The images of one of the first PlayStation 3s in the UK have been rushed to SPOnG, and are of the quality you'd expect of an over-eager professional trying to get as many angles as possible. Stay tuned for some 'super-model' shots soon.
Without a doubt, the week’s most exciting (and unexpected) occurrence has been the arrival of a PlayStation 3. Yes, there are some (very few, apparently) in the UK – a fact that makes the conspiracy theorists who opined that the PS3 will struggle to even make its March ’07 release date look as foolish as, well, they obviously are.
So here are our first impressions. First, a disclaimer, or at least a note of caution. Sony says our PS3 is not even a full debug, although it adds that final-spec debugs should arrive in early-to-mid November. Indeed, the PS3 has an extremely cool sticker on its back bearing the legend: “Prototype – Not For Sale”. Which, surely, is the ultimate PS3 status symbol.
What you get
The anonymous (and surprisingly small) cardboard box the PS3 came in contained the machine a (large-format kettle-lead) power cable – the power supply is built into the console, hence its size and bicep-sapping weight -- a controller, a mini-USB-to-USB lead (for charging the controller), a Component Video connector (no HDMI cable, unfortunately), and a network cable (somewhat superfluous, since Sony says the PlayStation Network won’t be up and running in the UK for approximately a fortnight).
On the outside
It’s undoubtedly a beautifully finished, handsome machine – much better in the flesh than in pictures – with a classy piano-black finish and a chrome strip (which, we’re told, will only feature on the 60Gb retail machines). The ports are: Video Out, Optical Out (blanked on our machine), HDMI out and Network on the back; on the front, you get four USB port plus, under a flap next to the Blu-ray drive, Compact Flash, SD and Memory Stick.
Powering up
Firing up the beast is a pretty satisfying exercise, thanks in part to some very snazzy shenanigans involving multi-coloured LEDs. There are two of these next to the Blu-ray slot. Flip the (PS2-style) rocker power-switch on the back and they glow red. Touch the touch-sensitive on-off switch between the LEDs and the Blu-ray slot, and they glow green; when the machine fully powers up, one glows green and the other blue. Start shoving a Blu-ray disk into the slot and a servo-motor takes over, sucking it into the PS3’s insides.
The New Controller
Similarly to the Xbox 360, you have to press the new PlayStation button in the middle of the controller so that it communicates with the console (no pressing and holding required, though). On the back of the controller are red LEDs marked 1 to 4 which show your player number. The controller, divested of its rumble hardware, is strikingly light, and the triggers, although the same size as those of the PS2, now protrude from the controller like fingernails. They have much longer travel, as they’re now analogue. We can confirm that the motion-sensing works, as we tested it with MotorStorm – and swiftly turned it off, as it rendered the game unplayable.