The most advanced console ever created (Sony Playstation 3 60 GB)

Member Name: dosftw

Product:	Sony Playstation 3 60 GB
Date:	22/07/09 (11 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: USB ports, Flash card support, HD straight out of the box,

Disadvantages: Backwards compatability does not cover the whole back catalogue of PS2 and PS1 games

This console is without a and question of a doubt a wonder machine, I dont care who out there says "the xbox 360 is better!" because everyone that I have spoken to who has said that had given the same generic, mindane and utterly uneducated opinion of "It's got more games" or "It's cheaper". These reasons really boil my broth, and I cant stand it, there are however those who are educated enough to say things along the lines of "I prefere it to the PS3 because it has a larger selection of games" fair enough, you are stating that you prefere it, you are not claiming that the 360 is better, or "for me it is cheaper because I dont need the HD-DVD attachment or the wireless adapter or extra batteries for the controller as I have rechargeable ones" that is fair enough because you may not have been able to afford the PS3.

Rant over which should have gotten to the point as to what points I will be talking about (and just incase you still don't; I will not be talking about who has better games or which is cheaper, because overall they both cost the same thing once you take into account that you need to buy so many extra devices to enable the 360 to have the same functionality as the PS3)

Having said all of this, I think it is clear that right out of the box, the PS3 has far more features and capabilities than any other console, I mean right out of the box it can play Hi-Def movies and games providing you can shell out maybe £8 to get yourself a set of 1080i/p cables to go into your Hi-Def TV, so yes you do have to buy something extra to benefit from the simply breathtaking graphics and definition that this gift from the gods can offer us. But it is far more cost effective than having to puchase a £50 HD-DVD drive.

Now while we are on the subject of Hi-Def movies and games, let us side track slightly, over the last couple of years there has ofcourse those of you who are sufficiently informed, of a war that has been going on between Toshiba's HD DVD and ofcourse the Blu-ray disc. For those of you who are wondering what the difference in them is, the HD DVD has the capability of storing 15GB on a single layered disc, this is still a huge improvement from the standard 4.7GB that a standard DVD could hold, however. The Blu-ray disc, can hold a gargantuam amount of data on a single layered disc, 25GB infact for a single layered disc, and 50GB for a dual layered disc. I think you can already smell the battle field and figure out who won the format war, yep you guessed it, Blu-ray trounced Toshiba. Because of this, it puts Sony's wonder machine at a huge advantage, because no other console has disc that can hold that amount of data, and this as a bonus (in business context) means reduced costs because fewer discs need to be used for games, gone are the days when you would need to have four discs to have the complete game, chances are you could fit it all onto one!

This puts Microsofts Sony-killer at a huge disadvantage as they are now the only consumer of HD DVD's on a large scale.

Now onto the controller comparison; The PS3 uses blutooth to connect its controllers and this is an extremely good choice. I have found that I can play with my PS3 controller for a a good month and a half without recharging the batteries. When it does come to recharging it, it is a simple case of plugging the controller into a USB cable that comes from the PS3's front. Much better than having to buy replacement batteries or purchasing rechargeable ones for the use in the 360. Are you seeing a trend?

Because this was the original version of the PS3 aswell, it has pleanty of extra slots for media attachment i.e; USB flash drives, USB Portable Hard drives and the very useful flash card readers..

The 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi capability is available on all but the 20gb model so please bare this in mind when you are purchasing or even just cost comparing.

The PSN Network is Sony's equivilent of Xbox LIVE and as a bonus on Sony's part it is free unlike the subscription based LIVE service, this said though the Play Station store, whilst a lot of the optional downloads for your favourite games are free, there are some of them that you will have to pay for, so it is not entirely free but it is far less costly than LIVE especially as you do not need to purchase anything, it is optional.

The backwards compatability on the PS3 for the most part is fantastic, the PS3 plays about 90% of all PS1 and PS2 games without ill effect, however I have personally experienced that the PS2 game Guitar Hero II cannot be played with the Guitar Controller for PS3 Guitar Hero III Legends of rock, as a result you are either forced to play the game with the basic shoulder buttons on the PS3 controller or shell out and buy a PS3 multitap to plug in yourr PS2 guitar controller. This isnt a huge problem as I still have my PS2 but a pain because it means setting up my old console if I want to play Guitar Hero II.

All in all this console is fantastic, it has much more powerful processors than the 360 counterpart and as a result has be ability to play far more advanced games that also use the disc capacities of the Blu-ray discs to their full potential, it is very safe to say that in the short term Sony may have lost to Microsoft, but I would say that purchasing one of these machines in the long term, will be a wise move as games developers are only scratching the surface of what this fantastic machine is capable of.

I hope you found this useful please feel free to comment if you feel anything else needs to be added to the review.

Summary: Epic.