SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 22 I never thought Ludacris would get in the way of my video game habit.
But there I was Thursday evening on the second floor of the warehouse Sony rented here to show off its soon-to-be-released PlayStation 3 game console, checking out the acrobatic skateboard moves in Tony Hawks Project 8, when the floor started shaking.
It was only then that I looked up and realized that the dozen other PS3 stations around the room had been shut down. Almost all of the journalists Sony had invited to test drive the new machine, and almost all of the Sony employees there to handle them, had decamped downstairs to watch Ludacris, in full blinged-out mode, perform a few yards away from the sushi bar.
I like Dirty South hip-hop, and I really like Ludacris. But the emotions that surged through me in that instant were not excitement and anticipation. Rather, they were anger and frustration: anger that I had to put down the controller and frustration that I had to go see Ludacris rather than keep playing.
Thats the kind of effect the PlayStation 3 can have on a person.
The PS3 will not be available to North American consumers until Nov. 17, but last weeks brief demonstration made clear that Sony has produced a powerful entertainment machine. As Japans digital champion, Sony has created an elegant paragon of domestic technology that seems set to hold its own against Microsofts Xbox 360 and the Wii console due next month from Nintendo.
Its about time. The PS3 was originally scheduled to be released in the spring, but problems with Sonys fancy new Blu-Ray disc system forced a delay. The machine was also originally supposed to be released in the worlds major markets at the same time, but the production problems have forced Sony to delay the European launch until next year.
And then theres the fact that it will be all but impossible for normal, everyday consumers to actually find a PlayStation 3 for sale this holiday season. Sony will be able to deliver only 400,000 copies of the machine to North America at first, and those will almost certainly sell out within hours, even though the top version of the PS3 will cost a mighty $600 before you even buy any games. (There are going to be a lot of angst-ridden parents and frustrated kids out there this year.)
But for all of those caveats, just a few hours actually playing the thing last week made clear that for most gamers the wait will be worth it.
Start with the basics. Nongamers often think that video games are experienced mostly through the eyes and ears, but any player will tell you that the real interfaces for a video game are the hands.
So when you first pick it up, the PS3 controller feels exactly like the classic PlayStation 2 controller that has become familiar to millions of people around the world. Thats a good thing. Of course, the first big difference is that there arent any wires connecting the controller to the slick black base station. (In this next generation of game systems, wireless controllers have become de rigeur.)
The second thing one notices is what Sony is calling the controllers Sixaxis feature: you can simply tilt, turn and twist the entire controller left and right, up and down, without pushing any buttons, to produce action on the screen. So in a game like Ubisofts Blazing Angels Squadrons of WWII, I could fly my Spitfire fighter over the Dunkirk evacuation in a dogfight against the Nazis in an entirely intuitive fashion as if I were holding an actual airplane control stick. Likewise, I can easily direct my dragon in the game Lair in swooping turns and dives.
In fairness, it has to be pointed out that Sonys tilt-and-turn feature does not seem quite as robust or quite as integral to the system as the similar (but more powerful) functionality in Nintendos Wii. If it works as promised, the Nintendo system will let a player use the two hands separately, so one hand could hold a virtual sword and the other a virtual shield, for example, while the Sony system forces the user to hold the controller with two hands together. And it looks as if it will take some time before game developers learn to use the Sixaxis technology as more than a glorified gimmick in anything outside of flying games. But that said, the technology does seem to work properly and is one clear advantage the PlayStation 3 has over the Xbox 360, which does not include anything like it.
But what about the PS3s graphics? They are simply gorgeous. Whether it was the almost photo-realistic rain spray coming off Michael Schumachers Ferrari in Formula 1, the ferocious aliens (or are they mutants?) in Resistance: Fall of Man, or the mist-shrouded links in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07, at times I found myself almost mesmerized, just wanting to watch the screen rather than actually play the games. At some level it seems a shame that many of the people who get a PlayStation 3 will not have the high-definition television required to get the most out of the system.
Are the PlayStation 3 graphics leaps and bounds beyond those delivered by the Xbox 360? No, or more accurately, not yet. Out of the gate, the PS3 graphics and the Xbox 360 graphics will be almost indistinguishable. But I did come away with an impression that a year or two from now, once developers figure out how to harness more of the PS3s prodigious silicon horsepower, the Sony machine may be able to deliver a level of overall graphical immersion beyond what is possible on the Microsoft unit.
All in all, Sony can consider its presentation on Thursday a success. The PS3 unquestionably delivers a next-generation digital entertainment experience. It is impossible to make any sweeping judgments based on only a few hours of play time (especially about the systems online component). In just a few weeks players in North America and Japan will have the opportunity to truly put the machine through its paces. But for now it looks as if the PlayStation 3 just might live up to Sonys hype.
Maybe even Ludacris will get one.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/23/a...rss&adxnnlx=1161609153-IljxYNlJQ6j/R9EH7kcX0g
I would hope the damned thing can hold its own vs. the Wii.
