Hasta La Gadget!

Being tied to a disc hasn’t made for the easiest Netflix Watch Instantly experience on the PlayStation 3, but it has its benefits, and now that includes the ability for all users to search its library directly on the console. This feature’s been available to some for months before it was even announced the Xbox 360 would get parity in a fall update, but we can confirm it’s currently rolling out to all PS3 users. It should automatically update the next time you’re watching, so just slide left from Instant Queue on the top bar to live the glorious life of title searching that you deserve.

Netflix Watch Instantly title search flips on for all PS3 users originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How will sir be having his gimmick today? The devs behind the upcoming Sly Cooper 3D compilation are wisely mulling over the idea of inserting a 3D-adjusting slider to let users decide just how much stereoscopy they want with their Sony-approved gaming. It’s argued that this should allow you greater positional flexibility when smacking fools down in three dimensions, as you’ll be able to manually toggle the depth of the 3D effect to suit your viewing angle. We were happy to see such an option introduced in the Nintendo 3DS at E3 and would similarly welcome its inclusion on the PS3 — though that’s no foregone conclusion as yet. All we can say for sure right now is that the stuff is adjustable, but it looks like it’ll be up to devs to roll their sleeves up and integrate the slider into their games. Hey, it’s the summer, not like they’ve got anything else to do, right?

PlayStation 3 could get 3D depth slider à la the 3DS originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look, it’s summer break. What better to do than learn a little piano in preparation for the upcoming release of Harmonix’s Rock Band 3? The next installment — which promises to bring all sorts of new kit to the market — was finally given a release date today, and not surprisingly, it’ll be quickly climbing the Santa Lists of rug-rats the world over. According to the company, the title will ship on October 26th in North America, with the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 versions priced at $59.99 sans hardware and the DS rendition at $29.99. Hop on past the break if you’re interested in learning about your wealth of pre-order options.

Continue reading Rock Band 3 crashing into living rooms on October 26

Rock Band 3 crashing into living rooms on October 26 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, we already told you what Hulu Plus looked like on iPhone, iPad and a Samsung TV, and not much has changed since that juncture, but we expect a number of you care quite a bit about how it will operate on PlayStation 3, especially considering you’ll (presently) have to cough up an additional $50 annually for the privilege. The good news is it’s absolutely nothing like the PS3’s disc-based Netflix solution — here, you’re looking at a responsive experience through and through, and the interface is about as simple and full-featured as we’d hoped.

After a 28MB download, we were invited to either log in with an email/password combination or link our console at Hulu’s website, both of which launched the program nigh instantly from the hard drive. The interface afterwards is a dead-ringer for the Samsung TV version, except optimized for console control, with the analog stick and shoulder buttons smartly seeking through programs at high speed, or tapped to jump ahead in fifteen-second increments. You can similarly adjust video quality (and thus, bandwidth usage) with a press of the R1 button, watch picture-in-picture programs while you browse, and the search function admirably narrows down Hulu’s content as quickly as you can type the letters in. It does have its bugs, like when we tried to watch High Fidelity and were asked if we wanted to subscribe to the show, and there was the time we got caught in an unending advertising loop for body wash, but that time we think the app was just trying to tell us something. Yeah, we’d better run out to the store, but don’t go away — hit the gallery below for a brief tour.

Update: Our friends at Joystiq have a video walkthrough; check it after the break!

Continue reading Hulu Plus on PS3, hands-on (update: video)

Hulu Plus on PS3, hands-on (update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Jul 2010 19:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Though it originally seemed like you’d need to drop an additional $50 annually to get your on-demand TV fix via PlayStation 3, it turns out that the PlayStation Plus is not technically needed for Hulu Plus functionality. Concerned console owners emailing support@hulu.com are being told Sony’s premium service is “only a requirement during the preview period,” after which point “you should be able to download the Hulu Plus app,” which will still require Hulu’s own $10 monthly subscription, of course. We reached out to a Hulu representative and confirmed the above for ourselves — so the only question is how long you’ll have to wait without shelling out.

Hulu Plus on PS3 only requires PlayStation Plus during preview period originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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