As our screengrabs demonstrate, the Screen Size options let you set your screen format, from 4:3 in a letterbox (I imagine for playing widescreen modes on your 4:3 TV screen), a full screen mode that fills the 4:3 TV screen, and the widescreen, which should fill one of the newer widescreen and HDTV-ready sets on the market. Exactly how many games will support widescreen formats remains to be seen. But it speaks to Sony's awareness of the next media revolution in the family room – widescreen TVs. Likewise, the Component Video option is designed to feed special cabling that connects to HDTV-ready sets. These cables go S-VHS one better by separating the colors in the video stream even more so that they combine more cleanly on the TV screen.

If you are wondering how serious Sony is about assaulting the PC platform, the Version Information screen gives you an inkling. Are the driver versions listed in this screen signs of upgradability?

The other options give users an unprecedented amount of control over their consoles. Settings for CD-Rom disk speeds and texture mapping styles are features that can be supported by third party gamemakers. The documentation warns that toggling fast disk reads can produce problems and give no actual speed benefits unless it is supported by the game software. Texture Smoothing as well is something that may or may not work to improve the look of titles for the PS1. We will be looking specifically at backward compatibility in a later article, so look for it early next week. Finally, the Diagnosis toggle is a DVD option. Having it on will autodetect the best settings for playing DVDs.

One thing is clear from digging about the many menu options. Sony has produced a unique machine in the history of consumer media gadgets. In the past, the simplest and most reliable of computer hardware have been dedicated game consoles. They are hardwired to do one thing, which they do well or they simply fail. With the PS2, Sony is putting a great many more options (potentially, at least) in one box and pitched at the non-techie consumer audience. At all points the hardware has to make these possibilities accessible to those who can handle them but also ensure this complexity doesn't get in the way of the traditional console experience - Plug and Play as God intended. Sony has given us an advanced game machine whose complexity is accessible to the technically-oriented, but essentially invisible to those who just want to pop in a game or a DVD.

Just in the boot up process of the PS2, I come away impressed by the ambitions of the unit. Of course, we'll all have to wait for Internet play, for connectivity to various portable devices, and (for some of us) running this baby through an HDTV-equipped home theater. But at my first glance, Sony seems to have straddled the world of future tech versatility and retro-tech simplicity very well.

Steve Smith
Contributing Editor