The PS3 is a much maligned “Next Gen” console, by the way I remember when the Super Nintendo was a “Next Gen” console so everything is relative, however, I think it exorbitant price has distracted people from it’s many virtues and a new addition due at the end of March 2008 will add further arrows to its quiver.
First, it looks fabulous and you do feel you are getting value for money from this big solid “piano black” box (I have the 60gb UK version) especially when compared to the X-Box 360, which looks like a breezeblock and feels cheap and plasticky. Second, the version I have not only includes the PS3 games engine and the Blu-Ray DVD player common to all iterations so far but also includes a handy card reader (Compact Flash, Secure Digital and Sony Memory Stick, of course) as well as the facility to playback CDs encoded in the Super Audio format (SACD). Further, it also has four USB ports into which can be plugged external hard drives, although it is true you can do this with the X-Box there is one thing that Bill Gates’ boys can not do with its system that the Sony box can do but more of that later.
Aesthetically and externally then the PS3 is the winner in direct competition with its rival the X-Box, the Wii is not really playing in the same game to be fair as it is a “Next Gen” console in an entirely different way. However, the way that most players will judge their systems is through the main interface and subsequently the games that the system plays. In the former the PS3 is again a winner.
The PS3 cross bar menu system is familiar already to those of us with a PSP and is a very clever way of having multiple sub-menus nested within a simple to comprehend string of overall headings. Thus, the Settings menu heading has over a dozen sub-headings, most of which have multiple further options to fiddle with. There are some wonderful touches, under the games headings for instance each game save has a thumbnail of the game in question and most, if left highlighted with no further action, will then turn the background into a large desktop image of the game in question, sometimes even with animation and a soundtrack too. Compare this with the X-Box’s rather Star Trek Next Gen feel, all very 1980s and apart from a rather pleasant sliding card effect very unsophisticated. There is no clever nesting of options and often it is very hard to find which screen has the item you are searching for, all of which is very unsatisfactory. The games all have achievements, which is a good feature and helps keep the interest in games after the initial thrill has gone but there is no equivalent of the Sony thumbnail/desktop graphical extravaganza. This is however, a constant theme of Microsoft products over the years, a poorly thought-out and badly executed interface, it is ironic that they mage their fortune on a poor interpretation of Apple’s interface and Vista continues this tradition as a poor man Mac OS X.
The real decider on which console is the best should be the games but often it takes a year or two for a console to start reaching its’ potential, thus the X-Box is now in its stride with many games looking great and playing very well, Bioshock being an obvious joy this year but let us not forget Forza Motorsport, Project Gotham Racing 4 or Mass Effect. There are very few games available for the PS3 even now and none that exist solely on that machine which reach these heights. Having said that there are signs that things are improving, Ratchet and Clank is beautiful to look at and the next iteration of Gran Turismo looks like it is going to be a winner and it was very generous of them to give us a free mini-game to download from the Playstation Network store (I will cover the respective internet stores and experiences in future blogs).
The one thing that the X-Box can not do and it is here that I think ultimately the PS3 will win out is in its use of the PSP. I will compare the PSP and the DS in another future blog but for now it is the way the PSP links with the PS4 that is of great interest. I have an external hard drive attached to my PS3. On it are programmes I have recorded from the television as well as backups of some of my DVDs. You can register your PSP with your PS3 and then enable Remote Play, this nifty software trick means that you can take over your PS3 with your PSP, pretty useless in the same room especially as you can not play games through the PSP but you can connect to your home PS3 through the internet. Imagine the scene, you are sat in a coffee shop in town with some time to kill. You turn on your PSP, link into the coffee shops wi-fi network and take control of your PS3. You navigate to your videos and start watching that episode of the Mighty Boosh that you recorded last night. Better yet, you are abroad on holiday and you can log into your PS3 to watch films from anywhere in the world.
The icing on the cake for this will be released around the end of March 2008 in the UK. Play TV is a Freeview device that you can attach to your PS3 turning it into a Tivo like device (or Sky + without the paid for satellite channels of course). You can then watch these recording on your PSP on the train on the way into work. Hopefully you will be able to set recordings up from your PSP too.
Therefore, it is the media features of the PS3 that I believe will make it win out over the X-Box. The Blu-Ray drive is a godsend, especially as the HD-DVD drive is a further £100- add-on for the 360. The Play TV add-on and the integration with the PSP is a winning combination that Microsoft can not emulate as they have eschewed the handheld market all together. Personally for me the SACD feature when hooked up to my AV unit via an optical cable is also a joy. The 360 allows you to rent films already and indeed most are available in HD format but this feature is likely to come to the PS3 too given Sony’s link to the Hollywood film industry. It is ironic that I have dismissed the gaming features of these consoles in just a few words and instead have focused on their non-core functions but he ability to access media from anywhere rather than having to carry your collection round with you is one of the key battlegrounds of this increasingly connected age.
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