A sneak peek at the PS3 with IGN

Man, those IGN UK guys are sure lucky. While most people are still recovering from the PS3 pre-order exhaustion, a PS3 is delivered right to their doorstep, complete with a friendly Sony PR rep to answer their questions. Well, sort of.

First off, let’s talk about the buttons. If you can remember, we had rumors that say the PS3 will have heat-sensitive panels for buttons. Well, IGN and their friendly Sony PR representative say that’s not quite the case. However, the PS3 has touch-sensitive buttons that are reported to work “with the most delicate of touches.”

No doubt the heat-sensitivity thingamajig sounds cool, but then you’d have to worry about your beloved PS3 doing an auto shutdown when your heater’s turned on. So, the touch-sensitivity’s the next best thing, minus the heater fuss, unless your cat wants to play MGS 4 too.

The PS3 also features Cross Media Bar Navigation (XMB) as an interface, which is pretty much like the PSP. The IGN guys said it was oh-so pretty, but we’ll leave you to decide about it when you get your own. It seems that the XMB has eight main categories: menu, settings, photo, music, video, game, network and friends, loaded with more sub-categories for you to discover. It also offers predictive text.

The unit that they tested didn’t recognize discs other than the standard Blu-Ray ones, and their PSPs and digicams  “were met with resounding indifference.”  BUT, they did say that they’ll get their hands on an updated version soon, so we’ll get more backwards compatibility lowdown.

Loading and ejecting a disc requires minimal effort, so it’s all happy-happy-joy-joy for us.  According to IGN, you just place your disc against the front-loading drive slot, and voila! Your disc is sucked into next-gen goodness, minus the tray-loading drive. To take the disc out, just place your finger on the eject button and the PS3 will spew your disc out.

IGN wasn’t too impressed with the controller, though. They reported that the L and R shoulder triggers were placed “unnaturally low” and “offered no resistance against their finger tips.” Also, they mentioned that the SIXAXIS was eerily light, and they were concerned that it might slip off their hands during “extreme gaming moments.”

BUT they did mention that there’s a battery display that lets you know how much time you got left until your battery runs out, so the SIXAXIS wasn’t that bad. They also discovered that when you hold the PS button (that’s located in the middle of the controller) down for a couple of seconds, a secondary menu will appear, which includes console shut-down options.

Man, those IGN UK guys are sure lucky. While most people are still recovering from the PS3 pre-order exhaustion, a PS3 is delivered right to their doorstep, complete with a friendly Sony PR rep to answer their questions. Well, sort of.

First off, let’s talk about the buttons. If you can remember, we had rumors that say the PS3 will have heat-sensitive panels for buttons. Well, IGN and their friendly Sony PR representative say that’s not quite the case. However, the PS3 has touch-sensitive buttons that are reported to work “with the most delicate of touches.”

No doubt the heat-sensitivity thingamajig sounds cool, but then you’d have to worry about your beloved PS3 doing an auto shutdown when your heater’s turned on. So, the touch-sensitivity’s the next best thing, minus the heater fuss, unless your cat wants to play MGS 4 too.

The PS3 also features Cross Media Bar Navigation (XMB) as an interface, which is pretty much like the PSP. The IGN guys said it was oh-so pretty, but we’ll leave you to decide about it when you get your own. It seems that the XMB has eight main categories: menu, settings, photo, music, video, game, network and friends, loaded with more sub-categories for you to discover. It also offers predictive text.

The unit that they tested didn’t recognize discs other than the standard Blu-Ray ones, and their PSPs and digicams  “were met with resounding indifference.”  BUT, they did say that they’ll get their hands on an updated version soon, so we’ll get more backwards compatibility lowdown.

Loading and ejecting a disc requires minimal effort, so it’s all happy-happy-joy-joy for us.  According to IGN, you just place your disc against the front-loading drive slot, and voila! Your disc is sucked into next-gen goodness, minus the tray-loading drive. To take the disc out, just place your finger on the eject button and the PS3 will spew your disc out.

IGN wasn’t too impressed with the controller, though. They reported that the L and R shoulder triggers were placed “unnaturally low” and “offered no resistance against their finger tips.” Also, they mentioned that the SIXAXIS was eerily light, and they were concerned that it might slip off their hands during “extreme gaming moments.”

BUT they did mention that there’s a battery display that lets you know how much time you got left until your battery runs out, so the SIXAXIS wasn’t that bad. They also discovered that when you hold the PS button (that’s located in the middle of the controller) down for a couple of seconds, a secondary menu will appear, which includes console shut-down options.