Powerful PlayStation 3 lacks 'wow' factor

SEATTLE - Sony sees the PlayStation 3 as the Corvette of the gaming world, a machine with lots of power and speed that leaves you wanting little, if anything, else. But like Corvettes, the PS3 doesn’t come cheap.

The base model of the PlayStation 3 is $500, and comes with a 20-gigabyte hard drive and one motion-sensitive, wireless controller. If you want the larger 60 GB hard drive, Wi-Fi, and slots for MemoryStick, SD and CompactFlash cards, you'll need to slap down $600. Extra controllers are $50 each. That means serious gamers are going to be shelling out some serious cash.

Both models come with four USB 2.0 ports and a Blu-ray Disc player. Blu-ray is one of two high definition technologies, HD DVD is the other, and both are vying to replace standard DVDs. This is similar to how VHS and Beta battled in the early 1980s to become the standard for watching movies at home. To help whet your appetite for Blu-ray, Sony is packaging “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby" in with the first half million PS3s.

However, if you don’t have a HDTV or purchase the HDMI cable for an extra $60, then Blu-ray is a moot point because all you’ll get is standard TV quality. Blu-ray, however, does give the PS3 an advantage due to its larger storage capacity — more than 5 times that of a regular DVD — allowing game makers to write bigger games and put them on a single disc. That keeps down costs while saving the player from having to jostle around discs in the middle of a game.

Sony knows the PlayStation franchise has a following. That’s why the PS3 is backwards-compatible with PS1 and PS2 games (though Sony recently announced that roughly 200 of the more than 1200 games in the PlayStation catalogue won’t work properly) and it has interconnectivity with Sony’s handheld gaming device, the PlayStation Portable.

All PS3s are online capable, and Sony is making their online service free to use, though downloading new games will cost you up to $15.

We invited a group of six gamers to join our test of the PlayStation 3 — and Nintendo's Wii. Here's a look at how the PS3 fared with our playtesters.

What we liked
Our first thought when we saw the PS3 was "this machine is sexy!"

Stand it on end and it looks like it's a blade made from black steel. Lay it flat (the console is playable in either position) and it's reminiscent of the old Sony SuperBeta VCR, which gives this cutting edge machine a cool retro vibe.

Not only is the machine beautiful, it can perform.

Guest gamer Steve Kalning, 35, said it simply: "it's fast."

Evan Boyle, 16, took one look at the pretty pictures and declared the PS3 "the most graphically advanced system" on the market with Kalning pointing out that the graphics "still look good on a regular TV."

The new controller, called the SixAxis, was well-received by the test group, with many of our players liking the updates Sony made to the traditional PlayStation controller.

"It's good they're sticking with the general scheme," said tester Steve Eisner, 35.  "It's like an old friend."

Stefan Schachtell, 33, liked the fact that the SixAxis is wireless and lightweight. In contrast, we felt the controller was too lightweight, and that it felt flimsy in our hands.

Each PS3 can accept up to seven SixAxis controllers at the same time. We're eagerly awaiting the day when a game company makes a racing title that utilizes this feature. We foresee it being a big party hit with players fighting for pole position as well as a spot on the couch.

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