The revolution will not be televised, it will be downloaded an update at a time

Back in the crazy days before the current generation of gaming consoles, the console you bought at retail was the console you had for the life of the hardware. My SNES acts exactly the same now as it did when it was first released, and outside of the addition of Xbox Live, the first Xbox system remained largely unchanged throughout the hardware's life cycle. Those days are long over, and now which version of Sony's PlayStation 3 that you bought is only one part of the equation: welcome to the firmware wars.





The PS3's Protean design

No console system has changed so dramatically in the time since its launch as the PlayStation 3. We rather notoriously gave the 60GB model a six when it was first released, and we stand by that rating—the system just felt undercooked. What player of high-definition media can't display content in 720p? Also, the lack of background downloading felt like a drag when we tried to use the online store. And the games were mostly terrible; there wasn't anything that looked as good as the titles on the then-mature Xbox 360, much less any evidence that the PS3 was as powerful as Sony had promised. Remember, this was the system that had been hyped from here to eternity, so it was easy to feel let down by Sony's anemic launch offerings. The PS3 never became hard to find, the price cuts began sooner than expected, and the system has been trailing both the Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii almost every month since it has been released.

It may sound a bit dire when you sum it up like that, but something has been happening with the PlayStation 3 since launch. The firmware has received update after update. The Blu-ray capability has become much stronger, and it may in fact be the most affordable and fully-featured high definition disc player on the market. The price has come down to a much more palatable $400 for the 40GB model, and the game selection continues to improve, with strong multiplatform support and a wide selection of exclusive games. Finally, the Sixaxis has been discontinued, and in its place now sits the Dual Shock 3: a controller with both motion-sensing capabilities and rumble.

Sony has done an amazing job of rallying behind its flagship system, and where there used to be arrogance there is a now a more realistic sense of what needs to be done, as well as a more open approach to dealing with the press and bloggers alike. Sony launched its own blog to speak directly to the consumers, for instance, and both the PlayStation blog in the US and ThreeSpeech in the UK do a great job of providing news; both sites also have many developers and publishers interacting directly with the comments. Even the commercials for the system have gotten better. This approach seems to be saying one thing to console gamers like us, who were unimpressed with the system at launch: "We're different now. We understand what went wrong. Come home to the PlayStation you know."

So today, in light of all that has changed since the system's launch, we're going to re-review the PlayStation 3 by taking a look at the system you'll get if you buy one today, not the system that launched in November of 2006. Trust us, it's no longer a six.

Blu-ray player and media functions

The first thing that was wrong with the launch version of the PS3 was that its Blu-ray support wasn't exactly the asset that it is today. The original unit's lack of 720p support was criminal, and the selection of Blu-ray titles was weak. No one wanted to buy content for a format that might die, and if they did, the majority of people with high-def displays most likely ran at 720p as the standard resolution.

In May of 2007, Sony launched the 1.80 firmware update, and the game was changed: 720p support was finally added, as was the ability to upscale existing DVDs. DLNA support also came to the system, so that you could stream your content from your home network.





FOX shows off BD Live features at CES

Even as Sony was rolling out these firmware updates, the Blu-ray standard itself was evolving. Different profiles for the standard asked different things of the hardware, meaning that many players wouldn't be able to take advantage of the latest features of some discs. Taking a look at each Blu-ray profile, you can imagine that early adopters of the format aren't happy with the situation:

1.0 is the launch profile, and secondary audio and video decoders

are optional, as is local storage and network connectivity. The

majority of standalone players fit into this category.

are optional, as is local storage and network connectivity. The majority of standalone players fit into this category. 1.1

is a newer profile, and to take advantage of these discs, players

need a secondary audio and video decoder to handle picture-in-picture,

as well as at least 256MB of local storage for content.

is a newer profile, and to take advantage of these discs, players need a secondary audio and video decoder to handle picture-in-picture, as well as at least 256MB of local storage for content. 2.0

is the very latest profile, requiring the two secondary decoders, 1GB

of local storage for updates and content, and an Internet connection.

Sony has already launched the software update that allows the PS3 to play discs that use the 2.0 profile, called "BD Live," and at the moment the PS3 is one of the few players that will be able to play these discs. What does BD Live get you? Picture in picture, online features like trivia games, and other goodies like downloadable ring tones. The price of standalone players that are fully compliant with the 2.0 spec will most likely be above the $400 asking price of the PS3. Furthermore, buying Sony's console instead of a standalone player also gives you an added insurance policy: with its media processing muscle, hard drive, and Ethernet port, the PS3 is one of the only completely future-proof Blu-ray players on the market. No matter how the spec changes, the PS3 will be able to play it.

Sony's is also the only console to be completely Divx certified, unlike the limited support the format enjoys on the 360. "The recent Xbox update does not support full DivX playback; Microsoft has added support for MPEG-4, which is not the same thing as full DivX Certification," Bruce Lidl, PR manager for DivX Inc., told Ars Technica. "In practical terms, it is true that some DivX files will play back on the Xbox, because DivX is in part based on the MPEG-4 standard. But many early versions of DivX video will not play back on the console, and the device has not been tested to guarantee an acceptable level of quality and full support for DivX video at the proper resolution." In contrast, the PlayStation 3 is fully certified to work with DivX in all its incarnations, a large selling point for people with Divx content already on their network.

The Blu-ray and DivX situation has left Sony with the upper hand over Microsoft in the race to turn consoles into networked home media players. In short, Sony's gaming system is one of the most robust and affordable pieces of home theater hardware on the market: it's the best Blu-ray player, it has a relatively low price, it's fully Divx compatible, and it allows video streaming from your network. Furthermore, regular DVDs look amazing after being upscaled, and the system now takes advantage of all your high-end audio equipment. If you take away the gaming features completely, the hardware is still worth more than $400 for home theater enthusiasts; in a surreal twist, you could argue that Blu-ray is the Trojan horse bringing PS3 gaming to the masses, not the other way around.

Story of Rumble

When the PlayStation 3 was released, it launched with the Sixaxis controller. This was something of a departure for Sony in that it had no rumble, and its motion-sensing technology seemed to have taken some cues from the Nintendo Wii. Without rumble, the controller was light, and the triggers had a much larger range of motion than the Dual Shock 2. Some loved it, some hated it, but it was certainly an interesting choice.

"I believe that the Sixaxis controller offers game designers and developers far more opportunity for future innovation than rumble ever did. Now, rumble I think was the last generation feature; it's not the next-generation feature. I think motion sensitivity is," Phil Harrison famously told GameDaily back in February 2007. The truth is that Sony was locked in litigation with the Immersion Corporation, and rather than capitulate and license the rumble technology, Sony decided to use its power to try to make rumble look passé. The ploy didn't work.





While the drama may have been quickly forgotten, it took much doing to bring the Dual Shock 3 to life

"I really miss the rumble feature, and I already said to Mr. Kutaragi that I want the rumble feature back," Hideo Kojima said, and many gamers agreed with him. Sony ended up settling with Immersion, and almost immediately the tune changed. Sony couldn't wait to work with the company.

In a later interview, Phil Harrison played politics to try to downplay Sony's old stance about rumble. "As to previous statements that I made; we were in a lawsuit—what do you expect me to say? We were in a lawsuit. We were in litigation. Of course I have to defend our view. And actually, I still truly believe that having the Sixaxis controller the way it is is the best way to control games. And I think that we're looking forward to working with Immersion going forward, and who knows where that is leading us."

In April of this year Sony finally released the Dual Shock 3, complete with rumble, and then killed the Sixaxis completely. The Dual Shock 3 is going to be the controller for Sony moving forward, and many games already support the rumble feature. The story of the Dual Shock 3 is one of the most drastic turnarounds seen in the gaming industry.

Holding a Dual Shock 3 in my hand, I can't help but wonder how many gamers who haven't yet bought a PlayStation 3 will even remember this story. For the majority of the system's life, the Dual Shock 3 will be the controller everyone knows, and it's a very good controller. Strong battery life, rumble, wireless... it's what the system should have shipped with from the beginning. The Dual Shock is one of the most iconic designs in the history of gaming, and it's great to have it back, rumble included.

The Dual Shock 3 is yet another way that the system has improved since launch. Rumble is now back, and the PlayStation 3 has the stock controller it always deserved.