Powerful PlayStation 3 lacks 'wow' factor

What we didn’t like
The price! Five hundred dollars for the base model is pretty steep, and $600 for the top line model is almost outrageous. You can get both the premium Xbox 360 and Nintendo's new Wii for roughly that much.

You really have to love playing games to want to put out that kind of money. Add the cost of extra controllers, the HDMI cable, and games that can be up to $60 and you have yourself a very expensive toy.

“That’s not enticing to me,” Boyle said.

Meanwhile, with that big price tag comes a big machine…and not just in playing power but in actual size.

Kalning was "shocked how big and heavy it was" and Eisner joked that he's "had a top-loading VCR that was smaller than this."

A large part of the size and weight (the PS3 weighs in at a hefty 11 pounds) is due to the fact that the PS3's power supply is contained within its walls. Doing this gives the PS3 a cleaner design than the Xbox 360, which has an ugly, brick-sized power supply hanging in the middle of its power cord. But a downside to having the power supply inside is that after being on for a while, the console gets a little hot.

Good vibrations
And as much as our game testers liked the SixAxis controller, they had some issues with it. To start, it doesn't have a rumble pack, a feature that shakes the controller at specific times during game play, usually indicating that you've been attacked. This is a big deal to players who’ve come to expect the rumble as a standard feature. The alternative — having colors flash across the screen to indicate you've been hit — just isn't the same as having your hand shake to high heaven.

"It'd be much more effective if it vibrated," said Schachtell.

Instead, Sony put a motion-sensor inside the SixAxis that lets you occasionally control the action on screen by physically moving the controller itself. This limited use is completely different from the Wii, which relies on the physical movement of its controller as a vital part of the gaming experience.

"It doesn't seem to add much," Eisner said. "It strikes me as a tacked-on feature."

Another problem with the controller: If the battery dies while you’re playing, you have to plug it into the console with a super short cord. It’s not a big deal, but it is annoying.

Download downer
However, before you even get to use the controller, you'll need to download upgrades to your new console  — right out of the box. Additionally, you'll need to set-up your system using a menu termed "a little funky" and "confusing" by our testers.

So be warned: The PS3 isn't exactly plug-and-play. As Eisner tried his hand at setting up the PS3 for the game playtest, he pointed out that, at times, "it's really hard to tell what to do" and that he'd "had nothing but technical problems from the start." And this is a long-time gamer with lots of experience setting up consoles.

But of all these things we didn't like, the one thing stood out the most was the lack of a "wow!" factor. Sure, the PS3 is a great machine with sweet graphics and more, but it feels like it's all been seen before, especially since the Xbox 360 has comparable graphics and was released a year ago.

This feeling was driven home near the end of our play test when the PS3 sat unused, even though it was hooked up to a giant screen TV, because all the testers were crowded around the Wii, having fun with its interactive controllers.

Boyle summed it up best, "so far I've done more interesting things with the Wii."

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