saintsdude76
Photog
Offline
Two weeks ago I went over to the proverbial dark side. No, I wasn’t wielding a red light-saber and whining about Obi-Wan. I did the unthinkable -- I bought a Playstation 3.
Now, I’ve always told my friends that I would never get a PS3 until the price went down to something reasonable; And in late August it finally did. $299 to be exact. Not only did the price go down but so did the PS3’s weight. Today I’m going to give my impressions of the PS3 from an XBOX 360 users perspective.
To give you a brief history of my console experience allow me to give you a rundown of the consoles I have owned in my life...
Coleco Vision
Nintendo Entertainment System
Sega Genesis
Sega CD (Yeah I had one)
Panasonic 3DO (and I was complaining about the PS3’s price point?)
Playstation
Nintendo 64
Dreamcast
Playstation 2
XBOX
XBOX 360 (2 of ‘em)
Playstation 3
So, you can see that I’m not partial to any one console manufacturer. So, to quote M.C. Hammer, “Let’s get it started!!!”
My initial impressions of the PS3 right out the box were, “wow, this thing is light!” There is no hulking power brick to connect to (and keep ventilated) and one HDMI port and A/V connector port as well for SD gaming. But enough with looks lets get to the meat of this thing... The performance.
I have the PS3 connected to 32’’ Vizio LCD TV via HDMI. The first thing I noticed is how bright and clean the PS3 projects on the TV. This really is an HD gaming rig. I knew it would take some time to get used to the PS3’s controller coming from Microsoft’s controller.
The PS3 comes with wi-fi and bluetooth inside the console. No extra peripherals to purchase. I was able to use an old bluetooth headset I had laying around (Jabbra BT250) for my online gaming. Connecting to my wireless internet and the headset went off without a hitch.
My first complaint has to be the Playstation Store. Here you can see where Microsoft is eating Sony’s lunch. The PS Store is hard to navigate and the irritating high-pitched tick you hear when you select something needs to go. I had to mute my TV while navigating the store. I decided to download a demo of Killzone 2 and quickly found out that you cannot turn the console off and keep downloading like you can on the 360. Please fix this Sony. Next, I downloaded Home; Sony’s blatant rip-off of Second Life. It was fun walking around and doing the cabbage patch dance in front of people but got old quick.
OK, time to play some games. I picked up Uncharted & Heavenly Sword for about $27 a piece at EB Games. This is where the PS3 shines, in my opinion. The graphics on Uncharted are, in a word, gorgeous. When stand on a cliff you can see for miles and miles. The redraw distance is amazing. The colors are extremely bright and the blacks are great. On Heavenly Sword what impressed me were the amount of enemies on the screen at once. At certain points I saying, “Oh crap!” out loud to myself. Once the Killzone 2 demo downloaded I gave it spin... Wow! Killzone 2 has to have some of the best looking visuals I have ever seen in a video game. Two days later I picked up a full copy of the game and was blown away by the controls, sound effects and the visuals, again.
When I picked up my copy of Killzone 2, I also got a remote for watching DVD’s and Blu-Ray. I got the remote used for $20. I got the Iron Man Blu-Ray for starters and I’m really happy I did. There has to be HOURS of extra features on this disc. Plus the movie itself looked great on my TV. Now, if Sony could just get Nexflix on the console, I’d be all set!
In conclusion, Sony finally has it’s feet firmly on the ground. And I think it’s going to do some damage in sales this holiday season. To compare the PS3 to the XBOX 360 Elite feature set to feature set would be an act in futility. The PS3 offers more features for a cheaper price point than Microsoft’s veteran console. If were to add the wireless adaptor to the 360 I would already be $100 over the PS3. However, the 360 still has a more robust game library and an online experience that is unmatched on any console to date.
Being the video game nerd I am I’ve never been one to take sides. When the PS3 was first announced, I really hoped the console would do great things. I still hope it will today. Sony has some really intriguing titles coming in the very near future. Having both the XBOX 360 and the PS3 is your best bet, really. If you can afford both consoles then, by all means, get them both. You won’t be disappointed. Competition breeds better games and lower prices. And right now, it’s a great time to be a gamer!
Sorry for the long post, guys _Saintsdude76
Now, I’ve always told my friends that I would never get a PS3 until the price went down to something reasonable; And in late August it finally did. $299 to be exact. Not only did the price go down but so did the PS3’s weight. Today I’m going to give my impressions of the PS3 from an XBOX 360 users perspective.
To give you a brief history of my console experience allow me to give you a rundown of the consoles I have owned in my life...
Coleco Vision
Nintendo Entertainment System
Sega Genesis
Sega CD (Yeah I had one)
Panasonic 3DO (and I was complaining about the PS3’s price point?)
Playstation
Nintendo 64
Dreamcast
Playstation 2
XBOX
XBOX 360 (2 of ‘em)
Playstation 3
So, you can see that I’m not partial to any one console manufacturer. So, to quote M.C. Hammer, “Let’s get it started!!!”
My initial impressions of the PS3 right out the box were, “wow, this thing is light!” There is no hulking power brick to connect to (and keep ventilated) and one HDMI port and A/V connector port as well for SD gaming. But enough with looks lets get to the meat of this thing... The performance.
I have the PS3 connected to 32’’ Vizio LCD TV via HDMI. The first thing I noticed is how bright and clean the PS3 projects on the TV. This really is an HD gaming rig. I knew it would take some time to get used to the PS3’s controller coming from Microsoft’s controller.
The PS3 comes with wi-fi and bluetooth inside the console. No extra peripherals to purchase. I was able to use an old bluetooth headset I had laying around (Jabbra BT250) for my online gaming. Connecting to my wireless internet and the headset went off without a hitch.
My first complaint has to be the Playstation Store. Here you can see where Microsoft is eating Sony’s lunch. The PS Store is hard to navigate and the irritating high-pitched tick you hear when you select something needs to go. I had to mute my TV while navigating the store. I decided to download a demo of Killzone 2 and quickly found out that you cannot turn the console off and keep downloading like you can on the 360. Please fix this Sony. Next, I downloaded Home; Sony’s blatant rip-off of Second Life. It was fun walking around and doing the cabbage patch dance in front of people but got old quick.
OK, time to play some games. I picked up Uncharted & Heavenly Sword for about $27 a piece at EB Games. This is where the PS3 shines, in my opinion. The graphics on Uncharted are, in a word, gorgeous. When stand on a cliff you can see for miles and miles. The redraw distance is amazing. The colors are extremely bright and the blacks are great. On Heavenly Sword what impressed me were the amount of enemies on the screen at once. At certain points I saying, “Oh crap!” out loud to myself. Once the Killzone 2 demo downloaded I gave it spin... Wow! Killzone 2 has to have some of the best looking visuals I have ever seen in a video game. Two days later I picked up a full copy of the game and was blown away by the controls, sound effects and the visuals, again.
When I picked up my copy of Killzone 2, I also got a remote for watching DVD’s and Blu-Ray. I got the remote used for $20. I got the Iron Man Blu-Ray for starters and I’m really happy I did. There has to be HOURS of extra features on this disc. Plus the movie itself looked great on my TV. Now, if Sony could just get Nexflix on the console, I’d be all set!
In conclusion, Sony finally has it’s feet firmly on the ground. And I think it’s going to do some damage in sales this holiday season. To compare the PS3 to the XBOX 360 Elite feature set to feature set would be an act in futility. The PS3 offers more features for a cheaper price point than Microsoft’s veteran console. If were to add the wireless adaptor to the 360 I would already be $100 over the PS3. However, the 360 still has a more robust game library and an online experience that is unmatched on any console to date.
Being the video game nerd I am I’ve never been one to take sides. When the PS3 was first announced, I really hoped the console would do great things. I still hope it will today. Sony has some really intriguing titles coming in the very near future. Having both the XBOX 360 and the PS3 is your best bet, really. If you can afford both consoles then, by all means, get them both. You won’t be disappointed. Competition breeds better games and lower prices. And right now, it’s a great time to be a gamer!
Sorry for the long post, guys _Saintsdude76