So the PS3 has finally been released into the world. Well, it’s been released in Japan, anyway. Sitting in a cold, dreary November London, it all seems rather a long way away, but at least we have the delights of PS3 unboxing blogs and videos to keep us going.

Like Cheap Ass Gamer’s (www.cheapasgamer.com) CheapyD opening not only his PS3 box on YouTube (www.youtube.com), but the Amazon.co.jp box it came in as well. Despite the fact he had to be pretty controlled because he was presenting it all on video, his heart-in-his-mouth excitement was clear when he tossed aside the invoice to lift out the PS3 box with a long Ohhh, baby.

Actually, I’m not sure it’s really helping. Some Three Speech people (www.threespeech.com) might already have their hands on one, but I don’t, and seeing CheapyD barely control himself as he teases out the bags containing his new Sixaxis and LAN cable just makes me feel more left out.

I’ve got to get a grip, though. This is important stuff, after all we now finally know what all that stuff we’ve been wondering about really looks like (i.e. very, very shiny). And there is something curiously intriguing about how it’s all fitted into that neat package, all swathed in foamy paper stuff and enclosed in those impossibly intricate folds of cardboard. Folds I know I’ll never able to recreate when I need to fit it all back in again.

Obviously, it’s all rather fetishist. Just check out the picture of the PS3 seductively half exposed in Engadget’s Japanese unboxing post (www.engadget.com). Hot stuff. Their unboxing of the US retail version (www.engadget.com) is a lot more workaday, yet there’s something about that close photography of the printed contents list. But maybe that’s just me.

And as if bored by the standard unboxing format, we have the exotic effort of Gizmodo, who have decided to celebrate the near-simultaneous release of the Wii and PS3 by doing a Synchronized Unboxing (www.gizmodo.com), and not just safely inside, but apparently on the roof of some building dangerously close to the edge, if I may say so.

So what has PS3 unboxing taught us? Apart from confirming that an AV cord DOES come with every system, all this also proves that the PS3’s packaging isn’t the stuff of beauty that you get with an Apple product. It’s all bare brown cardboard and clear plastic bags, and it’s not even that complicated. But it’s not quite as unglamorous as the debug version’s packaging, as revealed by Kotaku (www.kotaku.com). Polystyrene packing nugget things… Shudder.

But they don’t give me quite the shudder that seeing (pc.watch.impress.co.jp) this does. Taking unboxing to its logical conclusion, this goes far beyond the cardboard case and doesn’t stop until every component is taken out of the PS3 itself. And oh lord, here’s (www.youtube.com) a video of one being taken apart, a little as if it’s on an operating theatre table. If Engadget’s unboxing post is PS3 erotica, this is gynaecological.

Great as they are, I’m not sure seeing all these unboxing rituals will entirely tide the long wait until March

Alex Wiltshire