Sony Conference
Sony's Richard Marks walks us through the PS3's media capabilities and online Web browser.
Anyone who has played online games with the PlayStation 2 has a pretty good idea of Sony's online strategy with that platform. That is to say, there wasn't much of a strategy at all. The network-adapter peripheral was released separately from the console itself. Each game publisher had to run its own servers, which meant that logging into every new game, or at least games from different publishers, meant creating and keeping track of several different login names and passwords. If playing online games on the PS2 felt like a chaotic free-for-all at times, that's because it basically was one.
Sony is moving in a more cohesive direction in regard to its online service with the PS3. The new console has built-in networking capabilities, and Sony will launch a new online service to coincide with the system's release.
PlayStation Network
The PlayStation Network will be similar to Microsoft's Xbox Live service and will provide community features such as personal login accounts, friends lists, avatars, and matchmaking, as well as communication options including messaging and eventually voice and video chat. The PS3 won't have a camera accessory ready at launch, but SCE CTO Masa Chatani has talked about developing an HD IP camera peripheral that will let you broadcast an HD-quality video stream for video messaging and conferencing.
The free PlayStation Network service will include community features and online multiplayer gameplay. Resistance: Fall of Man, for example, will feature a 40-man online multiplayer mode and a robust lobby system with buddy lists, as well as support for parties, clans, stats, and persistent experience levels. Xbox Live Silver, Microsoft's free basic service, provides community options, too, but Silver-level subscribers can only play massively multiplayer games online. Players must upgrade to a paid Xbox Live Gold service subscription to access online multiplayer gameplay for non-MMO games.
Sony's service will offer an Xbox Marketplace-like PlayStation Store where players can go to download a variety of content including games, game demos, additional game content, and video files such as movie trailers and music videos. John Smedley from Sony Online Entertainment demonstrated the working store at Gamers' Day 2006. Developers will have the option to integrate shops directly into games, letting players buy items from within the game experience. PS3 users can transfer cash to their "PlayStation 3 Wallet" by credit card or with prepaid cards. All items will be priced in dollars and cents rather than "points" as in other online systems. Sony has suggested that the commerce service can also handle subscriptions for massively mulitplayer online games or other games that may require constant upkeep.
Media Capabilities
Upon system boot up, PS3 console owners will be greeted with the familiar cross media bar (Xross Media Bar in Sony marketing-speak) menu system already in use on the PSP and Sony televisions. The XMB lets you navigate horizontally through top-level selection categories: users, system settings, and media options such as photos, music, videos, games, network, and friends. Each top-level category, when selected, will display a vertical list of related available options. The user menu, for example, will let you create new users or switch user accounts. Parents can set up "child" accounts that can limit games access based on ESRB and MPAA ratings.
The photo options offer several slide show styles, including one particularly impressive show that uses the system hardware to render the images as physical photographs gently falling into place over a white work surface. The system can also play music while running a slide show. The PS3 supports several major music-file types (MP3, ATRAC, AAC, and WAV) and has a built-in music visualizer. Users can import songs from a flash memory card through the USB port or rip songs directly from a CD. Sony gave the video menu a next-gen feel by using 15-second video clips as video thumbnails. A selection screen with several moving video thumbnails has a much more powerful effect than a line of boring still images. Users won't be able to transfer files directly from a PC to the PS3 over a local area network, but you will be able to transfer or play video directly from flash memory cards or over USB.
The network menu provides access to the PS3's built-in Web browser, the PlayStation Store, and the PSP Remote Play feature that will let the PSP stream video from the PS3 over a Wi-Fi connection. Harrison demonstrated the Remote Play feature at Sony's Gamers' Day 2006 by playing the first half of the movie trailer for Casino Royale on the PS3, pausing the video, and then resuming playback on the PSP's screen. Streams will be limited to the local Wi-Fi network at first, but Sony has plans to extend the feature to PS3-to-PSP connections over the Internet. PS3 games will also support the PSP at some point in the future. At E3 2006, Sony demonstrated a preview build of Formula 1 that could output a video stream to the PSP that lets the player use the portable as a rearview mirror while playing the game on the PS3.
The Web browser looks to be fully functional with all the must-have features such as Flash support, which Harrison demonstrated at Gamers' Day by opening YouTube and playing a video of Kaz Hirai's "Riiiidge Racer!" E3 presentation a couple of times. You can open multiple browser windows and switch between them fairly quickly. The PS3 uses the same cell phone-style text-input interface used on the PSP, which means you should plug in a USB keyboard if you're serious about using the console for Web browsing.
The friends list is the final icon on the XMB. We haven't seen a lot of the friends-list functionality outside of text messaging, but in Harrison's Gamers' Day demo, we noticed that several of the people on his friends list had PlayStation-affiliated avatars like Kratos from God of War and Sly Cooper.
Keep your eye on this space! GameSpot will be updating this feature with new information as it's released!
Do you think the PlayStation 3 has the right mix of hardware, games, media capabilities, and online support? Are you planning on buying a system at launch on November 17?
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