ps3

All Blu-ray players bow to the PlayStation 3?

After a long wait, we're finally starting to get in a new wave of first-generation Blu-ray players. CNET will be posting full reviews for both the Panasonic DMP-BD10 and the Philips BDP9000 shortly, but I've already taken some long looks at each in terms of picture quality, and they've got a lot to be worried about. Not because they look worse than HD DVD; in fact, the picture-quality gap is almost gone between the two formats. And not because they're bad players; both of them put out a pristine Blu-ray image that blows DVD out of … Read more

Behold the majesty of HDMI 1.3 cable

Feast your eyes on this, gadget kooks: a pre-standard HDMI 1.3 cable. This baby can transfer up to 10 gigabits of data a second. Plus, if you have a digital TV and surround-sound speakers, it replaces about a whole mess o' cables.

HDMI, which came out of a company called Silicon Image, has been incorporated into a lot of devices, but the 1.3 version is greatly improved. It doubles the bandwidth, for one thing. By 2010, there will be a billion HDMI devices out there in the wild. You knew, of course, that 63 million HDMI devices have … Read more

Who Needs Sleep?

I heard from a friend that the PlayStation store at the Metreon was getting shipments of PS3s last week. I decided to take a shot at getting one on Black Friday, so I drove by around 1:30 a.m. only to see a line forming already. I joined these die-hard PS3 fans in line and nine hours later scored a 60GB unit, an extra controller, and five games. I've been playing Resistance: Fall of Man and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance ever since.

PS3 Nike shoes for $5,000

A couple of weeks ago we might well have assumed this was a hoax. But with PS3 prices exceeding $10,000 since then on eBay, we're prepared to believe anything.

Case in point: These shoes, a pair of "PlayStation 3 Air Max 90 Hybrid Nike Kicks," are going for more than $5,000 on charity auction site Blue Sole. (That's right, an auction site for shoes.) As Joystiq notes, these sneakers aren't really working PlayStations--but you do get some special PS3 logos, drawings and stitching that denotes the console's launch date. And two pairs … Read more

How bad do you want a PS3?

We finally found an online store that has the PS3 in stock but when we saw the price, it made us flinch. At around $3k a pop, you get to own one of these babies and with it, the pride of owning one before the majority of people. I'm not a big gamer, but if Santa is nice enough to place this bad boy under the Christmas tree for me, I wouldn't complain. Hey, I think I've been nice this year! Update: The PS3 online price has dropped. Click here to check latest prices.

L.A. finally has the Wii

LOS ANGELES--The crowd counted down the seconds to midnight, "Five, four, three, two, one," and then they went wild.

Inside the EB Games store at Universal CityWalk here, a phalanx of reporters awaited the midnight arrival of Jonathan Mann, the first person in line to buy one of Nintendo's new video game console, the Wii.

Seconds after midnight, as an explosion of streamers coated the ground outside, Mann came inside the store, walked up to the counter, and got some bad news from Nintendo senior vice president of marketing and communications George Harrison, who was standing behind … Read more

Cops like the Wii too

LOS ANGELES--When you see several sheriff's deputies approaching someone in a big crowd of people, you automatically assume something is amiss.

That was my assumption here at the Universal CityWalk, where Nintendo is having its official West Coast launch party for its new video game console the Wii.

As part of the entertainment, Nintendo hired a company which has two people riding around on Segways, each of which is decked out with a flat-screen TV and a Wii. The two will roll--literally--up to a group in line, stop, and while hovering there, allow those in line to play games … Read more

What to do in the Wii launch line

LOS ANGELES--If you had to wait in line for 38 hours for a Nintnedo Wii, what would you do to pass the time?

Well, here at the official West Coast Wii launch, there was only a couple of folks who waited that long, but all told, there are probably 1,000 people in line, and they are choosing all kinds of things to entertain themselves.

Many have come in groups. There are countless camp chairs, though none of the makeshift tents and shelters that I saw in San Francisco on Thursday for the PlayStation 3 launch there.

The most common … Read more

Wii mania not extending to eBay

While the previous few days have been filled with headlines trumpeting the thousands of dollars some people have seemingly been willing to pay for PlayStation 3s on eBay, the same mania doesn't seem to be extending to the Nintendo Wii.

The Wii--which retails for $250--launches tonight across North America. And on eBay, one can buy the rights to one of the pre-ordered consoles for roughly $500.

Now, that's double the retail cost. Which, extrapolated to the PS3's top-end $600 price tag equates to $1,200. And in fact, PS3s are now selling on eBay for just a … Read more