If you just want a summary and a pros/cons list, scroll to where it says TL;DR.
There are a lot of reviews on here, many of them extremely aggressive in one way or another. A lot of people have really strong opinions about game systems, and while I'm not exactly one of those people, I definitely have opinions. I'll go ahead and do the same thing that everyone else has done and set it apart from the wii as a completely different being; that's not to say that the wii doesn't have its place, it's just that its place is not in the serious gaming market.
The wii is fun - lots of fun. But from the very beginning, and continuing all throughout its existence, it has been strongly characterized by games targeted directly toward the casual gaming market. Many of its games are very simple and intuitive, and are designed to use the controller in creative ways. Many of the games even give step-by step instructions on-screen, explaining how the game works. That makes it a great party console, because people that don't play video games (your girlfriend, sister, not to be sexist or anything but the gaming market is dominated by males) can pick it up and play with little to no learning curve. The games also tend to be strongly multiplayer-oriented, having more split-screen and shared-screen multiplayer games than any other console. With a few specific exceptions (e.g. Super Smash Brothers Brawl and the Rock Band / Guitar Hero type games) most of the games also have a very limited skill curve - for the most part, they aren't games that you can play for hours on end and get really good to the point where you'll just trounce everyone else. That also tends to make it a lot more fun for people that don't play video games. I don't know how many people actually realize this (it seems that few people do) but coming over to play games at a party, playing Halo or Call of Duty and getting completely demolished is actually not fun. These are not games to play with your girlfriend unless you have a very intimate relationship with your couch - you'll be spending a lot of time sleeping on it.
Right, so that's the wii out of the way. If the previous paragraph describes what you need, go buy a wii. Otherwise, read on.
The PlayStation 3's launch was, well, pathetic. There's really no other way to put it. Sure, they won the HD war, bringing the Blu-Ray into the mainstream over HD-DVDs, but there wasn't much else to cheer about. It came out long after the 360 and with the exception of a handful of pretty sweet games and a tiny number of good exclusives, it didn't come out with its guns blazing. Resistance, Assassin's Creed, Armored Core 4, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and eventually Call of Duty 4 Grand Theft Auto IV and Ratchet & Clank: Future (shut up, I like that game) were the early titles that I picked up. With the exception of GTA IV (which had, and has, unbelievable lasting power - I still pick it up to play it), Rock Band, and the Armored Core follow-up that came out later, I really had nothing to slake my gaming thirst for quite a while. Most of the games that came out for the next season were mediocre at best, with lackluster graphics that didn't even attempt to push the console's power, boring plotlines or no plot at all, and either completely aimless or poorly coordinated action. Those were dark days for PS3 owners and Sony fans in general.
Meanwhile, 360 fans were rolling in Microsoft video game ecstacy. Every good PC game was being released concurrently for the XBox. Windows/XBox Live, though requiring a monthly membership fee (PlayStation Network is free) finally took a really good grip; Online multiplayer sunk in its teeth with Halo and didn't let go. They got a bunch of exclusive games, and PS3 owners sulked in envy, trying to come up with excuses for why we still thought our system was better. A lot of people jumped ship and got an XBox or souped up their PC's. Stubborn or broke PS3 owners with early-model PS3s like myself dusted off some old PS2 games and gave them a spin (as, for some insane reason, later PS3 models were built without backwards compatibility. Presumably this was to cut costs, but I don't really see it since the PS2 emulator that actually worked 100%, as the one on my own model, was totally software - not hardware). Some people decided to go for a walk, or pick up a hobby. Dark times indeed.
And then suddenly, there was a light. Out of nowhere, gaming news lit up with info and names for promising new titles; names like Uncharted, Dead Space, Resistance II, Metal Gear Solid 4, Resident Evil 5, Call of Duty: World at War, Far Cry 2, Condemned 2, Mirror's Edge and Fallout 3. Even Bioshock, a game that was originally touted as one of the XBox's champion exclusive games, eventually saw a port to PS3. The online PlayStation Store exploded with downloadable content for its existing games, and an ever-increasing host of stand-alone titles, including the hugely popular casual time-killing games Pain and the interesting (and rather addictive) online R/C car/soccer hybrid game Super Sonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars. Even full-development titles have started seeing release over the PlayStation Network, including the sequel to Ratchet & Clank: Future, titled "Quest for Booty". More recently, several other games have been released, notably inFamous and Prototype (paired together because they're extraordinarily similar), the former of which is both better (IMO) and a PS3 exclusive. Red Faction: Guerilla also made its way onto shelves in the last couple months, and though I haven't personally played more than the demo yet, it definitely has promise.
The XBox grip securely at the top as the console with the best games has faltered. Since day one, XBox and Microsoft supporters have held two things high as making them superior to the PlayStation: game selection and the nifty little cross-game badge earning system called Achievements. But neither of those are valid arguments anymore, because Sony added a very similar system, called Trophies, and the PS3 game selection has most definitely caught up, and shows no signs of slowing down. Even more games are set to come out for the PS3 late this season, exclusive and non-exclusive, including Assassin's Creed II, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, Brutal Legend (freakin' sweet), Uncharted II, and the rather unique and promising-looking MAG (Massive Action Game) which will also be a PS3 exclusive.
Future release titles include Crysis II, Deus Ex 3, Fallout: New Vegas, Final Fantasy XIII and XIV, Gran Turismo 5 (not Prelude or Prologue, the actual game), Half-Life II: Episode 3, Thief 4, TimeSplitters 4, and a host of other ones that I've forgotten.
TL;DR:
The point is this. The PS3 didn't start strong, and it caught a lot of flack from gamers and reviewers alike due to its pretty limited launch/early-life game selection. The XBox, being made by Microsoft, brought a lot more PC gamers into the console market. But the tables have most definitely turned. The PlayStation, though harder to develop for due to its very unique system architecture, definitely has the potential to run much more demanding games than the XBox can, and will continue to have lasting power and remain technologically competitive for the next few years even as the XBox begins to falter behind its rapidly-expanding PC brethren. Though it took quite a while, the PlayStation has definitely caught up with the game selection of the XBox, and stands poised to overtake it. So, on to the Pros and Cons...
Pros:
-Power. It has it. A lot of it. Games engineered specifically for the PS3 look better, run better and play better than XBox games.
-Reliability. I got mine at launch and it has never once had a single problem. Despite heavy use and occasional neglect (I tend to forget to turn it off) I have never had the system crash or fail; only once have I had a game crash, and that was Fallout 3, which is buggy on all systems. The system recovered from the crash and restarted the game within a minute, and did not require a reset. It does not overheat.
-Blu-Ray. This is a no-brainer. For quite a while, it was the cheapest Blu-Ray player on the market, and it was definitely the first. It can handle video output in 1080p.
-PlayStation Network. It's free; XBox Live costs money.
-The PlayStation Store has a huge amount of DLC (downloadable content), including thousands of game add-ons and stand-alone titles. This tends to be where the PS3's casual games get sold - both small, independent developing companies and full-scale game industries release material here. Think of it as an App store for the PS3 that sells mostly games.
-It's upgradeable. Sony doesn't really say anything about this, but it's actually not that hard to replace the system's built-in hard drive with a new, better one. I plan on replacing mine with a faster, less demanding solid state drive when the price drops.
-Operating system flexibility. It's not great, or particularly easy, but you can definitely boot Linux on a PS3. You can't run Windows, though, so don't try it.
-Game selection. It used to be small, but now it's huge. There are a LOT of really good games on the PS3, and there are a lot more coming (see the long write-up for more).
-Controls. Holy crap, the PlayStation controller is good. It always has been. And they don't break. They're responsive from long distances, light, feel good in your hands, all of the buttons are easily accessible, and the arrangement is excellent. And the batteries on my original controllers, the ones that came with the system, still hold a charge perfectly. You'll start to notice the controls going out when the batteries are really low, though.
-Noise. The cooling system is actually pretty quiet, and it's smart. It doesn't just run non-stop, sucking up power and making noise all the time. The disk drive is pretty much silent. The hard drive can be noisy, but only when it's loading, and you can replace it with a better, quieter one.
-Fewer obnoxious kids. I don't really know why, but there are FAR fewer foul-mouthed, immature little kids playing PS3 games online than there are on the XBox and PC. You can't even imagine how much of a relief that is. Listen to the microphone channel - what's that you hear? It's called silence. No twelve year-olds throwing tantrums and inventing new words by combining all of the worst ones they've ever heard. All I ever hear when I play games on the PlayStation Network is the in-game music and sound effects, with helpful advice/team coordination or the occasional funny remark over the voice channel. It's so nice.
Cons:
-XBox fans will tell you that they have a lot more exclusive games, and this is true, but all of the best ones with a few exceptions have been ported to PS3. It's harder to develop games for the PS3 than it is for the XBox and PC, and since those two are so similar, it's very easy to develop a game for PC that is readily ported to the XBox.
-Pretty pathetic non-gaming hardware. I'm not really sure why, but Sony really designed the system to do basically nothing but play games and watch HD movies. It actually only has 256 MB of system RAM. Which is mostly why it won't run any operating systems other than Linux.
-There are a few annoying aspects of the PlayStation Operating System, probably due to the limitations of the system's aforementioned puny non-gaming hardware. For instance, you can't listen to music and do something else at the same time. And there's no way to rip your own music to a game's soundtrack. It does play music, and it has a few pretty sweet visualizers, but I just decided to delete all my music off of it after a few months because I never used it.
-Price. Almost everything on the PS3 tends to go a bit steeper on the price tag. Apart from the console itself, extra controllers are not cheap (the Sony brand models coming in at $50) and most of the games are $60 each on launch.
-Backwards compatibility. A very small group of specific PS3 models, no longer in development or available in stores, were made to be either partially or fully backwards-compatible with PS2 games. I was one of the lucky few to get one of the fully compatible models. This really isn't a big deal though, because I'll be honest, I haven't even touched one of my dozens of PS2 games since I got my PS3, with the exception of Final Fantasy 12, which I played back through once during the PS3's early dry spell. And it's not like selling your old PS2 would make you much money anyway.
-The controllers have built-in batteries that you can't replace yourself. The batteries are good, mind you, and I've never had one go bad, but I'm a fix-it-myself sort of guy. I hate sending stuff in for repairs, and it never makes me comfortable when I don't have access to a battery pack.
-No NTFS support. The PlayStation only supports external storage that's formatted in FAT16 or FAT32. And recently, Microsoft decided (for no obvious reason) to be obnoxious and make it so that the Vista/XP and presumably the Windows 7 GUI won't allow you to make a Fat32 partition that's larger than 32gb. Fortunately, 3rd party software and even the MSDOS command line still allow you to format existing large partitions into FAT32, so it's not really a big deal. Just don't try to put a file that's larger than 4gb on your drive, it won't work.
My final recommendation is this: If you don't play video games much, and you're looking for a casual game machine, get a wii. If you're an extremely hardcore gamer, and you have lots of money to spend, forgo the PS3 and XBox entirely; just make a super-powered PC. Consoles will never have the power and capability of a top-of-the-line PC, but you can fully expect to spend at least twice as much money making such a machine, and it will only be top-of-the-line for about two months before something newer and better comes out. Meanwhile, you'll still be playing the same games as console owners, because game developers love consoles. It might look better, run slightly smoother or run in ridiculously huge resolution, but for the most part, you won't be getting much exclusive content. RTS games will probably always be PC-oriented, though; you just can't play those without a keyboard and mouse.
But if you're somewhere in-between, if you like playing video games but it's not your only hobby, you like good graphics but not enough to spend $1000+ on a gaming PC, and you'd much rather play video games from your couch with a controller than at a desk with a keyboard, it's going to fall to either the XBox or the PlayStation. Frankly, I've used both pretty extensively (my roommate has an XBox) and I like the PlayStation better. I like the controller better, it has an incredible game selection that easily rivals that of the XBox, and its well-made exclusive titles (the ones that actually run in 1080p and use the full spectrum of the PS3's capability) are insanely awesome. The XBox had a better early life, but the turning point has been reached, and while it's unlikely that the PS3 will ever beat the XBox in sales due to the higher price and the lack of the Microsoft/Windows rabid zombie fanboy army, I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. If fewer sales means less obnoxious pre-teens and adolescents cursing and yelling in my headset, I'm perfectly satisfied with that. I'm convinced that the PS3 quite simply has the technological clout to keep up with PCs and even outclass the XBox as its capabilities are pushed to the limit over the next few gaming seasons. It's more reliable, more stable and generally more solid than its white counterpart. There's really something to be said for the fact that when thousands of XBoxes sat helplessly bricked with a red glowing ring around their power button, my PlayStation happily clicked and hummed away into the night for weeks on end when I accidentally left it running Fallout to go on vacation.
Suck it up and get a PlayStation 3. Then you won't need to get a Blu-Ray player. And there's nothing cooler than watching Planet Earth in full HD, closing it, and switching over to playing Fallout or inFamous or Resistance II without getting up or even putting down the controller. Of course, you need to have Planet Earth ripped to a hard drive to do that. Otherwise you actually have to get up, take the disk out and put the other one in. Awful, I know. |
Expedited Available
![Grand Theft Auto IV [PS3]](product_images/4921000/4921046_thumb.jpg)
"Many better versions out now."
"120gb"
"What a coincidence? Blu-ray failure AFTER 1 year!"
"Several years into its existence, PS3 gaining momentum"