[PS3 Adventures: The good, the bad, and the ugly]

[I've had my PS3 for a few weeks now. It's been great, but surprisingly enough, I have had my share of troubles mixed in with all the awesomeness. As a former tech, I thought I'd share my experiences. This is not a bashing of the PS3, but a detailed look at it's craftsmanship, and a detailed comparison at it's rival, the 360. I have used both systems extensively, and I am ready to unveil some key differences on a level you might not be familiar with. You WILL see problems I have had with the PS3, and there are quite a few of them for just 2 measly weeks of use. I am actually shocked. Anyway, ya Ready?]

THE GOOD

The PS3 has some serious options that the 360 was lacking. The ability to send your game audio through two different connections at the SAME TIME and the ability to send your audio through a different cord when using HDMI for your video is a HUGE deal for people that want to use their HD TV/monitors, but don't have any good audio ports in the TV and don't wanna use the crappy built in speakers. With the abilities the PS3 has, you can plug into an HD monitor and send your audio through a number of different possible connectors, allowing you to get sound on a 5.1 system, Stereo system or even headphones. Very nice job Sony, VERY nice job.

The PS3 also has quite a bit of awesome creative freedom with the user background and effects. Not to mention the PS network is FREE muthafucka! There are a LOT of options for the system, leaving you feeling like you are in control and in charge of everything you want to see out of your system. Very nice. The system, and by the way, I'm speaking of my beautiful slim here, is very quiet. 30 percent quieter than the fat model, uses 30 percent less electricity and generates 30 percent less heat. Did I mention it doesn't use touch technology for the power and eject buttons? I fucking LOVE regular buttons! It's nice and black too, my fav color. Oh, and I love that it doesn't have 'Spiderman movie' font for the PS3 symbol. Some of you might know what I"m talking about. The 'PlayStation 3' font for the fat models is the same font from Spiderman movies, and it pisses me off. Anyway!

The good has been shown. The PS3 also plays games very smoothly, and plays BR discs ^_^ so, let's move onto 'the bad.'

THE BAD

The PS3 is a powerhouse, which has never been a secret from it's launch back in 2006. It's got a crazy GPU, CPU and a plethora of options. There
are a few reasons 360 consoles have 'lagging' in their games. First of all, the processor IS sufficient to play games smoothly. There are two
factors for 360 game hitches. First, there are the disc drives. The drive in an 360 Elite is FAR superior to the BenQ drive inside an Arcade
version. A better disc drive can read the disc better, can see beyond dirt and debris easier, and loads faster. Second, you have the fact that
360 discs are no longer manufactured with a protective coating that keeps harmful chemicals found in a disc plant from affecting it's
readability.

Now, the PS3 has an eight core processor, as opposed to the 360's 3 core. An eight core processor is overkill, because it is not used to the
full potential, or else you'd have no loading with any of your PS3 games. Furthermore, for the CPU to not go to waste, it needs enough ram
to match it's power. The PS3 slim has 256 MB of ram -_- so yeah. That is not to say the eight core processor does not make games any better, but
a four core would work THE EXACT SAME, simply because the eight cores do not actually fill to capacity, only balance the load. What would have
happened if the PS3 launched with four cores in 2006? The price would have been around 450 dollars for the system. Either way you slice it,
the price is down now, since Octo processors and blue ray is becoming cheaper now. I rate the use of octo cores bad only because it was, and still is unnecessary, and only drives up the price. The use of Blueraytechnology was the other very expensive add in, but i stand by that decision because it was and still is very useful.

The 360 had some good qualities the PS3 doesn't, despite all this good talk. It is able to play music anywhere at any time, whether it be while
you're changing settings, or while you're playing a game. The reason the PS3 can't do this is simple: blue ray. The copy protection bullshit
doesn't like it when music is being played. It's basically an 'override sensor' mechanism. It feels threatened when you overpower or cancel out
it's audio output, so it stops the shit in it's tracks. You can't blame Sony for this....too much. Could they have designed something to fix
this? Sure, but it would have ultimately weakened the override protection, and made it possible for possible acts of piracy to ensue.

Now, one ugly thing for the 360 would be disc capacity. Well, most do not know that the HD DVD standard was getting an overhaul that was putting it on the same level as Blue Ray when HD DVD was suddenly shut down by the government because Hollywood was bitching and moaning that HD DVD's didn't have a lot of copy protection, and didn't line their pockets with money. Anyone that had an HD DVD player knows what the fuck I'm talking about. HD DVD movies were 20 dollars new. Blue Ray is 40+ THAT is why it was shutdown overnight. So while the low disc capacity for 360 is bad, it wasn't going to be forever.

THE UGLY

The PS3 is a great system, but there are some particularly nasty things about it, some of these things could be EASILY fixed by Sony, but remain unfixed and cause terrible things to happen. First, we have the most minor of the four. My PS3, at RARE instances, does not shut down properly. The green powerlight flashes endlessly, and the fan runs. Holding down the powerbutton for roughly ten seconds forces a shutdown, so why is this ugly? Well, you don't want to 'force' a system or computer to do anything, period. Especially where shutting down is concerned. The HDD can suffer data corruption and/or damage overtime from forced shutdowns. This is one of the four ugly's.

Now, I started noticing streaks of grime on my discs. After some experimenting, I discovered the velour disc flap, the little soft flap you push your discs through when putting your game in, is putting the marks on my disc. These dont' really come off easily. Cleaning a BR disc is easier said than done, since the disc is THE most dense optical media in existence right now. The more dense a disc is, the easier it is to scratch and harder to clean. I am appalled that a part of the console is actually marking my discs up. APPALLED I say. The little marks might not EVER cause problems, even after years of use, which is doubtful, but even so, it's the principal of the whole thing. Should you be marking your discs every time you put them in the console? HELL no!

Now for the most irritating of the issues I've had: the display resolution. The Sony PS3 does wonders at taking a resolution and filling it to the screen without stretching or cropping your game image. There is one problem though: unlike 360 games, not all PS3 games can output at 1080p. Why is this a problem? Well, by itself, this wouldn't be a technical problem, besides people wining that they can't play their games in 1080. No, the real reason that this is a problem is that the PS3 also does not have the ability to use your monitor's native resolution. Let me break it down for you a bit.

My monitor is 1680x1050. This means it can display 1080p, but it won't be TRUE 1080 because there aren't enough pixels. Because of this, it is best to play your games on my monitor at exactly 1680x1050. The 360 does this. It gives you the option to use your display's native resolution. There are very cool black strips at the top and bottom, just like on a widescreen movie. The PS3 does NOT do this. It forces 720 and 1080, there's no in between. The reason this is problematic is because some games only run up to 720, and since the PS3 automatically crops the image to fill the screen.....the monitor or TV can rebuke this. Heavily

What does this mean? This means that when I play...say....3D Dot Game Heroes, a game that only goes up to 720p, my monitor sometimes freaks the fuck out and the end result is that I cannot play my game without loading it, reloading, reloading. Attempt after attempt. All the while my monitor has bonked out, meaning I can't see ANYTHING so I have to just press the disc eject button to get my image back in order to see what the hell I'm doing. Now, if I could run at my native res, or if all PS3 games went up to 1080, or even if the PS3 didn't insist on filling the resolution to fit my screen, this wouldn't be a problem at all. Bottom line: I can't play certain games whenever I want to.

For all the bad news, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel. Some of the PS3 errors have been rare or easy to deal with, while others really leave me rubbed the wrong way. And I would like to play my games whenever I put them in, instead of fucking with my monitor for a while. But there is a setting I have enabled that might actually improve my monitor's sync rate with the PS3 when it's pulling a 720 shitfit, so we'll see how much it improves after some testing. Until next time guys, make sure to get your game on, whether it be a PS3, 360, or even an older console. All consoles need love and attention, so give it to em!] -[AT9]

A few things.

First the HD DVD vs hollywood argument added nothing to the review and kinda ranted there. Just saying. >_>

Some PS3 games let you play music while playing them. But not most. I actually think this is a company issue more than a PS3 one.

Next is 2 of your ugly issues.

The not turning off and marking discs are slim problems exclusively. Mainly cause of the cheaper meteral I would think.

And lastly if you had a SDTV you would have no screen issues with the PS3.

Edit: sorry forgot to add a part to the HD-DVD thing and why I brought it up. The 360 might have CHANGED to HD-DVD over time, but would they have sent me a FREE HD-DVD player for their system? Cause otherwise they expected me to pay $120 for one and I fail to see how that is much of a difference from PS3 having the "expensive blu-ray".

Nice to know.

Moses wrote:A few things.

First the HD DVD vs hollywood argument added nothing to the review and kinda ranted there. Just saying. >_>

Some PS3 games let you play music while playing them. But not most. I actually think this is a company issue more than a PS3 one.

Next is 2 of your ugly issues.

The not turning off and marking discs are slim problems exclusively. Mainly cause of the cheaper meteral I would think.

And lastly if you had a SDTV you would have no screen issues with the PS3.

Edit: sorry forgot to add a part to the HD-DVD thing and why I brought it up. The 360 might have CHANGED to HD-DVD over time, but would they have sent me a FREE HD-DVD player for their system? Cause otherwise they expected me to pay $120 for one and I fail to see how that is much of a difference from PS3 having the "expensive blu-ray".

[To start, some PS3 games can play music because of the version of Blueray software they run on. Certain older versions of blueray encryption can and will run with music in the background. Also, a new game can have an older version of Blueray encryption on it. Now, your SDTV remark, while valid, is highly excusable. Why? Because the PS3 is BUILT to play high def games. That is one of the selling points of the PS3 and 360. If it is designed to play HD, Sony has NO EXCUSE for it having issues with doing such things. You don't build an HD console and then go "oops. well, just play it on SD then." i would understand if it was years and years ago, and the HD playback was just 'a fancy feature' but it isn't. SD is the backburner for the PS3 system. You cannot view your games in full detail, let alone full view with an SD TV set]

[Next, you are sorta correct on my 'rant.' I tried to keep my article as on topic as possible, and to a degree, the HD DVD Vs Hollywood was important to the background of the bad. People discredit the 360 because it lacks disc space, so i wanted to include the fact that it was being upgraded when it was shut down. And as for your 'slim has cheaper parts' comment, normally that would hold water. But we are talking about a little flap that was added. All they need to do is remove it. To remove a part saves money, it does not add to it. It doesn't need a damn flap anyway, in my opinion. And finally, the xbox already had an HD DVD player in it, all they would have to do to make it able to play multi-layered improved HD DVD is a downloadable patch, same as the PS3 when it upgrades BR tech]

Than why did they sell a HD-DVD player for the 360?

{takes a note from Moses}
...meh

I have never had a display issue with my PS3. This could also be a slim issue alone. I play all of my games on my 1680x1050 monitor with no issues.

Also, the disk flap is there as a dust prevention method, as well as ensuring the disk reaches the player properly. Also a slim issue.

[Related to my issue, but does not hit it perfectly, since my monitor DOES support 720]

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/746/746282p1.html

[Alexander_The_Nine] wrote:
THE GOOD
THE BAD
THE UGLY

"in this world there's two kinds of people my friend: those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
you dig."