Much Ado About Everything

After the lacklustre launch, PS3 is finally shaping up to be a decent, usable machine. Firmware upgrades were incremental, but if you compare what you have today with what you had 4 months ago, you’ll find it a considerably more refined experience.

Latest firmware – 1.6, rolled out for European launch – brings the long-awaited background downloading. Bluetooth mouse and keyboard are finally supported natively. Web browser is finally fast and user friendly. Sony Store is faster and has more content. Various other issues with XMB menus have been fixed or improved. Owners of PSP and 20GB version can now use remote play – something I never expected to see (and the reason I wanted the 60GB version). I was very happy when I was finally able to remove the Bluetooth dongle and register my mouse and keyboard with the PS3. The process was very simple – just as it should be. And the integration seems good – you can use mouse to navigate the menus, or in the browser. You can use keyboard too. I don’t think either worked before, but I might be wrong. The browser itself is much faster and more compliant than before, and menus are now properly labeled so you don’t need to guess which key does what. But you can also use mouse if you wish, and it will even let you navigate menus without clicking.

Controller button menu has been reshuffled so its new layout means less work and time to activate most frequent commands. I hear you can now resume BluRay playback where you stopped, if you leave the player, and you can also set up the console to automatically launch the disc that’s in it upon power on (be it game or movie).

Folding@Home is a very neat addition that looks and works impressively for a 1.0 version (it may not be new outside PS3 world, but it’s still a new architecture). Background downloading worked pretty well, too. Unfortunately it will not continue with downloads if you’re within the Folding@Home – presumably because there’s a network connection active – but it’s much better than before.

And of course, if you have North American or Japanese version, PS 1/2 game compatibility has been improved since launch and is now excellent.

Of course, not all is well. The machine still only plays a very limited set of video formats, making it pretty useless for that purpose. It is also still unable to access content shared folders on the network. It doesn’t upscale DVDs. It doesn’t let you import music in losless format. Linux is still just a gimmick (unless you want to use Cell). There are still no AAA games other than Resistance. There’s still no option set up your own background (come on, even PSP can do it). The list of exclusives is shrinking by the week (they just lost the exclusivity of the Devil May Cry franchise). It’s not quiet. And it uses a lot of power to operate, even if it’s just sitting idle.

The potential is still there; whether PS3 will ever became a real media center – or even a must-have gaming machine – still remains to be seen. But at least I’m starting to feel at least a little bit pleased as I move around the XMB.