Two Years Later: Sony Playstation 3

I bought Beta. It was better than VHS, but there weren’t as many releases for it, and eventually VHS killed it.

Ok, I never bought Beta, I’m talking about HD DVD. We can argue about the technical merits of HD DVD and Blu Ray, but the fact remains that when I purchased HD DVD it was better. Sony was busy finalizing profiles and getting their manufacturing process to work, but Toshiba (if you ignore combo discs) just got it right from the beginning. Eight months have passed since Warner Bros. drove a stake through the heart of the format and I’m done feeling sorry for myself. I need a Blu Ray player, and I also need something to play all my Playstation and Playstation 2 games on.

My first inclination was to get a standalone Blu Ray player. I like game consoles, but I don’t use them to watch movies on. It’s been a while since I paid any attention, so I set out to do some research on Blu Ray players. Important to me were the ability to bitstream advanced audio codecs via hdmi and the presence of 5.1 analog outputs. Also, you might want Profile 2.0, but you have to have Profile 1.1, so it’s important to know what players are what. As always I knew the answers would be waiting at avsforum.com, and sure enough someone had even made a nice chart.

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As you can see the feature sets of standalone Blu Ray players still vary wildly. I guess with no competition there’s no rush.

My problem was that I also needed a console to play my old Playstation and Playstation 2 games on. I didn’t want to buy one of the cheap, mini PS2’s for legacy support, so even though I wasn’t compelled by the Playstation 3 library of software, I was compelled by the fact that I would be killing two birds with one stone if I got a Playstation 3, and that kind of made my decision for me. For those of you who are interested, my conclusion was that at this time the Panasonic DMP-BD30K had the best combination of features and price.

So finally giving in to the idea that a game console would be my first Blu Ray player I started to research the Playstation 3, and I’m glad I did. You can see from the below chart that not all PS3’s are created equal.

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For someone like me who prized backwards compatibility, the 60gb PS3 is the way to go because it provides hardware support for PS2 backwards compatibility. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed and the 60gb PS3 is long gone from store shelves. They’re still available on ebay, if you’re willing to pay a premium. Frankly, the PS3 already costs too much, so I ruled out the 60gb model.

The 40gb PS3 has no PS2 compatibility whatsoever. The PS2 hardware was removed as one of the measures Sony took to market a $400 unit. That leaves the 80gb model. The 80gb PS3 has PS2 backwards compatibility, but it is done through software emulation, much like the Xbox 360 achieves backwards compatibility with original Xbox software. This works pretty well in the case of the 360, but it also means that certain games either won’t work at all or will have problems. Sony has a backwards compatibility database here where you can check the status of your games.

The 80gb model is losing backwards compatibility in September (smell a price decrease coming?), so if this matters to you, hurry up and go buy a MGS4 bundle now, because once they’re gone we might never see a PS2 compatible PS3 again. That pretty much made up my mind for me, and I am going to do just that.

How does the PS3 stack up as a Blu Ray player? It’s always had a reputation for being one of the best. One of the advantages of having a hard drive is that Sony can tack on features via firmware updates. This meant that the PS3 ended up being the first BD-Live player, and that they were able to add support for DTS-HD. At this time the only drawbacks for the PS3 as a Blu Ray player are:

1) no 5.1 analog outputs, but this only effects people who haven’t got an HDMI av receiver or pre/pro yet
2) no bitstream via HDMI, which means that the PS3 does all the decoding and outputs LPCM via HDMI. This is an issue for some, because if you do any signal post-processing some avr’s and pre/pros only do it to an incoming bitstream signal. Also, some feel that their avrs and pre/pros do a better job decoding. It’s an issue, but not a deal breaker.
3) the fan. I hear it’s not as loud as a 360, but I guarantee it’s louder than a standalone player. This bothers some of us during quiet dialog scenes in movies.

Lastly, how does the PS3 stack up against the Xbox 360 as a game console? Before the links, just let me say that the PS3 and the 360 are very, very close as far as their graphics capability. When I express a preference keep that in mind. Nobody with one system or the other is going to have a markedly inferior experience, although some games will definitely be better on one of the systems. Following are some links with movies and screenshots comparing same games on both systems:

UT3
Multiple games
Quake Wars
Multiple games

In general, textures appear more detailed in the 360 versions of games that appear on both consoles. Also the gamma appears correct on the 360 and slightly washed out on the PS3, giving 360 games a more natural looking contrast, which in turn affects color reproduction. PS3 games seem to have a good draw distance, but somewhat at the expense of foreground detail. Advantage 360, but both systems render stunning graphics and owners who have only one of these systems needn’t feel cheated. It’s very close.

Aside from graphics, no one will argue that Microsoft got multiplayer right, and their is no comparison between Xbox Live and the PS3’s network ability. Chalk another one up for the 360.

In terms of software, pretty much all the A list titles are going to see releases on both systems, just like Xbox vs. PS2. Some titles are going to be proprietary. PS3 has Metal Gear Solid 4, 360 has Gears of War and Gears of War 2. Six of one half a dozen of the other. PC ports are easier to accomplish on the 360 because of the availability of Direct X, but that doesn’t mean that a skilled developer can’t coax good ports out of the PS3, just that it will be easier for them on the 360. Another slight edge for 360.

So I need to get out and pick up an 80gb PS3. I’m still not excited about any of the looming Sony exclusives, but having both systems gives the luxury of waiting for the reviews and picking the best version of individual releases that are multi-system. I am not so excited either about starting my movie library again, but I don’t want to keep putting it off. I’m still convinced that 4K2K will be here in the next 5 years, but if Blu Ray does take off it might stick around for a while, and I like movies too much to wait. The Sony Playstation 3 didn’t do for Blu Ray what the PS2 did for DVD and I think a lot of this is due to the buy-in price, but it did just enough.

My Beta is on ebay if you’re interested. I’m going out to buy a PS3.

Read Related Posts

1. Playstation 3 To Have Less Backwards Compatibilty in Europe
2. Sony Drops Playstation 3 Price By $100
3. Playstation 3: Delayed By 6-12 Months?
4. Impressions Of A New Playstation 3 Owner
5. Playstation 3s Available on eBay?

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