PS3

 Technology  Comments Off on PS3
Sep 092009
 

Forgot to post this, but anyway, I picked up a PS3 when the new version came out.

Dear Sony,

I’ll tell you what it took to make me finally buy a PS3:

  1. For starters, you had to cut the price in half, from $600 to $300.
  2. You had to increase the hard drive size to something I could actually imagine using. 120GB is something I can imagine using. I also like the ability to swap out the HDD.  Nice touch adding the front panel… although these days, I can fit 120GB on a flash drive the size of my pinky. (Or I will be able to do it in 5 years, tops.)
  3. Adding DualShock to the SixAxis controller was a good idea. I was puzzled when the original PlayStation 3 came out without DualShock… it was only in about 7 years’ worth of PlayStation controllers. I’m sure that was done a while back, but when the PlayStation 3 came out without it, that was a turn-off to add to the other turn-offs. And I like that the controllers have built-in rechargeable batteries. The original Xbox 360 controllers didn’t have that, neither did the Wii. I hate buying batteries. The only thing I hate worse than buying batteries is when they corrode inside the controller.
  4. Most importantly, there was finally a critical mass of Games that Didn’t Suck. My rule is that there have to be at least 3 “OMG I have to  play this!” games out there. The original release games usually suck. It’s hard to get around that truth.

The original PlayStation 3 was very shiny, but it was freakin’ huge, too. The new unit looks and feels a little on the cheap side, but I don’t particularly care. I don’t sit and there and grope my PS3 all day. I use it for playing games or, whenever I get around to buying Blu-Ray movies, Blu-Rays.

I’m sure fit and finish is important to a certain degree (ask any Xbox 360 owner who had a RROD), but that’s what the extended warranty is for. One thing is certain– it’s a heck of a lot quieter than the 360, which often sounds like it’s about to launch from my entertainment center.

There are a few things that annoy me– updates, updates, updates. I buy a game, stick it in, get ready to play, and then have to wait 3 hours for 450MB of updates to finish downloading and installing. I can’t tell you how much I hate that. I’d love it if that were optional, or better yet, if I could play the game, and let the updates be handled in the background.

It’s not like it’s rocket science to handle more than one process at a time.

I also wish it did a better job of auto-detecting when I have the device plugged into an HDMI source. If you switch between a conventional TV and an HDMI TV, then you better have a way to hook up the PS3 using the composite video plug before you go HDMI, because it won’t do it automatically.

But it’s worth it to hook up the PS3 to any kind of HDTV, because the games look 10 times better than they do on a conventional TV. Even a computer monitor works, if you have the right kind. (That’s what I did at first.)

All in all, I have no clue how the PS3 is going to do in the long run, but I’m satisfied with it. I got my “must-play” games, all of which have hundreds of hours of replayability, and I have the ability to play Blu-Ray movies, too. Works for me.

Good job Sony, even if it is a little late.

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