Sony PlayStation 3 Slim (PS3)

...into Bill Gates' pocket. Maybe Sony are just spreading their budget for on-line too thinly in order to be the machine that offers everything but not quite managing to!

Reliability-this one will have to go to the playstation, every console I've owned still works(Mega-Drive, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast{It's still a fantastic system}, Xbox, Wii, Xbox360 & now the PS3), ( Altho the dreamcast did need a very minor repair which I did myself after ...
...same extent, lets face it Sony tend to over engineer their tech & I can only assume that they have improved on the original when they built the slim(Not under the same rush to get a system to the marketplace). One other thing, the system is almost completely silent, not something the gaming world has been familiar with in recent years!! :)

Personally, if I was in a burning building & could only rescue one of my consoles, it would need ... more

Well, had the slim for a few weeks now (my 1st ever playstation), personally, I'm a little underwhelmed by it, I've been a gamer since the nintendo game & watch days & owned @ least 1 of the current gen consoles since the Mega Drive(Genesis).

Graphically the system has the potential to wipe the floor with the 360, but this is really only going to apply to PS3 exclusives as any software house making a multi-platform game is going to be as cost effective (lazy) as possible & use the same graphics on all the games where possible(ok, they need to dumb them down for the Wii). My problem here is that I have yet to get a game for it that runs in 1080P, they all seem to be in 720P! Why???? I'm sure they are out there, but I haven't found one yet. I guess this is down to most HD tv's being HD ready rather than Full HD.

Sound-Yeah, ok,it'll give you 7.1 loss-less audio through an HDMI, so I wont get the full effect til I up-grade my amp, still running on 5.1 through an optical cable, which is fine, it was a while before I figured out how to get 5.1, set the system to use optical, but my amp was only registering the sound as pro-logic II, eventually found that I needed to change another setting from 'linear PCM' to 'bitstream', which the system advised me not to do!

Games-Lets face it, this is the most important factor in why we part with our cash! Sorry, but the system get's second prize in this contest, the 360 takes the crown here. I mainly play FPS games these days, altho driving games, fifa, guitar hero, tomb raider(I got hooked on the 1st 1 & have had to play them all) & beat-em-ups do get a regular outting. The reason I had held off getting a PS3 so long, was that almost nothing on the system excited me that I couldn't already get for my 360! The exceptions to this rule being Killzone 2 & Resistance. In fairness, the PS3 hasn't been out as long as the 360, so I'm guessing the situation will improve as time progresses.

Extras-Some nice ideas here from Sony, Vidzone isn't bad, altho the selection is a bit limited, movie trailers can be downloaded in 1080P(the 360 just gives a streamed SD trailer) but not full audio. Built in i-player is nifty altho not much use to me, as I'm on cable which gives me it in normal tv quality, but I guess it'll work for sky/freeview people out there. Yeah, they threw in a browser, but don't waste your time, fire up your PC & get what you are doing a lot faster, they have made a decent effort to work it, but for me, it needs a zoom(my apologies if there is one & I've missed it) as I'm running a 46" tv & any text is far too small unless you sit with your nose pressed against the screen! What is "HOME" all about???? Didn't spend a massive amount of time on it, but wander around, go into a room/building for the 1st time, no, wait, it needs to be downloaded & installed, pain!!!!!!! then wander about some more!!!!! it just seems to have lots of guys wandering about hoping that some digital girl will talk to them & become their pretend girlfriend??????? It just struck me as very very sad! Maybe it's an age thing!! Go out, go to a nightclub & meet a real girl!!! infact, go anywhere, a sports club, a library even, a church hall! Anywhere, but meet real people that you might have a chance with!!!

Blu-ray-I've caved in& started getting blu-ray instead of DVD's since the PS3s arrival, can't fault them, the picture is as good as your screen will allow so not really much more that can be said! 1080P is very nice, it's very vivid, in places it almost looks 3D. some blu-rays let it down tho, it's as tho they didn't spend any time mastering the video, but thats down to the movie studios to sort, not the the machines they are played on.

Controllers-Possibly the biggest let-down for me, the triggers are far to easy to slip off & the left analogue thumb-stick is in the wrong place, it needs to be swapped with the D-pad, who uses the D-pad as the priority control these days???? Maybe for a mortal Kombat game!! Also, the thumb-sticks bulge out the way???? Wrong, wrong, wrong!!! They should be concave, every other manufacturer on the planet knows this, WAKE UP SONY!!! It just doesn't feel as good as the 360's, it does have a better D-pad than the 360, but lags way behind in every other department!! Even friends of mine who have always bought Playstations aren't comfortable with it!! Re-chargeable batteries are built in but can't be changed, this means either replace the whole controller when it dies, take it to a repair shop & pay them to replace the batteries or have a go @ dismantling the controller for a DIY! It will charge from the USB ports but the cable supplied should really have been longer to allow you to charge & play @ the same time. Something I found to be really strange, was that the USB ports go to sleep when you power the system down, this means you need to leave the system on to charge the controller. I've taken to charging it through the USB on my PC if it's on or switch on the 360, plug it into the front USBs, switch it off again & the port stays live until the controller is charged!!

On-line-Hooray, it's free, but again, I much prefer xbox live, yeah it has to be paid for, but it's clear who is spending more on the setup for on-line gaming, the connection in games is far more solid so I guess that not every penny from my subscription fee is going straight into Bill Gates' pocket. Maybe Sony are just spreading their budget for on-line too thinly in order to be the machine that offers everything but not quite managing to!

Reliability-this one will have to go to the playstation, every console I've owned still works(Mega-Drive, Sega Saturn, Dreamcast{It's still a fantastic system}, Xbox, Wii, Xbox360 & now the PS3), ( Altho the dreamcast did need a very minor repair which I did myself after watching how it was done on Youtube), but the horror storries of RROD from the early days of the system are a bit off-putting(a mate of mine had to send his back to microsoft for a repair, fortunatelly MS have decided to cover any 360 for 3years against RROD in a big to salvage their reputation), heard a few un-pleasant stories on the PS3, but no-where near to the same extent, lets face it Sony tend to over engineer their tech & I can only assume that they have improved on the original when they built the slim(Not under the same rush to get a system to the marketplace). One other thing, the system is almost completely silent, not something the gaming world has been familiar with in recent years!! :)

Personally, if I was in a burning building & could only rescue one of my consoles, it would need to be the 360 over the PS3, it's just a more fun system but I think in the old console battles that we have every few years, Sony will again win out for the third time, Blu-ray is a big advantage & free online makes it a cheaper system to own than a 360 after a couple of years of paying for the live service. Also, the massive customer base that Sony had with the PS2, will largely all transfer into PSS3 customers if they haven't already. 

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