So general thoughts on the console after a day:
-Hardware-wise the console is very nice. Its silent, sexy, and easily modifiable (changing HDDs, hooking in USB/Bluetooth stuff).
-OS is very cool, but in definite need of some updates. Its fast, looks good, has tooooons of options to mess around with (fun fun fun), and it can do all sorts of stuff...but at the same time some basic functions are missing (cant leave audio player and have song keep playing while you do other stuff in XMB; NO XMB AT ALL WHEN IN GAME >_< x 1000; Text entry niggles; NO SCALER)
-Blu-ray player is OMFG AWESOME. I built a PC for HD HTPC about 6 months ago so Ive gotten fairly used to watching 1080p clips and all sorts of HD on my TV, but just being able to pop in a film and get a stunning 1080p transfer with no motion artifacts (damn you HD Cable!!) or problems at all is
~~~~ Once they actually start pumping out films in mass (and once Japan gets their ass into gear with releasing current HD TV anime on BD) and the selection grows blu-ray is going to be a VERY good reason to own a PS3 even besides the games. The PS3 controller works quite well for a remote, but theres no way to eject the disc (guess they need an incentive to buy the real remote). Im honestly more excited about upcoming movies than games atm...although only until THE KING...aka. VF5 hits in Feb/March (GOFTY).
-Sound quality in general is extremely good. Until now, many games have had to compress sound effects, voices, and music into LQ or MQ samples to conserve disc space; but with all the space available on blu-ray youre hearing extremely HQ sound. Hell, Gundam has VERY good music and the voice clips are as good as youd get while watching a DVD. Very nice.
-The way the PS3 starts up with the music is awesome each time.
-Cant tell how good friends list is since no one accepted my invitations (...is it even working?)...
-PS2 BC is alright. Its basically a PS2. Maybe the loading is slightly better, but probably the biggest speed upgrade is with any game that took forever to access the memory cards. Now since its just accessing the hard drive its instant. Whats really annoying is that sorta like the 1080i/720p fiasco, you have to manually go and change your system settings to 480p or else the PS3 will stretch any PS1/PS2 game >_< Definitely an extra hassle and annoying (firmware fix please).
-I tried hooking my PS2 -> PC USB adapter in and it didnt work. Need to research more about this. But I think Ill be having to buy the PS3 Hori VF5 sticks and not use my PS2 ones :\
-I wonder if the Logitech GT Wheel works with RR7? They said it would work on PS3 with GT:HD, GT5, etc.. Ill test this later.
-The Playstation store is really nice. Great layout, and some good stuff there already. I look foward to seeing this grow (and checking out the US store on Friday!)
-Internet browser is ok. Its faster than say the PSP or DC one, but its nowhere near as instant as just using my PC and since I can already browse through my HTPC....it has little effect on me.
-Audio player is meh. Visualization is really bland and they make you agree to copyright infringement policies or something before you can play a cd that you stick in. OTOH it gets all the track names and stuff from the internet like some PC players. But as said earlier, you cant back out and surf the web or chat with friends or change settings or do ANYTHING while listening to music atm. Its just like the PSP. :\
-The SIXAXIS is AWESOME. I would have called it GODLY if it wasnt for the lack of rumble. At first it feels light, but after about 30 mins it feels better than the DS2. The weight is really great. Motion sensing is unproven so far. Blast Factor was fun since it was simple with just left/right movements, but in all the launch games the motion sensing was so bad it rendered games unplayable when turned on in the place of standard controls. Luckily NO GAME REQUIRES MOTION...so far. Everything is optional and I hope it stays that way for the entire life of the PS3. No rumble is weird. When playing PS3 coming from PS2 you dont really notice it since a lot of PS2 games hardly used it (rpgs...pretty much never). But if youre switching daily between X360 and PS3 YOU WILL NOTICE because X360 games use it like CRAZY. I really hope they give up and just add the rumble back in and call it a Dual Shock 3 next year. If they do that itd be my favorite controller ever (though the analogues still suck for FPS games [deadzone is terrible for precise aiming]. Luckily I will play those mainly on X360 and PC!). Oh and the L2/R2 triggers are waaaay too sensitive. Even if you dont press down on them, if you just have your finger slight over them itll register. Like in Resistance you will be walking and suddenly the screen will pause and bring up your weapon select and youll go WTF!?! and then realize you were keeping a finger slightly on the R2 button. Also, no idea how good the L2/R2 works as ANALOGUE TRIGGERS since ummm...NO LAUNCH GAME USES THEM lol ^^; I guess we wont know until GT:HD how they work for driving games and such (though youll probably use wheels for those anyways).
-Powering on and off the system by hovering your finger over the button is cooool
The system does take a bit of time to turn off though (5-6 secs?). Being able to turn the system on/off with the controller like the X360 is good.
I think thats about it for the hardware side for now...