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I'm looking at $150 worth of best Buy gift certificates I received as a Christmas gift. It makes me wonder of all the useless things I never wanted to spend a lot of money on what can I spend this free money on?

PS3 is just about at the top of the list however, as usual, I have not been keeping up with the console info and now I see there are various versions of the PS3. The one I was looking at was the one that focuses on the bluray aspects of the PS3 and comes with the Spiderman 3 movie. For $399 it just about starts to enter a comfort zone where I'm willing to pay for that for a gaming machine I might use once a week. I love my Wii but I always go running back home to momma so to speak and end up PC gaming most of the time.

Anyway upon closer examination we have a 40gig model and an 80 gig model. I've heard the differences are more than just the size of their respective hard drives so can anyone outline it for me in simple terms.

Should I spend this $150 on getting the 40gig PS3 or bump up to the 80-gig or maybe even bypass it altogether and get me an iTouch? Keep in mind I am a very casual console gamer and don't intend to do any online play, etc. And is it just me or is there still a distinct lack of games for the PS3?

All PS3s:

-BD playback
-Wireless controllers
-Wireless networking (except 20GB)
-SACD playback (except 40GB)

80GB:
-Software-based PS2 backwards compatibility. (List here)
-Flash card reader

60GB (Discontinued, plentiful)
-Hardware-based PS2 backwards compatibility (better than 80, check individual games at link above)
-Flash card reader

40GB
-NO PS2 BC
-2 fewer USB ports (2 instead of 4)
-No SACD playback

20GB (Discontinued, possibly locatable)
-Hardware-based PS2 backwards compatibility (better than 80, check individual games at link above)
-No wireless networking

IMO, buy the 60. It's the best value.

EDIT: If you don't care about PS2 BC, just wait. More price drops are coming.

Get an iTouch. The PS3 has a very limited exclusive library for most casuals, and to be honest is only getting a few bits more. It and the XBox 360 have the same current library, and if you want to play PS2 games? Whup out the PS2. Easier to deal with. And as a BD player? I suppose it is average, but really...buying a game system for that? Meh.

You'll likely see more use out of the iTouch or a similar product.

Ghost Rider wrote:Get an iTouch. The PS3 has a very limited exclusive library for most casuals, and to be honest is only getting a few bits more. It and the XBox 360 have the same current library, and if you want to play PS2 games? Whup out the PS2. Easier to deal with. And as a BD player? I suppose it is average, but really...buying a game system for that? Meh.

You'll likely see more use out of the iTouch or a similar product.

The PS3's DVD upscaler is actually very good--at least as good as any of the stand-alone Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players, right now. I can see using it for that purpose even if you were only minimally interested the games. For me, though, the total lack of BC is a dealbreaker for the new PS3 model.

Unless you're a Metal Gear Solid or Squenix fan, it might be best to just skip it. Sadly there's not many exclusives worth getting on the PS3, even at such a low price.

For casuals, the PS3's library is rather limited at this point; but if you do want a Blu-ray player or multimedia streamer or network drive in addition to being able to play some games, it might just be worth it.

The Wii is definitely the best system for casuals at this point, however.

The difference between the 40 and 80 GB systems is that the 40 can't play any PS2 games and has a smaller drive; that's about it. All PS3's have WiFi (except the 20 GB that was discontinued ages ago) and can store video on the hard drive.

The PS3's library actually does have a few decent titles now (I'm very interested to play Warhawk myself, and Gran Turismo 5 looks stunning), but not as many as the other two platforms. I hear a lot of the PSN download games are really good as well. I'll be interested in seeing the situation next year.

Master of Ossus wrote: The PS3's DVD upscaler is actually very good--at least as good as any of the stand-alone Blu-Ray or HD-DVD players, right now. I can see using it for that purpose even if you were only minimally interested the games. For me, though, the total lack of BC is a dealbreaker for the new PS3 model.

This days you can get a DVD player with HDMI that will upscale to 1080i for as low as $60 or so, buying a PS3 for that purpose would be a waste of money, don't do it unless you really want it for the Blu-Ray and games.

As they said, the 40GB version has no backward compatibility anymore, they decided it wasn't worth the hassle, so you'll have to keep your PS2 around if you have one and decide to go for the 40GB PS3.

There are a some good games for the PS3, but they honestly are few and so far there's nothing you wont find an equivalent for in other platforms. You'll have a harder time just going to the store and picking up games that you might find attractive for it, so check the game lists first, and if you like what you see then go for it, otherwise you'll probably better off just waiting a bit longer, there's bound to be another price drop in the future, and there will be more attractive games then.

Shogoki wrote:This days you can get a DVD player with HDMI that will upscale to 1080i for as low as $60 or so, buying a PS3 for that purpose would be a waste of money, don't do it unless you really want it for the Blu-Ray and games.

But you're assuming that the DVD player with HDMI upsamples as well as the PS3. This isn't true. The PS3's upsampling is better. In fact, it's better than any other upscaling player (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, or DVD) on the market of which I am aware.

As they said, the 40GB version has no backward compatibility anymore, they decided it wasn't worth the hassle, so you'll have to keep your PS2 around if you have one and decide to go for the 40GB PS3.

There are a some good games for the PS3, but they honestly are few and so far there's nothing you wont find an equivalent for in other platforms. You'll have a harder time just going to the store and picking up games that you might find attractive for it, so check the game lists first, and if you like what you see then go for it, otherwise you'll probably better off just waiting a bit longer, there's bound to be another price drop in the future, and there will be more attractive games then.

No arguments there. The 360 has a much better library, with many more high-quality games. That's unlikely to change in the near future, with only FF13 and MGS4 even looking like they have the potential to change the equation.

Also, depending on where they're from they're different too...the 60 gig models we have/had in the UK have two USB ports, not four. Plus over here the 60 gig model had software BC, rather than hardware...and apparently when the 80 gets here it wont have any at all...so sayeth the people giving us the spec sheets etc at work.

If you need a Blu-Ray player, it's the cheapest on the market.

If you want to play those new fangled videogame things, probably best look elsewhere. There's sod all of them for the PS3, and the ones there are tend to be shitter versions than on the Other System.

Keep in mind that there is no more backwards compatibility with the majority of the PS2 library now.

But there are some good exclusives being released for the PS3, though of course only time will tell if this trickle becomes a steady stream.

Keep in mind this also
We still have another year and a half of planned PS2 released games. Not just bargin bin games, but still multiconsole releases, and full game titles for the PS2 only.

Keep in mind the PS2 is still outselling the PS3 by a factor of two or three or some months even more.

Vendetta wrote:If you need a Blu-Ray player, it's the cheapest on the market.

This is not true, btw.

It is however, generally thought of as the best, for raw PQ, speedy loading of discs, ease of updating the FW and futureproofing with sufficient internal hardware to meet BD 1.1 spec.

If he's thinking about it from a BR player perspective, I imagine he should find out when the movies he'd actually re-purchase on the new format come on on BR, and whether better, cheaper players would be available by then.

Since I have zero measurable interest in BR at all and certainly no interest in re-purchasing movies, this is easy. The PS3 has zero draw as a game console as well, so I think he should go find one of those BR release websites.

Master of Ossus wrote: But you're assuming that the DVD player with HDMI upsamples as well as the PS3. This isn't true. The PS3's upsampling is better. In fact, it's better than any other upscaling player (Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, or DVD) on the market of which I am aware.

That comparison is just between a PS3 and a few video cards, hardly a "better than any other" situation, there are a lot of stand alone DVD players that upscale to 720i or 1080i now, from the likes of Toshiba, Samsung and Sony itself, and it seems that compared to those the PS3's DVD performance is actually pretty mediocre.

That and even the higher end models from Oppo are about half the price of the PS3.

This is not to diss the PS3, since that's not it's primary function, I'm just saying that if that's what you want, there are better (and much cheaper) options. (Hell, with those $150 he could get a kick ass DVD player for free if that's what he wanted).

Get a HDD based camcorder instead. They are way cooler.