After purchasing three 360's, one dead, one banned and one working online, I have finally bit the bullet and bought a Triplez.

In this holiday season, the consoles are becoming pretty cheap. So with a retail price of 300 euro, 259 for a 120GB Slim seemed like a good enough deal. Especially with 250GB Slims going for 300+ with a free game that is cheaper to import than paying the extra cost. The MS exclusives have not been super impressive for a while now, and this doesn't seem to be too different in the next year. At the same time, Sony's lineup seems to be becoming a little stronger as the years have passed. I just want to be able to play God of War 3 and Heavy Rain. So after getting a Slim and a copy of MGS4, I figured that instead of just announcing I have a PS3 and whore out my PSN name, I'd leave some impressions from a previous 360-only gamer.

INSTALLING!
I had forgotten about this, but really: fuck installs! I'd rather swap 10 discs than be forced to sit through 10 mins of installs just when I want to play a game. On the 360, I tend to put off installing until I remind myself to do it for the hell of it. Most of the time, I don't really notice the difference anyway (L4D anyone?). Even worse is when MGS4 asks you to install the next chapter in the middle of the game. Well, not exactly of the game, as it's mostly 10 minutes of gameplay for 20 minutes of sitting through overdrawn exposition cutscenes. No wonder they tell you to use an ashtray during the install, if you can smoke a cigarette during every single cutscene!

Control!
I absolutely hated the SIXAXIS controller during play time with the PS3 a few years back. The DS3 definitely feels a lot better, and I actually forgot that it still had motion control. The left analog stick however is in the wrong spot. It took me less effort to get used to it than I had thought, so there's that at least. Still, using the analog in the menus or for typing is a nightmare. The D-pad feels pretty decent compared to the 360 one, but still: meh. I'll stick with a fight stick if I need a d-pad for a game :)

Overall, the L1/R1 buttons and triggers feel a bit less ergonomic than the 360 controller. They work, but my hands don't wrap around it as naturally as I'm used to. I'm sure I'll get over it though... Finally, they put the X button on the location of the A button :P

GAMES!
Since most of the exclusives are ancient by now, they are cheap! My must-have list so far only contains MGS4 (have), R&C Tools of Destruction (ordered), Quest for Booty (ordered), God of War Collection (ordered and never played the games), Valkyria Chronicles (ordered), Wipeout HD/Fury and Uncharted 1+2. I kinda expected a longer list than this to be honest, but forgot that I don't give a shit about being creative (LBP) and will never finish Demon's Souls. The Uncharteds and Wipeout HD will be on hold in case there is a big Boxing Day (UK Black Friday) sale. The same holds true for the latest R&C, if I end up liking the other ones. Also, once I figure out how to buy PSN games in $ instead of euros, I'll look into PSN games a bit more ;)

It runs BluRays!
Unfortunately, 2.5TB for a 1080p x264 archive does the job too.

It's quiet!
It really is! Not much to say about this, other than that it sounds really quiet compared to what I'm used to, and if it wasn't for the lights, I wouldn't know it was on. The Slim doesn't get very hot either, although it definitely gets warm.

It doens't come with anything!
No HDMI cable, no optical sound cable, a composite cable and not even an ethernet cable. Good thing I had them in stock. Thanks Elite box for letting me hookup the PS3 using a MS ethernet cable!



It has wonky menu's
Now, not to say that the NXE has the best layout, but at least it's relatively easy and clear to navigate. The ingame XMB looks pretty much useless as far as I've tried to use it. Also: there are no achievements! Whatever trophies are, according to wikipedia they fall between rocks and managerial positions in terms of usefulness and e-Penis representation. Overall the menu's work, but could've been a bit more intuitive imo.

Why does it even have a website?
Seriously. Xbox.com is pretty much god awful. It's slow to load and it's pretty hard to find anything other than your friends list or to send someone a message. Good thing that is the only reason I use it. Playstation.com though? First you have to enter a ton of needless info before you can even add friends. Then it turns out you CAN'T add friends through the site! Maybe the PSN Store website has some useful information then. Oh, it doesn't? Well never mind, I'll find my own way to the page and click on a PS3 PSN game. What, it asks me to install Media GO! if I click PSN > Store > ANYTHING? I don't even....

Bawwww
Overall though, I'm happy enough with the Slim. There's some typical Playstation games like Wipeout and R&C that I never got to play through a lack of owning a PS2. Then there are the God of War games. MGS4 definitely looks good, even though as a game I'm not really anxious to get back to playing it. Yet with the couple of exclusives a year, I'm sure I'll be able to put the thing to good use. What I noticed most of all, is that so many exclusives that were once fanboy ammo for both platforms are not really want anymore. Who still cares about Fable, Folklore, Motorstorm, Heavenly Sword, LAIR, Kameo, Perfect Dark Zero, or Too Human?

Yet looking to the future, the lack of a BT headset doesn't really make me ever want to play anything online on the PS3. That, and most of the people I play with, play the multiplatform games on the 360 anyway. However, if games like Shatter and SSHD have online friends leaderboards like Geometry Wars 2 has, I'm all over that. I think I'll mostly use this console for single player exclusives, maybe early exclusive demos, and just to have all three consoles. But who knows, maybe I'll fall for a multiplayer game beta one day and get a headset for that reason.



After having played with both current-gen consoles, I'd say that they are both pretty equal in most regards. They both play games! Maybe one will have a slightly "better" version of some game than the other at times. Maybe the other makes more or less noise and needs more installs. Yet even though the interfaces kind of both suck on either console, Live has been a lot more intuitive and easy to use than PSN so far. Hell, I'd probably gladly pay $50 (dollars that is) a year for a Live type of service, if I would only have a PS3.

Either/or?
Would I recommend getting one if you already have a 360? Well, it's easy enough to disregard God of War 3 if you are already buying Dante's Inferno and Bayonetta. Heavy Rain might suffer from Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy syndrome and have a great 1st half and a really meh 2nd half. Uncharted is just Gears of War in the jungle with some platforming. But if you add it all up, it offers enough good games by now to make it worth it. If you see a good deal, that is! The classic PS3 exclusives are all well below the <$20 range if you look around, and gives you plenty of great games for the price of one new retail priced game.

You'll probably miss Live, the free voice communication, the controller you're used to, being able to insert a new game and immediately play it (in many instances at least), and CHEEVOS! You'll probably like the free wifi, the more open platform with USB input support and a browser, and being able to insert your own HDMI and Optical cables without having to modify or buy an official cable.

Overall, I can't say I regret not having bought one earlier. If it wasn't for the pricing right now, I wouldn't have gotten one. But that's only because I already had a 360. I'm sure I would've loved my PS3 a lot more if that's all I had. And with the bargain prices for the exclusives I missed, this xmas holiday will serve as a nice catching up time! For now I'll be busy with the old games, and look towards GoW3 in march. I'll leave FF13 up to whether it has achievements I would go for or not. If not, I'll go for having 1 disc (with installs!) and for having indistinguishable better quality videos which will make up 70% of the size.

In conclusion, I would say that most of this holds true for PS3 owners that don't have a 360. There are a couple of fun and cheap exclusives to go back for, and the consoles are becoming dirt cheap now. Also, Mass Effect if you didn't have a PC!

Final verdict:
If I was Tiger Woods, the PS3 would be my first or primary mistress. I will still take my 360 to most social events, but when there is nothing going on or I get bored, the PS3 is there to entertain me in ways my 360 never lets me.

Feel free to add me on PSN: ProfPew
No promises on actually playing anything though! Not yet... ;) If there are any games you think I should definitely play, leave a comment!