Cell inside
When final specs were released for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, not surprisingly, there was a big debate over which system was technically more powerful. The 360 uses more off-the-shelf PC components while The PlayStation 3's 3.2GHz Cell processor was built from the ground up just for the PS3. It consists of a single PowerPC-based core with seven synergistic processing units and is the result of a joint effort between IBM, Sony, and Toshiba, which is ironic, considering that Sony and Toshiba are in a deathmatch over Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
The key thing to know about the Cell is that it has the juice to run a new class of gameplay physics that will allow developers to create spectacular effects and eventually provide a whole new depth of realism to games. Paired with PlayStation 3's RSX Reality Synthesizer graphics-processing unit, a gargantuan 550MHz, 300-million-transistor graphics chip based on Nvidia's GeForce 7800 GTX graphics technology, and you're looking at a very high-end PC. The only problem, of course, is that it'll take developers years to learn to take full advantage of all that processing power and truly deliver on the graphical promise of the system. The same, of course, is true for the Xbox 360, but we suspect from our talks with developers that the PS3 may ultimately be declared the more powerful system. (Say what you will about increasing development times and rising costs for producing video games, but Blu-ray's 25GB to 50GB storage capacity--as opposed to 8.5GB for the Xbox 360's DVD drive--does give developers the chance to create huge games).
At the end of the day, as Microsoft learned, you can tout all the power you want, but if you can't keep your system cool--and fairly quiet--you're going to have some serious problems on your hands. What's impressive about this PS3, in fact, is that with all this power under the hood, the system runs as quietly as it does. After running for three hours straight, we found that we could still place a hand over the back of the unit and not get scorched--the system runs pretty warm, but not blazingly hot. While the 360's tendency to overheat has been exaggerated, its cooling fan and DVD drive are comparatively far noisier, sometimes to the point of distraction
Play time The first thing we should be clear on is that for your $600, you don't actually get any games (the first round of systems will ship with a Blu-Ray movie, Talledega Nights). There's also only a single controller. With our review unit, Sony sent over retail copies of Resistance: Fall of Man, a first-person shooter that's arguably the system's most impressive title and Genji, a hack-and-slasher that's garnered only average reviews. At a couple preview events, we also played several other launch titles, the majority of which are also available for the Xbox 360.
In fact, it's very hard to tell the difference between titles that are already available on the 360 and their PS3 counterparts because they're ports of the same game. Where you start to see some of the promise is in Sony's in-house titles, such as Resistance: Fall of Man and NBA 07. The latter may not measure up to 2K Sports' NBA 2K7, but the game looks impressive, with crisp graphics and smooth 60fps high-def gameplay. Formula One Championship Edition is another title that really jumps out at you graphically; the game looks really impressive but won't be out until later next year. We're also waiting to compare the PS3 versions of EA's Fight Night 3 to its Xbox 360 counterpart to see if the company was able to make any improvements.
The long and short of it is that the PS3 clearly measures up to the Xbox 360 in terms of its graphics prowess and the added dimension that the tilt controller offers, is a new twist. That said, there really isn't anything available yet that's too unique or so far beyond what the Xbox 360 offers that you think, "I gotta get this system to play that game." The reality is, as usual, you're going to have to wait for that breakout title. (Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4, due in 2007, is currently getting a lot of buzz and will supposedly be a PS3 exclusive.)
Backward compatibility While you're waiting for that killer PS3 game, you can still fall back on hundreds, if not thousands, of PlayStation catalog titles. The PS3 is fully backward-compatible with nearly all PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 1 games. Just toss in a disc and the PS3 will create a virtual memory card on its hard drive to store saved games and preferences. We had no trouble running PS2 titles such as Shadow of the Colossus and Star Wars Starfigher. While we expect that a handful of older titles won't run on the PS3, Sony deserves kudos for near-universal backward compatibility. By comparison, Xbox 360 support for Xbox1 titles is limited to a set list of games with emulation profiles (Microsoft updates the list periodically, but it's still limited to less than half the number of the games available for the older console). Nintendo does better with the Wii: it plays all GameCube game discs.
Hardware and accessory compatibility is a mixed bag. You can't connect PS2 controllers to the PS3 because the new console lacks the older controller port, but because the PS3 control design is nearly identical, your older games will play just fine. Likewise, games that utilize any unique accessories that must plug into the PS2-style control port--such as Guitar Hero's mighty ax--won't work on the PS3. But USB accessories--such as the EyeToy--should be good to go. Have some old God of War saved games that you just can't part with? Invest $15 in a special card reader, and you can transfer any games from your PS2 memory cards to the PS3's hard drive.
Movie watching Before we got our hands on a retail unit, we'd been able to spend some time previewing the system, and while we had a pretty good picture of what it can do in terms of gaming and multimedia functionality, we hadn't been able to test it as a Blu-ray player. Sony, of course, is taking a big risk by attempting to go out with a new system that not only features a new processor but a new, unproven optical drive format. The company is making a heavy bet on the PS3 as a game machine, but it's also staking its Blu-ray fortunes on the system as well, and we were most curious to see how it delivered as a Blu-ray player.
Because we were more familiar watching Mission: Impossible III on the Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player, we decided to do our testing using that disc rather than Talledega Nights. Watching on one of the finest large-screen TVs available, the 60-inch Sony KDS-R60XBR2, we watched several scenes from the movie on the Samsung first, then switched over to the PS3. In case you're wondering, load times for the disc were essentially identical at 40 seconds on each player (we hit stop on our stopwatch when a picture appeared on the screen). That isn't terrible, but this is obviously an area where Sony can make some improvements down the road with a next-generation drive that's faster.
As for the picture, it was quite comparable to what we saw on the Samsung, and navigating the disc was a fairly zippy process. In other words, at first glance, the PS3 seems to stack up fairly well against Blu-ray players costing nearly twice as much ($1,000), which may obviate the need for those players to actually exist.
Furthermore, the PS3 is the first A/V device to hit the market to utilize the HDMI 1.3 specification. That doesn't mean much now--there's no corresponding HDMI 1.3 products to connect it to. But in the future--2007 and beyond--that should enable to PS3 to pass HD video and next-gen surround-sound audio (such as Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD) to compatible A/V receivers via a single HDMI cable. In the meantime, the PS3, like other Blu-ray and HD-DVD players, can pass 1080p HD video and uncompressed LPCM surround soundtracks to compatible A/V receivers and TVs.
If we had one complaint with the PS3, it was that it didn't upscale standard DVDs to HD resolutions, a feature that's standard on other Blu-ray and HD-DVD players. Instead, they default to 480p (progressive-scan). But that's hardly a deal-breaker, especially when you consider the competition: the Xbox 360 requires a clunky add-on drive to play HD-DVD movies (though downloadable high-def movies will soon be available via Xbox Live), and the Nintendo Wii doesn't play back movie discs of any type.
Accessing Blu-ray and DVD menus with the PS3 controller is functional, if awkward. Unfortunately, you won't be able to program a standard universal remote to control your PS3--it lacks an infrared port, so it needs to receive commands via Bluetooth. Not coincidentally, Sony offers a Bluetooth compatible remote for $25.
Conclusion Though not with out a few minor drawbacks--and we'll probably find a few more as we continue testing the system--the PS3 is a versatile and impressive piece of home entertainment equipment that lives up to the hype. As usual, the launch titles don't do all that much to sell the system, but that should start to change within the next six months as more impressive titles come to market. Whether you buy the PS3 today or whenever it becomes available in quantity, you can be sure you'll feel that you got your money's worth--from a gaming and a multimedia perspective.
Editors note: We are continuing to perform ongoing tests on the PlayStation 3's gameplay, online functionality, Blu-ray player, and media compatibility, and will update this review accordingly.
Copyright ©1995-2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
When final specs were released for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, not surprisingly, there was a big debate over which system was technically more powerful. The 360 uses more off-the-shelf PC components while The PlayStation 3's 3.2GHz Cell processor was built from the ground up just for the PS3. It consists of a single PowerPC-based core with seven synergistic processing units and is the result of a joint effort between IBM, Sony, and Toshiba, which is ironic, considering that Sony and Toshiba are in a deathmatch over Blu-ray and HD-DVD.
The key thing to know about the Cell is that it has the juice to run a new class of gameplay physics that will allow developers to create spectacular effects and eventually provide a whole new depth of realism to games. Paired with PlayStation 3's RSX Reality Synthesizer graphics-processing unit, a gargantuan 550MHz, 300-million-transistor graphics chip based on Nvidia's GeForce 7800 GTX graphics technology, and you're looking at a very high-end PC. The only problem, of course, is that it'll take developers years to learn to take full advantage of all that processing power and truly deliver on the graphical promise of the system. The same, of course, is true for the Xbox 360, but we suspect from our talks with developers that the PS3 may ultimately be declared the more powerful system. (Say what you will about increasing development times and rising costs for producing video games, but Blu-ray's 25GB to 50GB storage capacity--as opposed to 8.5GB for the Xbox 360's DVD drive--does give developers the chance to create huge games).
At the end of the day, as Microsoft learned, you can tout all the power you want, but if you can't keep your system cool--and fairly quiet--you're going to have some serious problems on your hands. What's impressive about this PS3, in fact, is that with all this power under the hood, the system runs as quietly as it does. After running for three hours straight, we found that we could still place a hand over the back of the unit and not get scorched--the system runs pretty warm, but not blazingly hot. While the 360's tendency to overheat has been exaggerated, its cooling fan and DVD drive are comparatively far noisier, sometimes to the point of distraction
Play time The first thing we should be clear on is that for your $600, you don't actually get any games (the first round of systems will ship with a Blu-Ray movie, Talledega Nights). There's also only a single controller. With our review unit, Sony sent over retail copies of Resistance: Fall of Man, a first-person shooter that's arguably the system's most impressive title and Genji, a hack-and-slasher that's garnered only average reviews. At a couple preview events, we also played several other launch titles, the majority of which are also available for the Xbox 360.
In fact, it's very hard to tell the difference between titles that are already available on the 360 and their PS3 counterparts because they're ports of the same game. Where you start to see some of the promise is in Sony's in-house titles, such as Resistance: Fall of Man and NBA 07. The latter may not measure up to 2K Sports' NBA 2K7, but the game looks impressive, with crisp graphics and smooth 60fps high-def gameplay. Formula One Championship Edition is another title that really jumps out at you graphically; the game looks really impressive but won't be out until later next year. We're also waiting to compare the PS3 versions of EA's Fight Night 3 to its Xbox 360 counterpart to see if the company was able to make any improvements.
The long and short of it is that the PS3 clearly measures up to the Xbox 360 in terms of its graphics prowess and the added dimension that the tilt controller offers, is a new twist. That said, there really isn't anything available yet that's too unique or so far beyond what the Xbox 360 offers that you think, "I gotta get this system to play that game." The reality is, as usual, you're going to have to wait for that breakout title. (Konami's Metal Gear Solid 4, due in 2007, is currently getting a lot of buzz and will supposedly be a PS3 exclusive.)
Backward compatibility While you're waiting for that killer PS3 game, you can still fall back on hundreds, if not thousands, of PlayStation catalog titles. The PS3 is fully backward-compatible with nearly all PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 1 games. Just toss in a disc and the PS3 will create a virtual memory card on its hard drive to store saved games and preferences. We had no trouble running PS2 titles such as Shadow of the Colossus and Star Wars Starfigher. While we expect that a handful of older titles won't run on the PS3, Sony deserves kudos for near-universal backward compatibility. By comparison, Xbox 360 support for Xbox1 titles is limited to a set list of games with emulation profiles (Microsoft updates the list periodically, but it's still limited to less than half the number of the games available for the older console). Nintendo does better with the Wii: it plays all GameCube game discs.
Hardware and accessory compatibility is a mixed bag. You can't connect PS2 controllers to the PS3 because the new console lacks the older controller port, but because the PS3 control design is nearly identical, your older games will play just fine. Likewise, games that utilize any unique accessories that must plug into the PS2-style control port--such as Guitar Hero's mighty ax--won't work on the PS3. But USB accessories--such as the EyeToy--should be good to go. Have some old God of War saved games that you just can't part with? Invest $15 in a special card reader, and you can transfer any games from your PS2 memory cards to the PS3's hard drive.
Movie watching Before we got our hands on a retail unit, we'd been able to spend some time previewing the system, and while we had a pretty good picture of what it can do in terms of gaming and multimedia functionality, we hadn't been able to test it as a Blu-ray player. Sony, of course, is taking a big risk by attempting to go out with a new system that not only features a new processor but a new, unproven optical drive format. The company is making a heavy bet on the PS3 as a game machine, but it's also staking its Blu-ray fortunes on the system as well, and we were most curious to see how it delivered as a Blu-ray player.
Because we were more familiar watching Mission: Impossible III on the Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player, we decided to do our testing using that disc rather than Talledega Nights. Watching on one of the finest large-screen TVs available, the 60-inch Sony KDS-R60XBR2, we watched several scenes from the movie on the Samsung first, then switched over to the PS3. In case you're wondering, load times for the disc were essentially identical at 40 seconds on each player (we hit stop on our stopwatch when a picture appeared on the screen). That isn't terrible, but this is obviously an area where Sony can make some improvements down the road with a next-generation drive that's faster.
As for the picture, it was quite comparable to what we saw on the Samsung, and navigating the disc was a fairly zippy process. In other words, at first glance, the PS3 seems to stack up fairly well against Blu-ray players costing nearly twice as much ($1,000), which may obviate the need for those players to actually exist.
Furthermore, the PS3 is the first A/V device to hit the market to utilize the HDMI 1.3 specification. That doesn't mean much now--there's no corresponding HDMI 1.3 products to connect it to. But in the future--2007 and beyond--that should enable to PS3 to pass HD video and next-gen surround-sound audio (such as Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD) to compatible A/V receivers via a single HDMI cable. In the meantime, the PS3, like other Blu-ray and HD-DVD players, can pass 1080p HD video and uncompressed LPCM surround soundtracks to compatible A/V receivers and TVs.
If we had one complaint with the PS3, it was that it didn't upscale standard DVDs to HD resolutions, a feature that's standard on other Blu-ray and HD-DVD players. Instead, they default to 480p (progressive-scan). But that's hardly a deal-breaker, especially when you consider the competition: the Xbox 360 requires a clunky add-on drive to play HD-DVD movies (though downloadable high-def movies will soon be available via Xbox Live), and the Nintendo Wii doesn't play back movie discs of any type.
Accessing Blu-ray and DVD menus with the PS3 controller is functional, if awkward. Unfortunately, you won't be able to program a standard universal remote to control your PS3--it lacks an infrared port, so it needs to receive commands via Bluetooth. Not coincidentally, Sony offers a Bluetooth compatible remote for $25.
Conclusion Though not with out a few minor drawbacks--and we'll probably find a few more as we continue testing the system--the PS3 is a versatile and impressive piece of home entertainment equipment that lives up to the hype. As usual, the launch titles don't do all that much to sell the system, but that should start to change within the next six months as more impressive titles come to market. Whether you buy the PS3 today or whenever it becomes available in quantity, you can be sure you'll feel that you got your money's worth--from a gaming and a multimedia perspective.
Editors note: We are continuing to perform ongoing tests on the PlayStation 3's gameplay, online functionality, Blu-ray player, and media compatibility, and will update this review accordingly.
Copyright ©1995-2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved.
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