CheapyD is one happy, proud, lucky new owner of Sony's PlayStation 3. And he's taken a video of the (un)ceremonial unpacking of his Japanese PS3 straight from Amazon Japan.

Opening the delivery box, he finds the PS3 box, along with two games: Resistance and one other title which we didn't quite get. But regardless of that, he's got the console, and that's what matters most. He also took the time to compare the PS3 box with the Xbox 360's, and the PS3 definitely is much bigger. Now, it's just a matter of gauging which is actually better.

Included in the PS3 package are the Sixaxis controller, a LAN cable, a USB cable for the controller, some other cable, and the instruction manual. Too bad the video ended with just that. Would have been better if he actually showed us how it runs. Oh well, envious us.

Ha! But not for long. 'Cause we'll be getting our own later this week. And you can bet we'll make sure to keep you posted on every bit of the PS3!

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Let's say you're more of an eclectic gamer. You like 'em all. You don't really care what console you're using, as long as you're enjoying your games. Let's say that you've got a particular craving for some nostalgic Ninty goodness, but you're sort of pissed that the virtual console service isn't up yet. Let's say you were able to line-up for the 11/11 Japan launch of the PS3.

What do you do?

Well, you could use the web browsing capabilities of the PS3, and fire up a flash game of Donkey Kong! Skeptical? Click the play on the vid embed below. If the guys from Joystiq can do it, you can too!

  
Promo trailers galore. That's pretty much what you'll see on the PlayStation 3's video service, according to Engadget.

Known as P-TV, the Playstation 3's new download service currently has nothing for sale as mentioned previously. What it does have, it has for free, however. There are a lot of promotional clips for movies and anime shows. All you have to do is use the console's browser to get the free videos, and you can download them onto the PS3's internal drive or a USB drive of your own.

Some nice notes though. The video is in H.264 format and currently has no digital rights management in place. If there's a trailer for a new Japanese movie out, someone get it and put it on YouTube please. Engadget also notes that the PlayStation store offers account registration and payment method screens, and if you add the existing shopping cart interface there, you are pretty much assured that Sony will be having a full-fledged competitor to Microsoft's vide...

Filed under: Gaming, HDTV, Home Entertainment
In you haven't had enough Xbox 360 (let alone Wii and PlayStation 3) news lately, we've got one more tidbit for you. While we knew the device would sport USB connectivity, the recently released (and unboxed) HD DVD add-on drive has reportedly already been hacked to function on plain ole PCs, no Xbox 360 necessary. Utilizing Toshiba drivers, users have apparently been able to not only view the file contents of their HD DVD flicks directly within a Windows XP environment, but have been able to play back the film on PCs well-spec'd enough to handle the load. By enabling the computer to read the UDF (Universal Disc File system) v2.5 -- which is currently used by Toshiba's first generation HD DVD drives -- you can avoid throwing down the coin required for an Xbox 360 if you so choose. But as these roundabouts always go, we wouldn't count on things working out so smoothly for too much longer, especially with HDCP always lurking and waiting ...

Filed under: Gaming
It's next-gen console madness over here at Engadget. We know there's a veritable flood of information about the Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, but let's make this as simple as it should be. Below you'll find a round up of our coverage; take a look, we post a lot of stuff, so you never know if you missed something good. Check it out, and remember, we'll have plenty more stuff in the coming days!

Wii
Finding a Wii where there is none
Wii hands-on, unboxing!
Wii unboxing video
Wii setup and interface walkthrough video
Wii gameplay video (Wii Sports and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess)

PlayStation 3
PlayStation 3 hands-on preview (with video!)
PlayStation 3 gameplay preview
PlayStation 3 menu / interface complete video walkthrough
Unpacking our PlayStation 3 (with video!)
Some interesting facts about the PS3
The Engadget Interview: Peter Dille, Sony Computer Entertai...

grabs a tall glass of chocolate milk

On this momentous day, we are lucky enough to observe people trying out Sony's next-gen console to make it work like a normal, everyday computer. The above image from Joystiq may have come from someone's laptop, but the picture it took is of the PS3 performing functions games consoles aren't really known to do until now.

Well, it came from the laptop because the picture upload tool they were hoping to use apparently didn't work on the PS3 browser, among other things. Some of the features that were currently lacking were Java support and an easy way  to keep the pop-ups from... popping up.  Entering text also seemed to be a bit troublesome, so you'll have to brace yourself for that in the early stages of the PS3's life.

Yes folks, it may be a momentous time for gaming and browsing the net, but it's still not perfect just yet. According to their post, they were able to blog, but all the functions of their ...

Alright, we have yet another Blu-Ray opinion courtesy of News Corp. top honcho (President and CEO), Peter Chernin. And according to him, the launch of the PS3 will put more "focus" on Blu-Ray by providing users a Blu-Ray player that costs significantly less than the HD-DVD players that are currently in the market.

Makes sense right? His whole opinion piece could've passed but then he had to dig his own grave when he said "I've been talking to all of the electronics manufacturers on both sides of the format wars, I don't think there's likely to be a quick resolution, I think the resolution, if it comes, is likely to be driven by the marketplace."

Hence, the outpour of comments at GamePro basically saying "EVERYTHING's driven by the marketplace. Thanks for the newsflash." Hahaha.

But for some, the whole thing becomes really interesting because News Corp. owns 20th Century Fox, who, so far, has only released movies on Blu-Ray, and has Sony and Samsung as its ...

Better graphics isn't enough. If you just increase the polygons, you will end up with better-looking characters, but that doesn't mean they'll look more "realistic." You need to improve the motion physics. And you also need to improve gameplay.

This is the point made by Glenn Entis, Academy-Award-winning senior VP and chief visual and technical officer for EA games (he was formerly CEO from Dreamworks Interactive). At the Montreal Games Summit, he used Final Fantasy as an example:

In Final Fantasy, the modelling fidelity was really better than the motion fidelity. In other words, when you looked at the models, they signalled an expectation to the audience that the motion couldn't deliver upon.

Alert the Final Fantasy fandom...
...and let the carnage commence.

An EA VP has dissed Final Fantasy for having unrealistic graphics. We can just imagine the chaos this is causing in RPG forums everywhere.

EA, on the other hand, has been hard at w...

Look what we found on YouTube (yes, it was while surfing for Nintendo videos for a Wii article, but it's nice that we bumped into some good PS3 news, too). The video shows that the PS2 EyeToy is compatible with the PS3. This isn't any big surprise.


So we headed over to Kotaku because the YouTube vid's from there. We found the article, and it turns out the PS2 Logitech keyboard works too.

It's nice that Sony has let us plug whatever we want into the PS3's USB port - within reason. Kotaku's Brian Crecente said, "I tried using the Xbox 360's Vision Camera and while it detected that a USB device was plugged in, it didn't work. Too bad, that would have been hilarious."

Hm. If the Xbox 360 Vision Camera was detected as a USB device but didn't work, then couldn't the OS just be changed?

I mean, Sony is letting us change the OS, right? It would be really funny if there was a breed of OS, like maybe a modified Linux variant, that has the drivers for Xbox...

Filed under: Features, Gaming, HDTV, Home Entertainment
Our crew out in Japan gave us the 411 on the P-TV video download feature; it seems that all of the content currently being offered on P-TV is anime clips and movie trailers -- nothing full length -- and it's all free. Think of the iTV trailer blade we saw at Apple's last big event. One accesses the P-TV store via the PlayStation browser -- there's no in-system interface (lame) -- wherein users can snag H.264 video to their internal drive or a USB drive. Thankfully, the video is un-DRMed and can be played back on a PC, although it doesn't really matter since it's mostly promo stuff anyway. Apparently there's also an account registration and payment method screen in with a shopping cart interface in the PlayStation Store, so it's entirely possible full-length downloads might happen in the future, a la Xbox Live Video. But for now, it's all about quick clips and trailers, with no option to buy the big content.

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