The PS3- in, out, and $599 later.

Controls

One of my biggest worries regarding the new SIXAXIS PS3 controller was the response time. Even though the system is based on bluetooth, many are worried that it may ?lag up? depending on interference or game response requirements.

Amazingly, this is not the case. To test it, I pulled out my most insane and speedy game I knew- Guilty Gear X-2- and tried it out on the SIXAXIS. And it played wonderfully- not a second was dropped during the game, and in no way did I feel as if the lack of a cord made the game slower. Unlike traditional wireless controllers for the PS2 or XBOX or the Wavebird for the Gamecube, the SIXAXIS is no doubt a company made controller- the lag time is literally nonexistent. Thank god.

Much like the Wii, though, things are not pristine perfect with the motion control. The SIXAXIS is made to be ultra sensitive for developers to be ultra develop-y, and this tends to mean that developers who are new with the system will overcompensate for any movement in the controller. An example of this is the much touted ?Motorstorm? game, which tends to think that even the most gentle tilt in your controller means you want to do a full ripping turn on the screen. I'm sure eventually, much like the digital sticks, this will be fixed with some sort of sensitivity slider.

Emulation

One of the biggest questions that has been on many minds has been the emulation power the PS3 has. The XBOX 360, only the second step in the XBOX series of consoles, has notoriously bombed at this, essentially failing any/all attempts at playing old games except for about a handful of 20.

This is not the case with the Playstation 3- one could literally throw away their PS2 upon opening the PS3. The PS3 is fully compatible with every game that has ?Playstation? on it- PS1, PS2, and PS3 games. All of these games are treated equally, though the emulator obviously kicks in for the first two- you just choose them from the menu screen and have at.

While there is the notorious lack of a rumble pack on the PS3, there are not many issues with the system and emulation. The only caveat to an otherwise stellar emulation is the fact that gamers with memory cards will need to buy a ~$15 adapter to plug their cards in, as the PS3 no longer supports those kind of cards. One would wonder why they didn't just shove two in, but nonetheless, it's a small purchase to make (much better than paying $5 a pop for a game, at least).

Everything else is treated normally. Games are not up or downscaled, and the loading times are actually improved significantly. Other than that, the PS3 simply serves as an emulator for your old games- for good and for bad.

Movies and Music

Fresh off the bat with the PS3 comes the ability to play Blu-ray discs and MP3 music, no holds barred. Since the new consoles come with a free copy of ?Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby?, there is definitely encouragement from the Sony crowd for you to try out these extra features- but are they that good?

Yes and no. Blu-ray, no matter what DVD fans say, is noticeably better quality across the board on any high definition television, showing leagues better quality and detail than your average DVD. On normal ?tube? televisions, however, you will never notice this- a sad little catch in an otherwise good feature. Hey, if DVD looks perfect on your average 30 inch television, going up to Blu-ray will not give you much for your money.

One nice thing about the PS3 movie features is that the system has a much updated DVD browsing system. Gone are the sh*tty on-screen guides and irritating features- everything is easily controlled via the controller, and the lag of disc read time is virtually nonexistent. Quite nice, considering the bulkiness of the PS2 DVD player.

And, to top this off, the PS3 has a very nice audio player, able to rip the music from CDs as well as simply play them through the CD player. Either way, the quality is excellent- though one would wonder why you would even bother. Nice feature, but it's been there since the PSX.

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