(Thanks to Steve Chapman - PSN ID: Chappers)

So… the PlayStation 3… It’s finally made it to British soil. And what a rocky road it’s had. Since it’s very inception it has been plagued by delays, technical and budgetary constraints, PR blunders and a whole swathe of attacks on it from opposing sides and their respective supporters. But if the previous generation of games consoles taught us anything, it’s that to many people, gaming is a religion and with it comes all the foibles and fanaticisms that we’ve come to expect.

I won’t bore you with my history of gaming experience, but I will say that I am, first and foremost, a gamer. I bare no allegiance in particular, but I have come to know what I like and don’t like. Also, just to show that I like telling people what I think of things, I am an amazon.com top 1000 reviewer – whether that counts for anything, I don’t know

So anyway, onto the PlayStation 3. Having taken the plunge to pre-order my first ever launch-day console, I made my way down to my local GAME store at the crack of dawn to pick it up. Sadly, the store didn’t receive their hoped allocation of additional Sixaxis controllers, so I was left feeling slightly incomplete. Not to worry however, as a quick check on the Argos website revealed a small stock available at a nearby branch.

Once I’d seen off my half-day at work that morning, I made my way home – a journey that seemed to take forever. Everything and anything that could have gotten in my way or aggravated me chose today to do so. Traffic and work aside, once I’d removed my purchase from its pack, I proceeded to curse and swear at my attempts to remove the additional Sixaxis controller from its plastic packaging – whoever invented heat-sealed hard-plastic packaging deserves to be shot. Once freed, I felt slightly short-changed on noticing that it doesn’t come with its own USB cable. Not to worry. Onto the console…

I’d noticed that the weight of the box was reassuringly heavy. I like my expensive purchases to bear a degree of “heft”, and this was no exception. Taking it out of its enclosure I was pleased to see it looking suitably handsome and not as large as I had feared. I had already routed an HDMI and optical cable into place ready for the PlayStation’s arrival, so merely seated the machine in its new surroundings, hooked it up, and off we went.

The initial start-up and detection seemed to go off without a hitch. One thing that immediately hit me, or rather didn’t, was the noise coming from the machine. It is not quite silent as you can hear a thrumming noise from the fans, but compared to my early model PS2 and prior experience of an Xbox360, it’s very impressive.

Next came the main hurdle… wireless connection. I knew my signal wouldn’t be great, but thought I’d give it a shot anyway. Well, it didn’t seem to like things. It found my network, and appeared to connect, but I got nowhere. So, being the IT Manager that I am, proceeded to de-activate encryption on my network and try running it in a “naked” configuration. Success! It noticed an update (version 1.60) and prompted me to download and install it. I proceeded to do so, and it went off about its business.

After that, I decided to see how the device would work with SD memory cards from my camera. I cordially popped in the card, and it was immediately recognised in the “Photo” section. I could then simply show the photos individually or in a slideshow of varying styles. Wonderful. I then decided to rip a CD onto the hard drive. I fancied something disco, so out came Donna Summer. Not the fastest of rips, but it got the job done. The tracks played flawlessly as I would have expected. There are two visualisations - the basic PlayStation swirl, or a varying graphical display that reacts to the music and you can adjust using the sticks on the controller. Very nice.

I then proceeded to register my console online – at which point I discovered the PS3’s useful ability to be able to utilise any USB keyboard and mouse. Very handy. The web browser is painfully slow though, for some reason. There are reports of this globally, so I’m not sure what’s up with that. I ended up using my PC to complete the registration as it was quicker. Then, I decided to check out the PlayStation Store. Spotted the Gran Turismo FREE demo, started its download. Had a look round for the acclaimed “Flow” - but it was nowhere to be seen.. Hmm, hopefully Sony will address that soon. Not long after that (literally an hour or so), the demo had downloaded, and so I fired it up. Played a couple of Time Trials.

Tried out MotorStorm and Resistance: Fall of Man (likely the two most popular launch titles), both of which run fine off-line and whilst Resistance doesn’t look greatly different to Half Life 2 on my PC, it certainly plays well and is a great showing for a launch title.

And then I hit my hurdle. My connection started to flake out. I first noticed it with Gran Turismo, every time you complete a time trial, the system will attempt to upload your score to the database to show your ranking. It is when it is halfway through doing this, some of the time my system decides it is no longer connected to the PlayStation Network, and issues some kind of DNS error. Then I tried Motorstorm online, and came across consistant connection problems and “hangs”. I have since messed around with various settings, including manually entering the network configuration, as well as moving my PS3 closer to the access point, but still it seems hit-and-miss. Trouble is, I’m sure some of the flakiness is down to the European network being inundated with new connections, but then it does nothing to help my experience. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the performance of the Playstation Network thus far is rather sluggish and disappointing. There is plenty of room for improvement.

I have browsed the PlayStation forums and come across several reports of wireless connection dropouts and other such randomness, and the most anyone can say to help is “Don’t use wireless, use wired it’s loads better and solved all my problems.” Well yes, that’s grand, but I’m using wireless for a reason – my router is four rooms away. Quite frankly, this needs attention. There’s no point including a wireless adapter in the console if it’s not up to the job.

So in essence, do I feel like I’ve wisely spent my money? Well, it’s not a simple answer. Currently, there aren’t enough A+ grade titles available to really blow me away, but the potential of the platform is clear to see. There are a lot of rough edges still that need to be ironed out, primarily in speeding up the PlayStation Network and improving the wireless stability, and these really need to be worked on before I will feel any happier about my purchase.

I have spent time with the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii. Whilst the former is good at what it does, it doesn’t really try hard enough to break the mould. It’s online service is rugged and proven but it just doesn’t offer me the kind of experience I’m looking for. The Wii is good for a laugh, perhaps for parties or get-togethers, but with its Playstation 2-era graphical capabilities and games that are visually trained on pre-adults, that was never going to be the one for me.

It was a purchase of the heart. An investment, if you will. And one that I’m sure will pay dividends in happiness during its time with me. I just hope the powers that be address the issues so that it can become the great successor that I think we all know the PlayStation 3 was destined to be.

UPDATE:
I think I may have been victim to launch-day blues. That, plus a combination of an over-burdened PlayStation Network and my briar-patch-esque wi-fi coverage. This morning, I relocated my PlayStation to a different spot, added WEP encryption (as I’d read that it can help stabilise the connection, oddly), and low-and-behold, it seems to have worked. I have managed several online games, and the PSN has not logged me out once.

Things are looking up. I’m hopeful it will evolve into a truly mature platform.