About to buy a PS3

13863 Views 72 Replies 25 Participants Last post by Gord Lacey, Feb 16, 2012

mr.steevo

Discussion Starter · Feb 15, 2011

We're planning on purchasing a PS3 this week. It's primary use will be for watching discs and streaming video with some gaming. Now that I started looking at what the big box stores offer I am not sure what it is I am suppose to focus in on.

The game titles mean nothing to me. I don't mean that I am not interested, it just is that I have no idea what to expect or what is good. I've played Halo on a friend's xbox back in 2005 and arcade games in the 80's.

There are different hard drive sizes. I don't know if this is important or not but I do know there are different prices depending on the hdd size.

Some come packaged with a remote but it doesn't appear to function with TV's (I have an LG LCD). Is a remote needed?

They appear to come with one controller. I would prefer two. Do these packages come sealed from the factory or do the stores make their own bundles that they would be willing to swap a game for a controller?

Thanks for the input.

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dezzpayne

· #18 · Sep 15, 2011

I think if you don't own one at this point and are unsure the easy answer is the PS3.

The major reason to own a 360 over PS3 is so you can play Call of Duty, Halo, Gear of War with your buddies. It's the more popular console in North America and I assume in Canada although I have never seen any specific Canadian numbers.

If you don't intend on playing online much and are not a hardcore First Person Shooter fan then the PS3 is the better choice. Online play is free, the PS3 doubles as a Blu ray player and the PS3 has a wider range of games in it's library whereas the 360 is heavily concentrated in aforementioned First Person Shooters.

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dezzpayne

· #22 · Sep 17, 2011

Eluder said:
As an owner of both, if you're interested in gaming the 360 is the far better option.
If you're a casual gamer that wants to do multimedia, the PS3 is the better option.

Live vs PSN+ there's absolutely no comparison. I've been a Live user since it launched on the original Xbox and I've had my gold account active since then pretty much.
PSN+ I signed up when they offered it and I don't think I'll ever renew it.

That should pretty much tell you enough with regards to the online gaming services.

Actually you aren't telling him anything at all. He's expected to take your word it's better at face value?

Also, it's as if you are trying to bait people. "if you're interested in gaming the 360 is the far better option." Really, that cut and dry huh? 360=Gaming console and PS3=Blu Ray player?

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dezzpayne

· #52 · Nov 4, 2011

Err yeah the 360 has a very similar architecture to the PC. Just about all 360 games are also on the PC because it's so simple to port. To not release it on the PC is like leaving money on the table. I don't think anyone has ever released a PS3/PC game. Yes PS3/360/PC but never just PS3/PC.

It's should be one of the deciding factors on which console to get. If you are a casual gamer who isn't FPS obsessed the PS3 has the better exclusive library. Personally, the 2 360 series that had my interest were Mass Effect and Fable. Both of which are available for the PC which meant I had no need of a 360.

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dezzpayne

· #56 · Nov 6, 2011

Eluder said:
Thanks audacity for being intelligent enough to provide real hard facts as to why the PS3 is more of a dumbed down PC than the 360 is.

You can also tell by the way the PS3 acts for their patches and updates, download, reboot, then install, then reboot again. Xbox is a much more streamlined process, unlike a PC.

I never said there was anything wrong with that, and I do own both consoles, but it's pretty obvious which console is built and feels more like a PC of the two.

Passive aggressive much?

The Cell processor is much different than a PC processor. The 360 processor on the other hand is extremely similar.

http://www.devmaster.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14672

One PS3-specific issue is reorganizing threading to work on the Cell processor. With X360's triple PowerPC cores I would imagine a multithreaded PC game ports fairly well with little change in thread organization required. Threading for PS3/Cell is completely different due to the asymmetric multicore organization.

That's really the big difference between the consoles are far as compatibility with the PC architecture goes. A custom GPU wouldn't be much of a roadblock to porting unless it was really out of left field kind of different, eg a vector based GPU.

Recoding a game to use the Cell processor would be much more labor intensive than the PowerPC.

Audacity does bring up a point though in licensing. Microsoft has the "games for windows" platform as well as the 360. How would it be viewed if it chose to lock out Windows development? Kind of like having 2 kids and trying not to show favoritism even though the decision "may" be hurting them by not giving a subset of the populace (me) a real reason to buy their console.

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dezzpayne

· #59 · Nov 8, 2011

There's little hope of me reading it unless a catastrophic power loss renders all my digital entertainment obsolete but I did read some articles on the book and it seems an intriguing read. Sony had IBM develop the Cell but did not have them sign a exclusivity contract which meant MS could use the design as long as they differentiated themselves enough from the patented features. This seems to be the elephant in the room. If the book paints an accurate picture, then that 1 decision was responsible for Sony being in "last" place. If they had an exclusive agreement there was no way in hell MS would have had the 360 out when it did. They were extremely late to the game for having someone design and fab a new chip so instead Bill Gates calls up Sam Palmisano and makes him an offer IBM can't refuse. The amount rumored is over 1 billion for the design.

IBM. Toshiba and Sony take 4 years to design the Cell with a budget of 400M

After a phonecall worth over 1B from Bill Gates, IBM delivers a Cell derived processor to Microsoft in 11 months.

Still though, in this lawsuit happy world, I'm surprised they didn't try. I'm also surprised that I had never read that the 360 processor was built from the Cell groundwork.

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dezzpayne

· #67 · Nov 9, 2011

If there are 360 exclusives you're interested in absolutely get the 360. The only considerations are if you are willing to shell out $50 a year to play those exclusives online as we are primarily talking about games that require online play. Halo, Gears of War etc. Exceptions would be Kinect games if you were to get it and Alan Wake. I'm sure someone will slap me if I'm wrong but I don't think the 360 has many exclusive, big titles that are single player. Does Forza count or is playing Forza offline kinda like being a eunuch?

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