PS3 Blu-Ray: Controller vs Remote

[Alyeska]

Room mate takes his PS3 controller with him when he left for the holiday. I want to watch some movies. Whoops, Its a $200 brick that serves no purpose without the controller. Impossible to use as a DVD player unless you bought the 40 fucking dollar remote control for it.

[Ryan Thunder]

The controllers are around $50 here, dualshock or otherwise.

[Alyeska]

The controllers are around $50 here, dualshock or otherwise.

So I have to spend $50 to get a remote control to use a Blu-Ray player? Its not even my PS3.

I would honestly be better off buying myself a Blu-Ray player of my own.

[Ryan Thunder]

The controllers are around $50 here, dualshock or otherwise.

So I have to spend $50 to get a remote control to use a Blu-Ray player? Its not even my PS3.

I would honestly be better off buying myself a Blu-Ray player of my own.

Ah, I didn't realize it wasn't yours.

[Stark]

The controllers are around $50 here, dualshock or otherwise.

So I have to spend $50 to get a remote control to use a Blu-Ray player? Its not even my PS3.

I would honestly be better off buying myself a Blu-Ray player of my own.

The perils of freeloading? Lol

You can probably drive it via USB anyway.

[Alyeska]

The perils of freeloading? Lol.

I own the house. He rents a room. Try again smartass.

[Stark]

I own the house. He rents a room. Try again smartass.

Do you own the PS3 or not? Are you complaining about not being able to use something that isn't yours? Are you annoyed that your cost of ownership is not zero?

Did you even TRY plugging in a USB keyboard?

[Alyeska]

Do you own the PS3 or not? Are you complaining about not being able to use something that isn't yours? Are you annoyed that your cost of ownership is not zero?

Did you even TRY plugging in a USB keyboard?

I am complaining about an exceptionally poor design decision on the part of Sony. The PS3 is my room mates and he is free to take his controller with him. Not having a dedicated remote control for using the PS3 as a media device is my complaint. It shouldn't have to be purchased separately.

I also did not bother with a USB keyboard because it wasn't worth the effort to unplug from my PC when I could just watch the movie on my PC.

[Stark]

How is it 'exceptionally poor'? You can't do ANYTHING with a console without input devices. Should it have a little d-pad on it? Xboxes even come with crappy IR remotes, but most people lose them because what good is it? Just use a controller. Unless its not even yours and the owner clearly doesn't want you to use it, that is.

Oh and I see it wasn't worth the bother but you whinged about it on the internet anyway. Man, you can't play DVDs on a PC without a 'controller'!

[Alyeska]

My argument is thus. If Sony wants people to use the PS3 as a media device and hype its ability to play Blu-Rays and DVDs, they should provide the necessary controls to use it as one. An actual honest to god remote control.

Guess what. The X-Box came with one. What a shocker.

Stark, why don't you go play hide and go fuck yourself.

[Stark]

But ... it isn't necessary, because it came with a controller. Surely your argument is that a real DVD player has hard transport controls, so you don't need any controller at all? If a DVD player had none, losing the 'controller' would render it just as useless as a PS3 you don't own a controller for.

Then again, more modern DVD/BD players have less and less hard transport controls, so you couldn't necesarily navigate menus anyway. Oh shi-

[Alyeska]

It came with a controller. Not a remote. A controller that sucks the big fucking one for use as a remote control when you want to play movies. A controller is never a substitute for a remote.

They fucking advertise the PS3 as a full media experience. Then provide the fucking hardware to use it like one. They clearly knew the controller fucking blows because they bothered to design a stand alone remote for the thing. Pack it in the god damned box when you sell it.

[General Zod]

The PS3 controller works fine for movies. Unless you're OCD about having the remote in your hand the whole time I don't see the big deal about using it.

[Stark]

The PS3 controller works fine for movies. Unless you're OCD about having the remote in your hand the whole time I don't see the big deal about using it.

The controller's better due to RF vs IR anyway. The 360 remote is dogshit - the firing angle is really narrow and the 360 sensor is really poor. Doesn't have all the buttons for functions either, they made you buy a 'better' one for that.

Hell, the PS3 doesn't even HAVE an IR port, it's wireless only, and they ship it with a wireless controller. Not good enough?

Sony doesn't ship PS3's with $2 headsets, why the fuck would they include a wireless DVD remote hardly anyone would use?

[Phantasee]

I'm not gonna lie, I don't like using the PS3 controller when I've watched movies on it. This is mostly due to me not knowing which buttons do what, though. I imagine looking up the manual would save me a lot of headache next time I used one.

Or I could just let the owner do it for me.

[Dalton]

Split from Venting, because people don't understand that a fucking discussion thread doesn't belong in there.

[Vympel]

People may recall I got a PS3 remote for Christmas from my brother and it broke after only 8 months of very light use (once a week on average)- the top directional button stopped working, making it impossible to navigate the menu screens.

Chalk me up as someone who hates using the controller as a remote - it powers off after a while, meaning you need to wait a couple of seconds for it to turn back on if you want to pause / rewind etc, and you need to be careful not to touch the controller whilst its on in the wrong way or you'll shift the analog sticks and lose your place. Its not a substitute for a remote, really.

[Stark]

The PS3 remote is like the old PS2 one, with the small retangular buttons, right? I hated the PS2 remote.

Using analogue sticks for scrubbing seems pretty stupid though; on 360 they use triggers, which are safer once you put it down.

[Chardok]

I'm sorry, I get a definite Boo frickity hoo vibe here. "Oh Noez teh controllerz takes 2 seconds to sync and I can't rewind!1!1!oneonelol I missed my part to see teh lazor hitting the wall!11" RAR! Controller for remotes are teh suck! If you bump them wrong they fast forward or whateverz" Dude, you can accidentally bump a remote and stop the entire DVD. or drop it, or knock it off the couch, or whatever.

Also - If I'm not mistaken, the PS3 will take any cruddy 3rd party controller. Just go get one from wal mart for 10 bucks and when your roommate returns, take the stupid thing back. Sorry - it just seems like there's a bajillion more important things you could bellyache about. Anyway - both controllers are perfectly adequate.

(PS - the Xbrick1 didn't come with a DVD remote until (I think) way later in it's lifecycle. I recall being forced to BUY the stupid thing separately.)

[Stark]

Xboxes also dont' come with a remote anymore. It was dropped a few SKUs ago.

[Chardok]

Xboxes also dont' come with a remote anymore. It was dropped a few SKUs ago.

Well, I know that - I thought peeps were harkening back to the bygone era of PS2 xbrick1

[adam_grif]

PS3 controller is superior to the remote because the remote takes AA batteries and doesn't do anything that the controller doesn't. My sister bought a remote because she thought it would be better, but it wasn't.

The controls for movie playback are very intuitive, R2 increments FF, L2 increments RW, Start is Pause/Play etc. Even if you can't be fucked learning the PS3 controller specifics, you can just press SELECT and a big menu will come up with all the controls overlayed on the screen, which you can navigate through with D-pad or analogue stick and use X to make a selection.

If you insist on being able to watch movies while this person is away, buy a controller, that way you can play games too. When he gets home, throw it at him and say merry Christmas. Complaining that the PS3 doesn't have media playback buttons all over it is about as useless as complaining that you can't work your PC if you don't have an input device plugged into it. It's not a movie player, it's a video game machine that also plays movies. The PS, PS2, XBOX, XBOX360 and Media Centre PC's don't have any manual controls for that shit either. Regardless of what you personally think of the design choice, nothing you say or do will alter reality and let you watch a movie.

They fucking advertise the PS3 as a full media experience. Then provide the fucking hardware to use it like one. They clearly knew the controller fucking blows because they bothered to design a stand alone remote for the thing. Pack it in the god damned box when you sell it.

They don't sell the remote because it's part of 'THE FULL MEDIA EXPERIENCE', they sell it because they make a killing off peripherals and they desperately need to recover the money they blew on cocaine during the design phase that led them to believe that putting a super-expensive processor and a Blu-ray drive was a smart business decision for them.

[Stark]

Well, I know that - I thought peeps were harkening back to the bygone era of PS2 xbrick1

Well I've got one from my old 20Gb 360. Its rubbish and I never use it... and its been deleted in the price wars. 360 is still a FULL MEDIA EXPERIENCE.

[Vympel]

I'm sorry, I get a definite Boo frickity hoo vibe here. "Oh Noez teh controllerz takes 2 seconds to sync and I can't rewind!1!1!oneonelol I missed my part to see teh lazor hitting the wall!11" RAR! Controller for remotes are teh suck! If you bump them wrong they fast forward or whateverz" Dude, you can accidentally bump a remote and stop the entire DVD. or drop it, or knock it off the couch, or whatever.

That's a load of crap. You drop a remote, the chances of anything happening to what you're watching are minimal, because the buttons aren't likely to get pressed. You don't need to drop a PS3 controller to make things go tits up, you just bump the analog sticks and its an annoyance. Its a small thing, but it is the reason I prefer using a remote. Have I bought another one since the remote broke? No. Too expensive.

[neoolong]

The PS3 remote is sub 20 bucks on Amazon. So, cheaper in the US. If that helps make the decision.