I am the proud owner of a shiny new PS3
Matt posted in Playstation 3 on November 18th, 2006

I got my PS3 today! I know it is a day after launch, but they made a mistake and shipped my PS3 to the wrong EB games, so I wasn’t able to get it today. All in all, it’s pretty darn cool. I signed up for the Playstation Network. My handle is PlayerZero, but I imagine I won’t be online for quite a while since I am very busy with work. Signing up for the Playstation Network was a bit tough because they gave no information about what is a valid user name or not. Can your user name be 3 letters? 35? Are numbers okay? How about symbols? It seems you can enter them all, and it only gives you a message saying the user name is invalid. Sometimes this is because players have taken it but as a test, I typed in a whole bunch of random symbols to make sure that it was something that wasn’t taken, but it rejected that too. I was really hoping for Player One, but I think spaces are invalid and PlayerOne was taken, although I have no way of knowing any of that for sure.

Before signing up for the Playstation Network, you have to update your console to version 1.10. That took a bit of time to download and once it’s done, it reboots your PS3 and actually does the installation. During this time, the video was corrupt. It was black and white (this may have been on purpose) and display two different flickering images on the screen, which made it a bit harder to read the prompts and complete the installation.

I downloaded the Motorstorm demo. It was running at a pretty smooth 30, which was a big step up from what I played at EB last week. The only thing was I had my PS3 originally set to 1080i (the native resolution of my TV), and it downsampled it to 480p without giving me any mention of changing my PS3 resolution. Interestingly enough, when I set my PS3 to run at 720p, the audio for Motorstorm stopped working. What gives? The motion controls are kind of cool, but I found the car harder to control than with the joystick. The demo gets bonus points because one of the two events included in the demo is called “Massive Damage”.

I watched a bit of Talladega Nights and Blu-ray looks really good. I think it is a bad choice for a pack in movie because a comedy isn’t any funnier with higher resolution whereas an action movie is more exciting with the increased pixel count. Unfortunately, the version they included is not the same version as the Blu-ray edition that will soon go on sale. This is the PG-13 theatrical cut, not the unrated and uncut version that will be available in stores. Interestingly, it seems that the theatrical cut is only available with a PS3 or on DVD. I couldn’t find this version in any online stores (although the packaging says “not for resale” and “for promotional use only” all over it, so it wouldn’t be the same exact version).

Also, I ordered an HDMI cable, but it hasn’t come in the mail yet. I used my PS3 component cables, which were made by Mad Catz or something like that, and the video was pretty poor quality. It looked a bit grainy and there was a moving wave of subtle discoloration that would go from the top to the bottom and then wrap around again. I haven’t noticed this for PS2 with these same cables, but that only runs at 480p. I have the official cables for Xbox and Xbox 360, and I haven’t noticed these problems on either console. I’m looking forward to getting an HDMI cable because a digital connection can’t be noisy. I only hope Microsoft releases an HDMI cable for the 360, although I think that might be tricky since the video card may not support digital out. More to come when I get more of a chance to play around with it. I’ll be sure to post my thoughts on the Wii when I pick it up later tonight.