A closer look at the ps3, Interview.

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November 10, 2006 - Everybody has questions. Most of them have very little importance, such as those dealing with religion, life or the universe at large. The only ones that really matter have to do with the PS3. Now there's an enigma. There are so many questions dealing with PS2 successor that it'd be possible to fill a zillion books. Some of those questions actually found their way unto our PS3 boards. And since we actually scored a precious PS3 retail kit, we went ahead and answered whatever questions we could.

Head down below and uncover the mystery. We'll be updating this article throughout the day, so check back often.

Woooooord!

Slaylock:Is it possible to copy MP3 files to the hard drive from a data CD or USB memory stick, or do you have to rip them from a music CD?

IGN: You can definitely copy MP3 files from a data CD and a USB memory stick. We just stuck an iPod shuffle into the system, in fact. The PS3 didn't recognize the JPEGs and MP3s right under the Music and Photo tabs of the XMB right away, though it did recognize the iPod Shuffle itself. It actually pops up like any other icon. So when under the appropraite tab (either Photo or Music), we had to call up the side menu, by pressing triangle, and then select "display all" to show everything we had stored on the stick. From there we could play each track and see every picture, and copy each to the hard drive. It was all fairly painless.

chubigans:Also if you can play music over everything in the dashboard, as well as how downloads are handled...are they done in the background, or do you have to wait until everything is downloaded before using your PS3 again?

IGN: You can actually start playing a song and still listen to it as you fiddle with other sections of the XMB. All you need to do is start the song and then press the PS button. The XMB then layers on top of the Music section and you go from there. That's about it.

armdnrdy: Is there some kind of "sleep" mode like the PSP, where if you live a game or something running for a period of time the screen will go black.

IGN: We tried desperately to find such functionality but couldn't find it. We tried tapping the power button on the system and the PS button. Nothing happened. About the only thing you can do is hold down the PS button to call up the ordinary system menu, which lets you quit a game, shut down the system and check the battery status of the controller. It also lets you change controller ports, but there's no "night night" mode. Too bad!

Rya: I was wondering if you guys could test to see if a bluetooth enabled cell phone could connect to the PS3 to transfer pictures/videos. Thanks.

IGN: This would have been seriously badass, but again, no luck. We tried to connect a Nokia 8801 and the new Motorola KRAZR, but the PS3 failed to locate them.

Vash6318:What's the chat interface look like? Can you chat with multiple people at one time?

IGN: The PS3 chat interface is a modified version of the one used by the PSP. The PS3 version supports predictive text input and the key layout is slightly different. It's actually a little more complex. But you can also plug in a Bluetooth-enabled keyboard and tap, tap away. As far as chatting goes, we've yet to take the retail PS3 online. But we'll do that next and tell y'all about it.



Monolith2001: I'd like to know how well the browser works for sites like IGN, Gametrailers, etc...

IGN: It works very well, actually. You can manually type in Web addresses and call up numerous pages. We pulled up six different pages at once and could cycle between them using the shoulder buttons. The number of pages open simultaneously depends on available memory, though. We could only pop up three media-intensive pages (ESPN.com, IGN.com and iFilm.com) before the PS3 hit its limit. Of course, we were running trailers and other assorted media on all of them, and we could still manually cycle between all of them at will, a lot like on the Mac running the Tiger OS.

Brevcom: Bluetooth headsets ...which brands work and how well do they function?

IGN: Honestly, we have a limited number of Bluetooth headsets here in the office. Having said that, we tried to connect a Plantronics Discovery 640 set and a Motorola H700 set. Neither of them worked. The PS3 simply couldn't find them when it performed the Bluetooth accessories scan. DAMMIT!

JHarper12456: I want to know how the PlayStation store will function, and just more online aspects of the system itself. How you sign in, how you pick your avatar, info like that.

IGN: We've tried to sign in to the PlayStation store to no avail. But we'll let you know what happened once we do. Woooord.

Clintar: I swear I saw a video before of the PS3 interface that had a Region setting. Is this only in the debug units, or can you set what region you are for backwards compatibility?

IGN: From what we can see, you can't tweak the regional settings at all. Which, of course, makes a load of sense. We also tried playing a few Japanese PS1 and PS2 games and they didn't work. The PS3 recognized them as disks, but that's it.



Akita: Does the PS3 upscale or output all PS3 games to one resolution the user sets in the dashboard? This is a very important question for me also. My TV only displays 480i/480p/1080i. If 720p native games are going to be scaled down to 480p, that would royally suck.

IGN: You're in luck, compadre. The PS3 will display a game at whatever resolution you specify. Good thing, too, since we know it's a question many IGN readers shared.

Zarich: Can I plug my existing ps2 monster s-video cable in and use that?

IGN: Why, yes you can. You can use that bad boy just like you would on a PS2. Also, you can use any old standard HDMI cable with the system.

Ken: I'm dying to know: Do the Guitar Hero controllers work with the USB adapters on the PS3?

IGN: When you pop in a PS2 or PSone game, you're prompted to tap the PlayStation button on the controller. For what reason, we're not sure, but as Guitar Hero's SG controller doesn't have this button, you can't actually activate it. You also can't quick-swap from one controller to another as the second part of the problem lies in that you need to turn on analog control, but again, the SG guitar doesn't have an on/off button for analog play. This SUCKS.



Ken: Hi, Can you please look in the instruction manual and let us know what the standard warranty length is for the Playstation 3 is? Is it 1 year like the PSP or 3 months like the Xbox 360. Thanks in advance.

IGN: The warranty info that came with our retail unit states the PS3 hardware is guaranteed against mechanical defects for one year. So yeah, not too shabby.

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source: IGN.com

It has some bugs but I will get mine the 3rd or 4th shipment, they will have the bugs fixed by then I hope.