The Big Plunge - Playstation 3

We broke own and Friday evening bought our family a Playstation 3.

If you are somneone who may be contemplating purchasing a Playstation 3 then you are much better off thinking of it more so as a computer rather than a piece of hardware to pllay video games on.

The first thing you notice about the Playstation 3 is its weight...Damn that thing is heavy. It will remind you of your computer's tower than of any other game platform or previous versions of Playstation.

I like that there is a wireless controller that comes with it and that it is rechargable through the usb port. You can play wirelessly or by leaving the controller connected with the usb cable. There are 4 contoller ports so with a big enough tv screen I imagine you could play with four people.

Now some of the games that are out for the Playstation 3 are made specifically for it in that they are detail driven and use all the power of the processor and are compatible with 1080p viewing. There are some games that I noted that can only be viewed in 720p these are games that seem to have been issued for this system while being developed for multiple platforms.

The difference between the two I have described is that say...the NBA game with Kobe Bryant... There is soo much detail you can actually see the players sweat and to save the game you will need 3GB of space on the hard drive.

That is where the bigger hard drive will come in handy. The hard drive is fully removable although with SONY....a replacement might be a little pricey. You can also connect this baby to the internet and be a full gamer if that is your liking as well.

Now a good reason to buy this and of course this is what Sony is counting on is the Blu Ray disc player....for all you non technical or non gadget people that means HD movies. A blu ray disc stand alone player will cost you about $700 and up while a HD DVD player (separate format and not compatible) will run you $500 and up. So if you already own a previous version of Playstation and own a HD TV then spending extra for this system is not all that far fetched. A few games, a few movies and the system can easily set you back 1 large but you would most likely be spending that or more if you buy a different gaming platform and standalone HD DVD player, games and movies.

I am not certain whether SAW III was any more the gory in HD on Blu Ray than it would have been on HBO but as far and detail and clarity goes it is worth paying the extra $5 or so for the HD movies.

The interface is not like the older systems. In those you could pop in a new game and it would start or prompt you to load from a saved file. This uses a browser so there is a couple of extra steps but once you get used to it and understand it the process flows much better.

If you're like me and only follow the enclosed directions when not doing so may cause bodily injury or death then it may take a bit longer to get the hang of things....and you will still resort to the manual.