PS3!

Yep, I finally took the plunge and got myself a PS3. Best decision ever. The starter pack that is available in Europe, Australia and New Zealand includes the standard console pack, an extra PS3 controller, as well as two games (Motorstorm and Resistance:Fall of Man), all for the same price as the PS3 console by itself. That amounts to about $280 of saving in Australia. The first thing I did when I got it unboxed was to format the hard drive to set aside 10GB for Linux (Sony allows 3 options when formatting, All for GameOS, all but 10GB for GameOS, or 10GB for GameOS). Since I primarily wanted this for gaming, but wanted to play around with a Linux distribution, something I had not done up to that stage.

Next, was to update the system firmware to the highest level, ensuring that I got all components from the newer version (upscaling for DVD/PS1/PS2 and updated backwards compatibility especially). Next was to try one of the games. I decided that Motorstorm would be the best thing as it was a more pickup and play style game with short, defined levels that would be easy to share around (some friends had come over to watch a movie, so a lengthly session was out of the question).

After the Motorstorm trial run, next I tested out the network operations. I have wireless in my house so I went through the wireless setup to find that it was as easy to set up as on the PSP. The setup for a Playstation Network account was a little lengthly, however it was simple. Next stop was the Playstation Store, which is the download centre for the PS3, with games, demos, movies and trailers just a few clicks away. Background downloading is a great feature, as it will download your item while you continue surfing the internet, watching a movie or even playing a game. It will only download one item at a time, however you can queue many items up so that when one finishes the next one will automatically start, which is a nice feature.

Other features include Folding@Home, a protein folding program that is part of the distributed computing program. Whenever your PS3 is on but not being used you can run Folding@Home to help advance science. A nice feature, however one that most users will probably not spend much, if any, time looking into.

There are many more features that I have not covered here, if there is anything that you wish me to explain in further detail, or something that I missed completely, post a comment and I will do by best to answer your question.

All in all, the system surpassed my expectations. With the games coming out in the next few months (Heavenly Sword, Warhawk, The Orange Box, Assassin's Creed & LittleBigPlanet to name a few) the PS3 will begin to step up in sales.

Simply Awesome.