PlayStation 3 Zero-Day Hands On

• Related Feature:
  Nintendo Wii Zero-Day Hands-On

By the time you read this, the Japanese PlayStation 3 launch will be well under way, with the North American launch only days away. We've received our PS3s, and have been playing fast and furious to get all the games covered in time for launch. While we wait for embargoes to lift on the full game reviews, here's a quick tour of the PS3, still fresh from the factory packaging.

Out of the Box

Photos of the console have been floating around for a while now, but there's a lot to be said for stacking it up physically against the Xbox 360 and the Wii. Compared to the 360, the PS3 is slightly larger, although against our black shelves, the glossy black machine almost disappears, if not for the silver bezel that houses the disc drive.

Two much more practical things differentiate the PS3 from the 360, however. For one, there's no large power brick, only a single power cord that's slightly thicker than a PC power cord, and much thinner than the 360's. That made finding space for the unit easier than expected.

And the PS3 is far more quiet than the 360. No jet engine roar from this thing. Without a disc in the drive it's barely perceptible, and with a disc it's not only more quiet than the 360, but quieter even than the PS2. That means watching movies using the Blu-Ray player might be an acceptable experience, since the console won't be making noise to compete with the soundtrack. We'll report more soon, if we notice the sound ramping up during extended play sessions.

Cables, cables, cables

As previously reported, the box contains only a composite A/V cable, though our review unit also came supplied with a 2-meter HDMI cable. But we quickly realized that the A/V connector on the back of the PS3 is the same as the one carried by the PlayStation2. So if you've got PS2 component cables already wound into your home theater spaghetti, just plug that connector into the PS3 to get instant high-def gaming, with or without HDMI.

Speaking of cables, the first thing we did was plug the included USB cable into the Sixaxis controller and console. The cable is short -- a couple of feet shorter than a Dual Shock cable -- but it's a standard USB cable, so procuring a longer one (for playing from the couch while charging the controller) won't require significant expense. The controller charged fully in about 90 minutes, though we'll run that down and charge it again to be sure, since there was likely some factory charge when it came out of the box.

While the main power button is on the rear left corner of the console, just like the PS2 (if it's laying horizontally) the reset and eject buttons are touch sensitive, located on the front right in the silver bezel. The console responds quickly to both switches -- we hit the reset button and were good to go.