Users have been confirming various features of the PS3 that were not certain or not even public knowledge prior to the Japanese launch. Here is a quick round up of some of these recently discovered or confirmed features:
- The PSP will have PS1 emulation and downloadable games via a connection to a PS3. The Japanese online PS3 site confirms the downloadable content – see this site for a list of the games available right now in Japan. Expect a sligtly different list to be be made available for each region.
- The PS3 manual describes the steps for a consumer to replace or upgrade the internal HDD in the PS3 – without voiding the warranty. This is a huge plus for consumers, and puts the PS3 ahead of the XBox360 which requires some warranty-voiding-modding to upgrade it’s internals. Joystiq have some scans of the manual pages on their site.
- The above Joystiq article and scans from the manual also describe how the rechargable battery in the controller can also be replaced.
- Some of the PS1 and PS2 backcatalog (200 of the thousands available?) may not be 100% compatible with the PS3 – some may play without sound, and some may hang at the menu screens. A firmware upgrade is likely to come soon that willl resolve these issues.
- Some PS3 games may have the ability to record in game action, and then share the action footage with friends online via the online portal. Read this article on Eurogamer about this feature in Killzone.
- The media viewer features ‘live’ icons for video clips that animate – similar to some animated menus on DVDs. See a video of the features in action here on the Gizmodo site.