E3 2006: PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii

PlayStation 3

We also had some game time with the PlayStation 3 as well as a chance to speak with an associate developer of the game Warhawk. While the controller of the PS3 is very similar to the PS2 controller, one of the additions is that it now has a gyroscope inside. This allows you to control games by tilting the controller as opposed to just pressing buttons. In some ways, it's similar to the Wii controller, but in a more limited fashion. Although the PS3 controller appears to be the same as the PS2 controller, surprisingly, we found this new controller to be somewhat more comfortable than the PS2 controller. Perhaps it's the finish the controller has which makes it feel better, but whatever the case, we found it to be smoother and it definitely fit better in our hands. Silver and black versions of the controller were on display.

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To put the gyroscopic controller to the test, we spent some time playing the game Warhawk in flight mode. In Warhawk, your country is being overtaken and you must fight alongside your army to defend it. You can aid the army as a foot soldier, in vehicles like Jeeps and tanks, and by air in a futuristic jet. We didn't have a chance to play the game by land, but were able to play in the jet to get a feel for the difference between the gyroscopic controller and a standard analog controller.

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The first time we gave it a whirl, we found it quite difficult to aim at our target while also flying the aircraft because as we turned our controller we were also changing where the gun is aimed. As we became accustomed to the way the controls worked, we found the controller to be a great improvement over a standard analog setup. We were able to have much more control over the aircraft by only moving the controller in which direction we wanted the aircraft to go. We found that smooth and small movements gave us the best control over the nimble steering, and all of the movements are natural. What we mean by natural is, you may have noticed that when you are playing a game, you will generally have the tendency to unconsciously jerk the controller one way or another to avoid certain objects or to get the vehicle/aircraft/etc. to do what you want it to do. These same movements you unconsciously make are nearly the exact movements you use to control the aircraft.

We initially found the controller to be quite sensitive to our hand movements -- too much so, in our opinion. One aspect we did find to be a great feature was the option to adjust the sensitivity of the controller's responsiveness to our hand movements. When we spoke to the Warhawk associate developer, he was unsure whether that feature was limited to the hardware or if this was available in-game. Whatever the source, we definitely think any games that take advantage of the gyroscopic mechanism need to allow for adjustment of the sensitivity.

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The PS3 controller uses Bluetooth connectivity to communicate with the PS3 and there are no receivers visible on it. While the controller is wireless, you are also able to connect the USB B cable to it and use it to play as well. This makes your gaming time unlimited when the battery does die. The USB B cable is also used to recharge the wireless controller. There was no mention of the length of time the battery lasted or how long it takes to recharge it.

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Compared to the graphic quality we were shown back in E3 2005 and on IGN, the graphics of the PS3 here were lacking. Now do not get us wrong; the graphics we saw are very nice, but they just aren't up to par with the pre-rendered demos we were shown in 2005. However, the graphics we saw are much better than what PlayStation 2 offers, and they look competitive with Xbox360. You can check out the videos we're providing to get a look at the graphics, and as developers become more familiar with the platform, we expect the quality to improve.

Besides being a gaming console, the PS3 offers many other features. One feature is the option to store pictures and music on the PS3's hard drive. You get thumbnails of the images, and you can also rotate the photos to any angle you like. A similar option is the ability to store videos on the PS3 for easy access. These also have thumbnails for quick viewing, although the thumbnail generated may not always be useful depending on the opening frames of the movie file.

Finally, PS3 includes a web browser interface. You can have multiple browser windows open and switch between them, and there's also an option to trial all of the browser windows so you can quickly choose which one you want to see. (This is somewhat similar to OS X's Exposé feature.) The browser window has a status bar along with a scroll bar on the right hand side. We did find the browser to be slightly slow, but given the testing environment (i.e., the network provided by E3), we will reserve final judgment on the browser speed. Being able to surf the web with a console could be a nice feature, although without the optional keyboard the overall utility is debatable. (An on-screen keyboard is available, but typing URLs using it is time consuming, and we certainly wouldn't want to write an income message using it.) Sony is promoting the PS3 as more than just a console, however, and integrated browser, hard drive, and Blu-Ray drive certainly help back up those claims.

With the huge gaming improvements over the past two years that we've seen at E3, it surely will be difficult to top this. We'll just have to wait and see what the manufacturers will come up with next year. However, overall, we really are excited to see these two consoles finally come into the marketplace and deliver some competition to the already released Xbox360. Although the PS3 does have better graphics and we're willing to bet it'll have a really wide array of games to select from, we're really looking forward to the Nintendo Wii and all its titles. We feel the fun aspect the Wii will deliver is going to be difficult to beat with better graphics alone. Of course, this is solely based on personal opinion, so we would like to see how far both the Xbox 360 and PS3 can push the limits of console gaming.

BitTorrent Videos

As with the first E3 article, we have some videos to download. You will need a BitTorrent client to download the files; we use Azureus, but you can use whatever you want. The zip file contains a .torrent file which you can opening your client, and the total size of the videos is 149 MB. If you're unfamiliar with how BitTorrent works, we again recommend you check out this short tutorial. The videos were recorded using a Cannon S2 IS, and while the quality isn't exceptional, it should be enough to convey something of the E3 experience.

We have three videos this time. The first one shows our journey to the end of the Nintendo Wii line, and unfortunately the best parts of E3 almost always involve waiting in a long line. In the second video shows the game Warhawk in action, and you can also see how the gyroscopic controller works. Finally, we have a video showing the user interface of the PS3 that we described earlier. If you have any difficulties downloading the videos, let us know.