Playstation 3  -  PS3 By Any Other Name

By Thomas Machuca

I've been commissioned by the head-honchos of the underground here at Web Wombat to tell you something of dire urgency:

I don’t have a Playstation 3.

I have two. Yes, that is right, I have two; just in case I have the need to play PS3 while in my bathroom (I'm a part time plumber). Seriously though, I have Linux running on one system, hence the need for two.

I didn’t just write this article to brag, I also wanted to tell you about the past few months I’ve had with my PS3… Wonderful, wonderful months.

I was one of the lucky few to pre-order my PS3 and get it on the day of the launch. 

I was even luckier as I was furthermore the proud owner of a brand spanking new 46-inch LCD television set. For those who don’t know of these new fangled screens, they are better suited to videogames than Plasmas and I'd recommend everyone to go out and buy one as well as most of them come with high definition features.

Yet you don’t necessarily need a big high definition TV to enjoy the PS3. The games and operating system still look pretty good on normal televisions, but to get the true full experience out of the console you really want high-def.

The three games I acquired initially for the Playstation 3 were Fight Night: Round 3, Resistance: Fall Of Man, and MotorStorm. All of these games I enjoyed playing and each for their own unique reasons.

I will not go into detail about these games as this article is purely about the PS3 itself. I’ll leave that for the future and for you guys out there to try for yourself. A few quick words though: MotorStorm is the real deal,the bomb-digity!

Okay, so the PS3 is the new entertainment hub. Like other next gen consoles from Microsoft and Nintendo, modern consoles are no longer restricted to just playing games -- it's no longer a pure gaming device, but an entertainment hub.

The PS3 can store your photos, music, movies and games on its 60GB built-in (and expandable) hard disk drive. It does this all in style, with different slideshows to display your pictures, and has a cool looking visual music player. The PS3 also has the ability to connect to your computer network so that you can stream multimedia straight from your personal computer.

Blu-ray Discs are the new format for the future, so naturally the PS3 comes fully equipped with a Blu-ray player for high definition games and movies. Just quickly, Blu-ray discs can store between 25 and 50 gigabytes (single and dual layer respectively) and as such movies have far sharper picture quality than standard DVDs. We checked out Casino Royale on Blu-ray and it looks incredibly sharp.

Furthermore, the PS3 has Bluetooth technology, giving you the ability to connect up to seven rechargeable motion-sensitive 'SIXAXIS' wireless controllers among other Bluetooth devices.

A few more specifications I should mention are the four USB ports for connection to digital devices such as cameras, music players and storage devices, compatible with variety of memory cards, including CompactFlash, SD Memory Card & Memory Stick Duo. It also has unique interconnectivity with the Sony PSP.

After ripping open the box and then connecting the PS3 to the LCD television, I hooked up a keyboard and mouse via USB. I have since used them for a multitude of things, and they makes the PS3 look like a very sexy computer too.

Next up it's time for the new SIXAXIS Wireless Controller, as mentioned above. Utilising sensors designed to read when a player angles, tilts, thrusts or pulls the controller, these seemingly innocuous objects allow game play to become a natural extension of the player's body. Not unlike the Nintendo Wii, the SIXAXIS allow a degree of motion detection. 

With the heritage of the PlayStation system's basic controller design still intact, gamers are able to use the controls they've grown accustomed to over the years, while harnessing the added intuitive movements of the multi-axis controller.

Remember how your Old Man always taught you that nothing in life is free? Well, you better get the fire suppression system out because someone's pants are on fire. One great thing about the PS3 is that online play is free!

You are able to download updates for your games and play online against friends and family who are millions of miles apart... Or next door. And it's absolutely free. I like that. Microsoft's Xbox Live system has a monthly subscription that costs you money, the Playstation Network doesn't.

Another great thing about the Playstation Network is the ‘Playstation Store’ where you are able to download game demos and video trailers - once again, absolutely free. Plus you can purchase exclusive PS3 games and ‘add-on’ content which is not available anywhere else. There is even an Internet browser supplied so you can check your email and surf your favourite websites, and you are able to conduct audio and video online chat as well.

Seeing as I obtained two PS3s [Where's mine? - Ed] I decided to put Linux on one of them and use it as my 'computer'. The PS3 allows you to install other operating systems designed to run on the PS3 architecture. Sadly, as the PS3 has not been out for very long, these operating systems haven’t yet been able to utilise the full potential of the console.

The Linux I installed was Kubuntu and it works well. Now all I have to do is learn how to use it...

The PS3 is even helping me get into heaven. Puzzled? The PS3 (once updated) contains a program called Folding@home which is a distributed computing project. The goal of this project is to research protein folding and misfolding to gain an understanding of how these are related to disease.

Targeted diseases include (but are not limited to) Alzheimers, Parkinsons, and many forms of cancer. My participation will help accelerate the understanding of these and other diseases, hence, my stepping stone to heaven.

Finally, I just mentioned that you can update your PS3. This feature is fabulous as your console is ever evolving and gaining more to its repertoire. For example, in one update you were able to upscale PS2 games and DVDs to 1080p (read: high definition). This makes a huge difference when watching DVDs - it pretty much makes the PS3 a high-def DVD player, whichno longer makes my whole DVD collection an oversized, expensive paperweight.

I have to admit, I have become a slight Sony fanboy since my purchase, therefore I could go on and on and on about the PS3, but I’ll leave it there. I tried to think of bad things to mention in this article, however I seriously couldn’t think of any major problems. Oh, there is the price issue, which a lot of people have commented on. And I can see this posing a problem when the Wii is less than half it's price, but you do get a decent amount of functionality here.

Like it's two major rivals, the Sony Playstation is no longer just for games. It is an entertainment hub that plays video games, Blu-ray movies, DVD movies, slideshow of images, music and is also an online portal. Because you can plug in keyboards, mice, cameras, and other USB-based peripherals it almost has the functionality of a desktop computer.

My closing words are, "I love my Playstation 3" [You're fired - Ed].

System: Playstation 3 (PS3 Linux)
Players: Many
Online: Yes
Developer: Sony
Distributor: Sony

Rating: 90%

(Ratings Key/Explanation)