center).
I downloaded the Motorstorm and Gran Turismo demos and both looked very nice. Motorstorm especially is a lot of fun.
I popped out my digital cameras CF card and put it right into the handy CF reader in the PS3 and I was able to download all the pics in a matter of seconds. Very fast. The PS3 seems to be the better choice for watching slide shows on your tv. You get a few different options and styles to choose from and the pics load up very fast (the slide show takes a bit longer to go from pic to pic on the 360 when streaming them from the PC).
I also tested out the internet browser. Takes a little while to get used to (using a controller to navigate), but once you learn all the short cuts it actually is pretty easy. I tested out a few pages (IGN, Teamxbox, Nonewbiesallowed, even Myspace) and they all loaded fine. The text on the screen was a bit too small for my liking, even when set to the largest setting. Erick told me that if I set the system to output in 720p instead of 1080i (what I have it set to) that the browser looks larger and everything is easy to read. I'll have to look into that.
Until I test out the Bluray player (and some decent games . . . which none are in the horizon yet) the final verdict is still out. Tech wise, it is a pretty damn nice system. I'm still a HUGE fan of what Microsoft did with the entire Dashboard, Xbox Live community and how user friendly everything is, Sony is not going to be able to come close to them in that regard. As a gaming machine, the 360 can't be beat. But even if I use the PS3 just as a Bluray player, Photo viewer and internet browser, it will be more than worth the $600.
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