I have just got back from a trip to America where I purchased a brand new PlayStation 3 with a 60 GB hard drive for just over £300.

First impressions:

• it is reassuringly heavy there must be some serious hardware inside it!
• The wireless controllers are extremely light and robust. I really like the way they are rechargeable unlike the Xbox 360.
• It's about 10 times quieter than the Xbox 360
• The interface is a similar sort of thing to the PSP
• built-in wireless and card reader!
• It IS region free
• It has a built-in switchable powersupply with a kettle lead connector is all you need is a UK plug and you're away.
• In my opinion this system is far more powerful than the Xbox 360 obviously you have the Blu Ray disk and HDMI interface as standard gameplay is really cool
• Web browser is a really nice touch

The only downside to the system is the usual lack of games as it is new.

Kudos to Sony for making it region free........

I was really concerned that it was going to be little better than the Xbox 360 I am glad to say that it has exceeded my expectations.

 

Still not as good as a PC

Have you seen the HD Crysis game

GameTrailers.com Player Window

Beat that

Andy

 

Region free for games, but maybe not movies? Still, I'm thinking of doing the same as you at the end of the month, and the PSU was one of my concerns.

So did you walk through the red channel then ?

 

What's the betting the British version is locked to Region 2...
As usual we'll be bending over and taking it up the tail pipe!

 

The PlayStation 3 has a universal power supply between 100 V and 240 V and if you use HDMI or any flatscreen TV you don't have to worry about that NTSC rubbish.

I've played both Japanese games and USA games on it both work as do American DVDs and UK DVDs.

It really is an awesome machine! It's a pity its £130 more expensive in the UK than it is in the USA

In fact the system is £250 in Japan £300 in North America and £430 in the UK it is exactly the same system I think Sony will have to bring the price down otherwise people will just buy them on eBay.

 

Just downloading the trailer just now...

So how can you get a PC to play an HD game then? Haven't seen any HD drives for them?

 

did you mean hd film? hd only refers to the resolution that the tv can produce. any good pc can run games at well over the resolution of even the best hdtvs.

 

True. I was thinking at the beginning, with HD DVD's but i'm forgetting it's only a region thing.

Is Crysis gonna come out on an othe fprmat then?

 

i think its only coming out on pc to begin with.

 

Found this PS3 Blu Ray not Region Locked - GameTrailers.com Forums

 

Yes the Graphics are good once you pay for the HDMI lead but the lockout once you are downloading anything is really pants. The 360 can do both.

 

PC's have been HD and beyond for years. Monitors are not bound by the same restrictions as TV's. Therefore your average PC has been playing games at at least 720, and more likely higher resolutions for about the last 5 or 6 years.

To clarify, is it not the HD media (ie. HD DVD or Blu Ray disks) that enable HD, they are simply carriers for a file that has a film at HD resolution. The reason you needed new disks is because they file sizes of HD films are too big for standard DVD's.

If you had, say, a 20 min HD film, there is no reason you could not stick it on a standard DVD and it play at HD. (provided of course you had equipment capable of displaying and decoding the HD content).


As an aside, you can get bluray drives (and burners) etc for PC's right now.

 

 

Or they've stuck in a heavy psu.

Eh? The 360 controllers are rechargeable, either via usb, or by a secondary charging unit.

Ah you mean rubbish then.

So what. Wireless networking is pretty useless for streaming HD content. Wired (ethernet) is the best way to go. Of course you can't stream content from a PC to the PS3 like you can on the 360, and the PS3 isn't getting the iptv service like the 360 is, so this may not be such of an issue for Sony users.

Why? How can you possibly tell when there are no decent games available for it yet. Also even if (and that's a big "if") the ps3 is more powerful than the 360, it's the games that are the important thing. Something that is currently lacking on the Sony format, and the future lineup doesn't look too interesting at the moment either.

But ultimately pointless.

Both are great machines, but there is little point in buying a PS3 at the moment because of the lack of decent software. Personally, I'm sticking with the 360 for now and will only get a PS3 when there's a reason for doing so...

 

I have to agree with Ian on this one.

I played extensively on a PS3 yesterday in the UK. An American version. I sat on Madden and some shooting game (which is claimed to be the best at launch) and I was very dissapointed with it compared to my reaction when I cracked the 360 open over a year ago now (come on Sony catch up!)

Now I appreciate the launch games are 'launch' games but the developers have had longer with this machine than the 360 developers (so I am told) and ultimately the two games were flat.

Madden seemed a bit cartoony. Not sharp, unlike the 360 version. The shoot-em-up was poor really. Gameplay on both was jerky and it really did not look as amazing as say Ghost Recon 2 does on the 360. That really does push the 360's limits out

It is a huge machine, PSP linkage is good but a gimmick. Not many will use the two in the way Sony hope

BlueRay is excellent. No doubting that, but my HD DVD player sat next to my xbox is keeping smiles on my face when I play them so really that just does not make me want the PS3 like I thought it would.

If you own a PS2 and get a PS3 you will get an erection for a week

If you owned an Xbox you knew what the quality of the 360 was going to be like. The Xbox 1st gen machine was excellent.

Xbox Live is also massive. Sony have a VERY long way to go to catch up with how playable Live games are at the moment. 16 players on Rainbow Six the other night being hosted on my 10mb connection was incredible and the graphics really make the experience that bit more polished

I think maybe in a few months when the real PS3 Next gen games come out it could silence a few of us, but frankly it does not have the wow factor of the 360

<I will get a PS3 later in the year though....>