Review by A. Dent for PlayStation 3 Blue-ray Disc Remote Control (US) (US)
Rating:
I did not think I needed yet another remote control because I thought the six-axis had everything it needed for movie playing on the PS3 and, yet, I bought one. There were 2 initial reasons:

- my wife was missing a ‘magic wand’ shaped remote for playing movies

- Amazon had it at a great price in one of them lightning deals

I ended up using it myself and, in fact, using it for more than just movie playing – see below.

But, let’s do a quick inventory of features:

= It’s blue-tooth enabled and, therefore, it’s not taking any ports on your PS3. This is probably important for anyone who has a “2-USB ports console”.

= It’s wand-shaped, allowing the non-gamers to control their movie-watching activities while holding a familiar-shaped device in their hand.

= It maps ALL the six-axis buttons and performs everything a six-axis would do, except for the joystick features of R3 and L3 (but you do have the push-down or ‘click’ abilities for them).

= Includes additional buttons that the movie-only users would expect on a remote such as:

+ a number pad

+ eject

+ red, green, blue, yellow buttons

+ play, stop, pause

+ slow(step), scan(left/right), prev/next

+ display, top menu, pop up menu, return

+ subtitles, angle, audio

= 2 AA battery powered (still with the original Sony batteries after 4 months of use)

What is interesting about this remote is that you can use it for much more than movie-playing. Given that it has all the six-axis buttons, guess what? You can use it, and I do use it to:

- surf the web

- play music

- shop at the PSN store

- play certain games such as Sudoku

- turn the PS3 on/off when your six-axis controllers are in the charger and I am playing GT5 that is using a racing wheel

And, yes, you CAN turn the PS3 on and off with this remote. Turning it on is easy – you simply press the PlayStation button and the PS3 turns itself on. To turn it off, you either go as far to the left on the X-bar and all the way up and press Enter (the turn-off PlayStation icon will be highlighted) or you simply hold the PlayStation button pressed for a few seconds and then select ‘yes’ and press the X button a couple of times.

Overall: I am happy with this peripheral. Yes, it’s one more remote control but it’s a pretty good one, for the reasons I stated above.

Review by Dennbert for PlayStation 3 Blue-ray Disc Remote Control (US) (US)
Rating:
I like SONY. Most of my electronic products are SONY. I bought this Blu Ray controller to help me watch Blu Ray on the PS3. Yes, you can use the Dual Shock controller that comes with the PS3 to watch movies, but if you have ever tried that, you’ll go crazy, like in one minute.

This BD controller is much more suited for watching movies. It has a nice, solid heft to it, that I like; it makes it feel more well built than any other controller I’ve ever used… so that’s a plus.

Another major plus for this is that it is BLUETOOTH. Yeah, you don’t have to do the infra-red pointing at the console thing… the Bluetooth radio signal is great. Hold it under the covers, if you are watching movies in bed, and you can still use this.

Even though it still has the same iconic buttons that the PS3 controller has, like the Circle button, the Triange button, and the rest… why they are on this controller, I have NO idea. I’m just thinking that the Blu Ray format has so many features, that all kinds of new controller types may be necessary. Oh, and this has 4 different colored buttons… they are not numbered in any way… just 4 differnt color buttons. What the hell are they for???

The controller works well when viewing BD movies, but …

but…..

B U T …….!!!

There is one, ONE major goof in this controller.

They put the STOP button directly under the PLAY button. Now, maybe it’s just me, but all the controllers I’ve ever had, the PAUSE button was always underneath the PLAY. So, now when I want to PAUSE, I hit the STOP button, and… ARRRRGGGHHHH…. it kills the movie and goes all the way back to the beginning menues. I’ve done this numerous times!!! THE STOP BUTTON SHOULD NEVER BE RIGHT UNDER THE PLAY BUTTON. Hitting the STOP button on this controller is… forget it… go to the bathroom… nuke some popcorn… then come back as your movie starts again.

But hey… it’s just one button being in the wrong place. Otherwise this really is a good product. And many people think this should be included in the PS3 package to begin with, since the PS3 is one of the best BD players, why not give us the controller to go along with it!

SONY???? HELLO???????