New York Times Buries PS3

An article in the New York times slams Sony's PlayStation 3 console and claims that the product is unrefined and not ready for public release, all this after having tried the console for over 30 hours and having played 13 games on it.

The article in the New York times suggests that Sony rushed the console to market in an attempt to get some holiday action but may be selling the consumer short in order to do so. The story begins by stating that the PS3 ...delivers gorgeous graphics. Only to go on and add that ...they are not discernibly prettier than the Xbox 360's.

Seth Schiesel, the New York times editor behind the story, then moves on to a straight-forward comparison of the XBox 360 and the PS3 and claims that the X360 is user friendly and features an intuitive UI while the PS3 lacks refinement and some basic gear including the high definition cabling required to connect the console to a TV that supports the technology. The comparison continues to find fault with Sony's console and the way its controllers sync and even mentions the inability of the PS3 to allow players to listen to their own music while playing games.

The criticism of the console goes on to mention the Sony online experience which is also presented as unrefined, astonishingly, you can't download in the background while you go do something that's more fun (like play a game). The story however, does praise the online experience in, the quite excellent, Resistance: Fall of Man.

The criticism of Sony's console goes on and on and the gist of the story seems to be that the shortage of consoles may actually help Sony as it needs more time to refine its UI and the overall PS3 user experience. A lot of horsepower but no seats may be the expression that best describes Sony's next-generation offering.