Playstation 3 is Having the Best Week Ever

Originally published on Playstation Underground Gamer Advisory Panel (GAP) 2007-03-19 13:26:

All this past week I’ve been pretty excited for all our friends over in the EU and elsewhere who are just about to get their PS3′s. Seems strange, doesn’t it, considering I already have a PS3 myself, but its hard not to get excited when a console you support is about to have one of the best launches ever. Can you imagine what our November would have been like if Resistance, Oblivion, Motorstorm, Virtua Fighter 5, Tekken 5:DR, and more had all been available at launch in the States? I know that I’d still be trying to pay off my holiday shopping expenses today.

But on top of this excitement, IGN has given me another thing to look forward to: the release of firmware update v1.6! If you’ve read my other blogs then you already know how excited I am about Folding@Home which will be part of 1.6. In addition, we’ll also be getting background downloading (with some yet-to-be-announced limitations), Remote Play for 20GB model owners (that’s me!), and an improved web browser.

A lot of people have been complaining about the awkward virtual typing system implemented on the PS3, so Sony’s gone and included a standard “QWERTY”-type virtual keyboard with 1.6. A minor thing that might make browsing easier for some people. The real additions to the browser are automatic font-sizes that change according to your PS3′s video-out settings, and a point and zoom feature. These two things will make a huge difference in improving the functionality of the internet browser. Maybe by Friday, I’ll be able to read your blogs right off of my TV without a magnifying lens, and if not, I’ll have a virtual one right there for me.

Right before our launch, the 20GB PS3 caught a lot of flak for… well, I’m not really sure what. After all, the hard drive is just a standard SATA notebook drive so it’s easy to upgrade, the memory card readers weren’t really necessary for anything, I have wires to connect my TV area devices to the internet so don’t need wireless, and the chromed-out “Playstation 3″ logo got added on at the last minute. For me, the only thing I was missing out on was the Remote Play features with my PSP. 1.6 will changes that because then I can access my PS3, with my PSP, through my wireless network. It’s not yet the promised, “access your PS3 at any wireless hotspot” thing they’ve been talking about, but it’s a start.

So with an actually usable browser, background downloading, Remote Play for all PS3s, Folding@Home, Europe’s PS3 launch and Playstation Home out on the horizon, how can I not use the word “excited” (and other words with the same root) four times in the first 6 sentences? This is going to be a great year for PS3. Naysayers be damned.