PS3: Convince me.

[TheSlyMoogle]

So PS3 is now in a price range I consider "Acceptable".

I will be coming into a considerable amount of money soonish and want to know whether I should get a PS3 or not.

Basically I haven't really followed the releases of exclusives.

I know if I got one I would want:

Valkyria Chronicles - Have wanted to play that game since I first saw it. Looks tasty.

There are a couple of games coming out I'll be interested in.

1. Alan Wake - Game looks tight and I hope it eventually comes out.
2. The Last Guardian - How could I not play a game from the same people that made shadow of colossus. I mean really.

The other good reason is that it's region free which is really good for games that are in Japan. Specifically fighting games because there are a lot of fighters that we play tournaments in that are JP only. Being able to get a game before it gets localized in the fighting scene is good too.

So those are pros for me, but here are the cons:

1. It's still really expensive for something that has the majority of games on 360 as well.
2. It lost backwards compatibility. I have a ton of PS2 games and PS1 games and surprise my PS2 stopped working 2 years ago.
3. Just is there really anything coming out that's worth me getting the system?
4. I could save the 300 and use it towards a computer instead and Diablo III should be out by 2011 hopefully. That has more promise than anything i can think of on PS3.

I don't know. So anyone up on the know, any games I missed out on that were amazing and exclusive to PS3? Also anything coming out that I should look at that will be exclusive. I was seriously going to have to buy a PS3 for FFXIII but then square solved my problem pretty fast on that one.

[BreakABone]

one... unless you mean something else, I'm almost certain that Alan Wake is a 360 exclusive game.

Two, I mean it all comes down to the games, I love the Uncharted series, you may not feel the same way.

I like the Ratchet and Clank games, again may not feel the same way.

Other than that, mine is pretty much a glorified blu ray player most of time.

[manasecret]

I just got the PS3 when the Slim launched.

Unless you need a great Blu-Ray player, in my opinion the cost is unjustified. But my tastes in video games have changed, and much of the demos I've played for the big releases don't appeal to me, when they would have just a couple years ago.

I love Uncharted. And if you want a Blu-Ray player, the PS3 plus Uncharted is well worth the money in my opinion. Grab Planet Earth on Blu-Ray, too. :D

Also, FYI, I believe it is PS1 backwards compatible.

[Szymon]

From a purely technological point of view, the PS3 destroys the xbox in hardware. Better graphics processing and a much lower failure rate are just a couple of the features. Combine this with the topic of price and you realize that you don't have to pay $100 for the wireless adapter, which is built-in to the PS3 and you don't need the extra $60 for PSN that you pay for XBL. Of course, this is all just a comparison to the xbox and not actually answering whether or not it's worth it to own both systems.

My advice is to buy a better computer. These days there are a lot of great computer games coming out for steam and Blizzard Activision is gearing up to release some pretty big titles next year like you mentioned. Look for good deals on NewEgg or NCIX.com too. TF2 is addicting as hell on the computer.

[BreakABone]

From a purely technological point of view, the PS3 destroys the xbox in hardware. Better graphics processing and a much lower failure rate are just a couple of the features. Combine this with the topic of price and you realize that you don't have to pay $100 for the wireless adapter, which is built-in to the PS3 and you don't need the extra $60 for PSN that you pay for XBL. Of course, this is all just a comparison to the xbox and not actually answering whether or not it's worth it to own both systems.

All of that is fine information if choosing between a Ps3 and a 360, but seeing how he already has a 360, its more if its worth getting a PS3 in addition, and unless you really enjoy those blu rays, I would go with no.

[Vampyr]

I wouldn't spend money on it unless you want a blu ray player - I look at the PS3 as a blu ray player first and a gaming console second.

I would save my money for a computer and Diablo III. If your this iffy on it you'll probably be happier just keeping your money for something you really want anyway.

[Bube]

When you compare it to a 360, yes, it's got a bit of a shortage of exclusives.

But I bought mine when my 360 broke, and my love for the PS3 grew every single day.

I really like the media capabilities, and the games I own, I don't think would make one bit of difference if I'd owned them on 360. I think it's even better for me, living in Turkey, because everybody has PS3s here, so playing online is much more fun.

And if I were you, I wouldn't even consider upgrading my PC. PC gaming, while I see your point, isn't worth the money you spend on it imo.

[TheSlyMoogle]

When you compare it to a 360, yes, it's got a bit of a shortage of exclusives.

But I bought mine when my 360 broke, and my love for the PS3 grew every single day.

I really like the media capabilities, and the games I own, I don't think would make one bit of difference if I'd owned them on 360. I think it's even better for me, living in Turkey, because everybody has PS3s here, so playing online is much more fun.

And if I were you, I wouldn't even consider upgrading my PC. PC gaming, while I see your point, isn't worth the money you spend on it imo.

Well my desktop is about 8 years old, and my laptop is about 5 years old. Basically I need to get a new computer. I'll be building it myself and have been looking into it for a while now. Looking at cost and everything I'm only going to be spending about 450 dollars for a machine that will be able to run all of today's games and probably at least all of them 3 years or so down the road. It helps that I already have keyboard, mouse, hd monitor.

Oh god Alan wake is 360 exclusive. Somewhere in the back of my head I thought one day it was PS3 exclusive and I've been thinking that for like 2 years now. Geez.

Scratch that.

So basically I'm looking at getting a PS3 for only Last Guardian and Valkyria chronicles. Hmm...

[manasecret]

Only $450?? Did you mean $1450?

[Vampyr]

Only $450?? Did you mean $1450?

I don't think he did...since he already has the monitor, if he buys the parts himself and builds it, he can make a beast of a machine for really cheap.

[manasecret]

I build PCs, and $450 will get just the videocard and the CPU.

That doesn't include the required case, RAM, motherboard, OS, power supply, or hard drive(s).

With all that, to get a decent machine to play games well now and play ok into the future 3 years, you're looking at least $1000, not including monitor.

If you're playing on a big 24" LCD monitor and you want the full 1920x1200 resolution, then you're looking at least $1400.

At least, that's what I priced myself last week off Newegg while dreaming of buying it :D

[Typhoid]

The PS3 is a delicious system. First of all, Valkyria is a fun game. I still haven't beaten it because I have a gajillion other things I'm in the middle of.
Secondly, the slims are 120 gigs. 120. 1-2-0. That is worth it alone for the price they're selling for.
The backwards compatability doesn't bug me. I still hook up my PS2 when I want to play a game from it. And 360 doesn't have it either, so it's really a moot point.
And it DOES play blu ray - and it does it very very well.
The slim also got rid of the problem where the speakers would hum on a TV without hi-def if you're playing a normal DVD. It works perfectly now.
No batteries for the controllers is a gigantic plus.
It's tiny, light - and silent.

As for games coming out - there isn't much that isn't out for the 360. Which is why it comes down to preference. Granted, Sony won't fuck your ass dry (then again you're into that thing) with online charges to play their games - which is a giant bonus if you play online games.

Personally, I haven't ever played a Ratchet and Clank game, but I hear nothing but good things from them.

I would say this though - don't save the money up for Diablo 3. Spend your money now.

Edited for rampant spelling errors.

[Szymon]

I build PCs, and $450 will get just the videocard and the CPU.

That doesn't include the required case, RAM, motherboard, OS, power supply, or hard drive(s).

With all that, to get a decent machine to play games well now and play ok into the future 3 years, you're looking at least $1000, not including monitor.

If you're playing on a big 24" LCD monitor and you want the full 1920x1200 resolution, then you're looking at least $1400.

At least, that's what I priced myself last week off Newegg while dreaming of buying it :D

My PC cost $1400... last year! I play with two 1920x1200 monitors too.

Pricing for PCs has gone down big time. You could get a great PC for $450 nowadays, you just need to find a packaged deal. You don't need a quad core CPU, go with a $120 core 2 duo and save a bunch of cash. You don't need DDR3, grab a DDR2 Mobo with 4GB of RAM for about $200. 500GB hard drive is another $60, and that's plenty of space for installing games and downloading a few seasons. Case and PSU will run you another $100. A graphics card is all you need now, and they're going on sale all the time. You could get something really nice for $140, like 1920x1200 nice, if you find a great sale. Yes, this is about $150 over budget, but if you can find bundles for this stuff you can save a lot of money.

Edit: For example, a RAM + Mobo combo should cost you like $120. PSU+Case could be down to $70 if you wanna go mega cheapo. Saw a CPU+GPU combo for $200 too. With a $60 hard drive you could be look a total of: $450 (before tax and environmental raping fees)

[TheSlyMoogle]

I build PCs, and $450 will get just the videocard and the CPU.

That doesn't include the required case, RAM, motherboard, OS, power supply, or hard drive(s).

With all that, to get a decent machine to play games well now and play ok into the future 3 years, you're looking at least $1000, not including monitor.

If you're playing on a big 24" LCD monitor and you want the full 1920x1200 resolution, then you're looking at least $1400.

At least, that's what I priced myself last week off Newegg while dreaming of buying it :D

I can link you to all the products. I'm not going for maximum awesome. I'm going for being able to run the game without crashing out and still looking decent like XBox quality.

Rough prices:
320 GB HD for 45 dollars
4 GB of RAM for 79 dollars (Corsairs as well)
Antec Sonata III case for 89 dollars and that includes the power supply
Going with the AMD athlon II 3.0 Dual core processor for 68 bucks
I'm going with a relatively cheap motherboard, it only has a few PCI slots, but don't need many. It's 70 dollars. Reading reviews it's a pretty tough bitch though. Can't remember what it is exactly, and newegg wont let me log on right now for some reason.
The graphics card I'm kinda splurging on a bit. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102864

164 dollars.

Anyway it only cost me 515 dollars which was 65 dollars over my goal, but I think I'll have a decent gaming rig. I don't care about the best settings, just want middle ground kinda stuff.

320 GB HD should be more than enough to hold all the games I want. I'm really only interested in Diablo III anyway, but sure some other games will come along that I'll at least want to play. It will definitely hold all my music, and have plenty of space left. Plus it's not like I can't get a larger drive later if need be for storage. They were running a special on some Corsair RAM last week so grabbed that up. It's like 119 dollars now I think, but regardless I would have went with G.SKILL 4 GB for like the same price had corsair not been on sale. 4GB of RAM should get me through the rough times. lol. I've heard really good things about AMD athlon II, and figured I'd give it a whirl. Going on the advice of a friend who is more into building than me and he says it's a great processor for the price. The motherboard I am getting could support all my stuff and had really boss reviews. Has integrated sound (Which is fine as I always have to play with headphones on anyway) and integrated Ethernet. Limited PCI slots like I said, but I only need the one for my video card anyway. That case is a steal and the power supply included has more than enough power to run my machine. That case has great reviews, and for the price it doesn't look half bad either. Not my ideal case, but I'll get over it.
I've heard good things about the graphics card as long as you're just looking for middle ground gamerness.

And the OS is not a factor, and you can take that to mean whatever you would like.

[Vampyr]

Yeah, I meant to reply to this a few days ago.

Whenever I was going through and picking out all the parts I wanted for the PC I was going to build (not counting monitor) It was right around $500.

You can build a really great gaming machine that will last several years nowadays with cheap parts. You don't need to go top of the line, or even a tier or two down. Brand new parts are really over priced, because it takes a while for the manufacturer to get a successful output rate.

OS wasn't a problem for me either, I have the means of getting several free copies through my university.

[Szymon]

I can link you to all the products. I'm not going for maximum awesome. I'm going for being able to run the game without crashing out and still looking decent like XBox quality.

Rough prices:
320 GB HD for 45 dollars
4 GB of RAM for 79 dollars (Corsairs as well)
Antec Sonata III case for 89 dollars and that includes the power supply
Going with the AMD athlon II 3.0 Dual core processor for 68 bucks
I'm going with a relatively cheap motherboard, it only has a few PCI slots, but don't need many. It's 70 dollars. Reading reviews it's a pretty tough bitch though. Can't remember what it is exactly, and newegg wont let me log on right now for some reason.
The graphics card I'm kinda splurging on a bit. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102864

164 dollars.

Anyway it only cost me 515 dollars which was 65 dollars over my goal, but I think I'll have a decent gaming rig. I don't care about the best settings, just want middle ground kinda stuff.

320 GB HD should be more than enough to hold all the games I want. I'm really only interested in Diablo III anyway, but sure some other games will come along that I'll at least want to play. It will definitely hold all my music, and have plenty of space left. Plus it's not like I can't get a larger drive later if need be for storage. They were running a special on some Corsair RAM last week so grabbed that up. It's like 119 dollars now I think, but regardless I would have went with G.SKILL 4 GB for like the same price had corsair not been on sale. 4GB of RAM should get me through the rough times. lol. I've heard really good things about AMD athlon II, and figured I'd give it a whirl. Going on the advice of a friend who is more into building than me and he says it's a great processor for the price. The motherboard I am getting could support all my stuff and had really boss reviews. Has integrated sound (Which is fine as I always have to play with headphones on anyway) and integrated Ethernet. Limited PCI slots like I said, but I only need the one for my video card anyway. That case is a steal and the power supply included has more than enough power to run my machine. That case has great reviews, and for the price it doesn't look half bad either. Not my ideal case, but I'll get over it.
I've heard good things about the graphics card as long as you're just looking for middle ground gamerness.

And the OS is not a factor, and you can take that to mean whatever you would like.

That's a good rig. I heard good things about the new Radeon line. This should get you way better than xbox quality.

[manasecret]

Alright! I was wondering when when my fellow PC nerds would pipe up. :D

To be honest I haven't actually built myself a computer since 2002. This is back in the IDE days (no serial HDs yet!), in the AGP video card days (PCIExpress was just barely coming on the scene), in the Pentium 4 heyday, and when (if any of you even remember this) Rambus RAM was the best, but most expensive, RAM you could get and 512 MB of it was a lot and 1GB of it was hardly thought of.

That PC is still running for me well now seven years later. The only upgrade I made was to get the best AGP video card that will ever be made. With that, it played BioShock at about 20 FPS, if that. I also desperately looked to upgrade the RAM. Nowadays Windows XP and the first program will eat up almost 512MB by themselves. But Rambus soon after I bought the PC went kaput, so the maximum RAM I could possibly get is 1 GB, but it's very rare and so costs around $300-$400 to get it. Rip. Off.

Anyway, when I bought that PC, I went for a computer that would last me a long time, and so spent about $1700 I believe. In its day, it played games excellently. Now, it has trouble with TF2.

So... now that I write this, I guess you guys are right. That PC lasted me seven years. If you buy one several tiers down, it ought to play games at the moment decently, and last around 3 years.

The biggest lesson I learned is to make sure your rig is easily upgradeable. Like Moogle said, there's no reason to get the 2TB hard drive now, when a year or two from now when you actually need that much space, the price will be cut in half. You can save money now, and just upgrade later when your PC starts to slow down/run out of space for much cheaper.

Going with the new, popular standards is really important as well. If I bought a computer now, I would get a motherboard that accepts the newest RAM type and the newest CPU socket, since in the future all the new parts will be using those and the old versions will be slowly phased out. The last situation you want to be in is when you can find the super fast version of everything for really cheap, but you have to buy the expensive but much slower version just because no one manufactures them any more....

[TheSlyMoogle]

Yeah I think probably the most important thing is sticking with industry standards, and also going with new stuff.

Like I said this computer should coast fine for about 3 years and then I can upgrade it. I think upgrading is important. It's so easy to upgrade a desktop, I just don't see why more people don't learn about computers and still buy from places like Dell and other outfitters. So much wasted money. I mean the process of putting together a computer is relatively simple and hard to screw up (Oh god just be sure to put spacers in though, that seems to be what most people screw up their first time.)

I think really the only complicated thing to do is making sure all the parts will work together and normally you can find that stuff online for sure.

Anyway my parts should arrive next week (Supposedly thursday)

BTW I got a nice HD monitor to play fighting games on when they started releasing them for 360 and PS3. There's no lag. It's amazing.

[Vampyr]

So did you decide to not go for the ps3?

[TheSlyMoogle]

So did you decide to not go for the ps3?

Yeah I did. I'm only slightly upset I cannot play Valkyria Chronicles yet, but I know someday I will buy a PS3 and it's the first (And only game) on my to buy for PS3 list.

[Vampyr]

Yeah I did. I'm only slightly upset I cannot play Valkyria Chronicles yet, but I know someday I will buy a PS3 and it's the first (And only game) on my to buy for PS3 list.

Yeah, good choice IMO.

I checked out that Alan Wake game you mentioned...I had never heard of it, but it looks like it will be awesome.

[BreakABone]

There is a lot to love about the PS3.

And really if it was between a PS3 and a 360, I would lean towards the PS3 now, but since he already has a 360 it would be like crossing the same ground over and over again.

Also, I don't get Alan Wake.. the magical flashlight is just too much for me.

[Vampyr]

Eh? I don't think the flashlight is magical, the villagers/creatures just don't like light in general.