Menu Interface

Pulled straight from the same design template as the user friendly PSP, the same wavy line behind horizontal row of icons, this makes for easy navigation, similar to the PSP you choose from options of Settings, Photos, Music, Videos, Games and now with the addition of profiles and a direct link to Sony’s Playstation store.

The settings menu comprises of a system update selection where the user can simply upgrade the firmware with one click. Some games will require that the system is updated before you are able to play. A DB/DVD menu allows you to change subtitle, format and audio options when playing movies via your PS3. Because the PS3 allows you to import audio CD’s and store them as MP3’s, AAC’s or ATRAC’s on the hard drive there is a menu allowing you to change various settings for this function.

The system Settings has a large array of options to allow you to change the language, the name of your PS3 and also formatting of the HDD, one option that came as a bit of surprise to us was the ‘Install other OS’ menu item, after digging a little deeper it appears that Sony has embraced the fact hardcore users love to try and run other operating systems on these HDD equipped consoles.

Already there are plenty of people out there that are running Linux on their PS3 consoles and driver support is widely available. Due to the fact that the processor inside the console is in fact nothing more that a Apple Macintosh power PC processor installing MAC OS X on it is also perfectly viable. Next on the menu is the date and time settings, funnily enough doing exactly what it says on the tin.

Under the accessories menu you can change settings with keyboard layouts or mouse speed when the peripherals are connected to the USB ports. Display settings lets you change your outputs of screen, by default it will guide you through this option on your first boot of the console, should you wish to change your output to HMDI, Scart or component video you will need to change these settings here. Screensaver options are also changeable in the display settings. Under the Sound menu you can set to use the 3 main sound outputs, HDMI, Optical or via the AV Multi plug.

Second from last is the security section for changing Parental controls for games as well as movies. Lastly and one of the most important is the network settings. Here you configure the system for internet access via your home router but also settings for setting up your PSP (if you have one) to use remote play with your PS3.

Photo
As with the PSP we can store and look through pictures stored on our memory card or ones that have been transferred direct to the PS3’s hard drive. They have added a cool feature called the photo album, this uses the photos stores and animates in 3D the photos dropping onto a solid surface whilst the camera pans horizontally along, showing off the PS3’s lighting effects, a nice little touch.

Music
Whether we are playing a CD or encoded audio content on the HDD or removable media, the built in music player is fairly standard but shows track information clearly and delivers good crisp clean sound.

Videos
The videos section encompasses any video footage stores on the HDD or memory sticks and allows easy playback and selection. Menu options also allow us to play either DVD or the new BD-rom (Blu-Ray) films.

Formats supported are:
Blu-Ray (ROM, -R, -RE)
DVD (ROM, -R, -RW, R, RW)
CD (ROM, -R, -RW, Super Audio)
MPEG-1
MPEG-2 (PS, TS)
MPEG-4 SP
MPEG-4 AVC/H.264.
ATRAC
AAC
MP3
WAV
JPEG
GIF
PNG
TIFF
BMP

Game
The game Data utility lets us delete and administer data added by games or downloaded from the Sony store, some games on the PS3 require data to be installed onto a portion of the HDD of the console, sizes of this can depend on the game but can range from a from about 20Meg right up to 400Meg (!). Using this section we can see information on file sizes and have the ability to delete them. Even though the PS3 does not have the ability to take the older style PS/PS2 memory cards it does have the option to create a virtual memory card when playing older titles, all of this is administered from the memory card utility menu. The saved Data Utility gives us all of the saved games, from here we can sift through and delete any old ones we don’t need or copy them to a memory card for backup/transfer to another console. Next down on the game menu will all depend on whether or not a disc is inserted, A disc icon will show us what game we have in the drive and background will change according to the game (when highlighted). If any demos are downloaded from the Sony store these installed games will show below the disc icon.

Backwards Compatibility
Unfortunately as we have a Japanese console on test here today, we were unable to test any of our PS2 UK titles, however we can point you towards articles like this which detail issues people are experiencing with their old PS2 games on the new console.

Network
Under the Network menu firstly we find the online instruction manuals and it goes without saying an internet connection is needed to view these. Next down is the Remote play for using a PSP to remotely access content on the PS3, this feature has many different uses, from playing videos and music streamed wirelessly between a Console and handheld to using as a secondary output to display a rear view mirror for a driving game, the latter is still under development. On one hand we think this a quite a cool feature but at the same time we can't help but think that maybe it will have limited appeal as you do not actually have the ability to play PS3 games remotely through the PSP. We have been assured that the interaction between the PS3 and PSP will become more apparent later in the year as connecting the PSP will unlock certain levels or areas in a game..... a clever ploy to get more sales perhaps? It is worth mentioning that the 20GB version cannot connect to the PSP as it needs a wireless connection.

As with the PSP the PS3 is equipped with a web browser, although fairly limited it does support flash and seems to work quite well, it is not something that I think will actually get used a great deal as most of us will leave web browsing to our Windows based PC’s.

Onto the Playstation Store, this feature requires a net connection and allows you to get information on new titles coming out, download movie clips, purchase new games and download playable demo’s for both the PS3 and PSP – similar to "live" on the Xbox 360. Once selected and downloaded the games automatically install and you are ready to go. One drawback we found is that during the period that anything is downloading from the store the PS3 is unusable and with large files such as game demo’s it is best to leave them overnight.

Friends
The last menu that the PS3 offers is the Friends menu, from here you can add other friends who have a PS3 so that you can message them or organise online play.