I took the plunge and finally bought myself a PS3 a couple of weeks ago. Doing so now means that once again I possess every current gaming system in the States which is really not something I thought I would ever do again especially in light of Sony's dramatic fall from power. Every time a game came was coming out that I really wanted and everyone swore that it would never come out on the 360 and so I thought THAT would be the game that makes me buy the system, it would suddenly be released on the 360. This kept happening at an ever increasing rate and so it looked like I probably would never pick one up especially considering my ever dwindling funds.

The pressure in my mind leaning towards a purchase started leaning a bit more heavily over the last year as I'm a bit of a movie buff and so it's only natural to desire the latest in movie viewing technology much like the Laserdisc provided oh so many years ago. I also was very impressed with Sony's presentation at this year's E3 and felt that not only did they have a lot to offer in terms of gaming, but that they didn't horribly embarrass themselves as I felt the other consoles did. Still though...it was mighty expensive and so I sat firmly on my spending hands despite the rather warm climate in which I live.

Then a funny series of events happened. Well...OK it's not really funny per se but somewhat serendipitous I suppose. Sony suddenly created an all new slim version with oodles of memory and they lowered the price to the very acceptable $300. Due to a clerical error, I found myself with some Best Buy credit and resisting the urge to go to town buying more movies for my apartment wall, I decided to join the Sony family once again!

With a small amount of excitement indicative of an older person that owns many gadgets already yet still harboring some of that boyish glee in purchasing a new techno fun box, I began to unpack my system and get it all set up. Luckily my friend (who already owned a PS3 due to his great need to be the all-consuming master of the Ryu Ga Gotoku series) was in attendance or I would not have been a happy camper as I encountered the first of a handful of confusing technology problems. I easily created my console profile and set it up to look all crazy sharp and awesome on my semi-respectable Philips 1080i LCD monitor. I connected it to my router and went online and got the system all updated and raring to go. Then I was prompted to create an online persona and I did as asked and hit the accept button.

Then it died.

Well, it didn't die but the connection to the internet suddenly died as did my friend's laptop and my desktop computer which were both connected as well. Luckily my friend was there and informed me he expected it to do that as his PS3 did the same thing and it took him a huhwhile to figure out why. Apparently there's this option to share videos or some such feature which is "on" automatically and is apparently incompatible with...um everything? I don't know why but somehow it kills your router and so I turned that oh-so-exciting feature "off" and rebooted my router and...WHALLAH! Everybody happy!

I watched the Blu-Ray movie that I had and then...well then the PS3 just sat there. Gosh I haven't been this underwhelmed with a system since I finally had enough of the broken Animal Crossing game and realized I don't really want almost any other Wii games. I mean, I know I mainly got it as a Blu-Ray player but still it seemed kind of sad just sitting there. Then I realized my same friend had some games so perhaps I should just borrow some and play around with my new system. He brought over a small stack and lazily I picked the Wolverine Origins game as, though I already played through it on my 360, I really enjoy simple beat 'em ups and thought it would be a fun lazy late night kind of game. So I put the game in my machine...

...and it looked like crap.

Then my friend came over and exclaimed "Hey, what's with the game looking like crap Mr. I have an HD TV?". Well, he didn't really say it like that but he did express curiosity as to the low resolution being angrily displayed by my new machine. I had picked the highest resolution and wondered what the deal was. I attempted to poke through the menus and fix the problem but nothing I did had any effect. Then I looked at the back of the game and noticed that the highest any game went was 720p -- even the exclusives! Could 720p look this bad? So (bear with me here) I called up a friend of mine that makes games for the various consoles and he confirmed that the PS3 indeed is a powerful but wicked beast that doesn't like to go to 1080. I was stunned. But then he informed me that 720p should look pretty darn good and so I was concerned that something was wrong.

After more digging I found out that the PS3 had a problem with 1080i. Apparently some early HD units don't support 720p and so if the game doesn't find 720p it just shunts it down to normal resolution. I was saddened but again, since I mainly got it as a Blu-Ray player I wasn't too upset. Still it was annoying to think I was just out of luck and any future exclusive I would buy would look like crap. But wait a tick! I didn't get my HD LCD until just a couple of years ago?! So I started pouring through the many, many, MANY options on the Sony menus and realized that the PS3 wanted me to check off ALL of the resolutions supported not just the highest one like I did with the 360. Feeling foolish but relieved I put my game back in and watched all the shiny HD goodness dancing before my eyes. Still...those sad early HD 1080i folks.

Also apparently 720p is better than 1080i anyways so gosh I feel really silly now.

So now I'm enjoying my PS3 and falling back in love with the awesome and incredibly light controller that Sony still offers. I played around with the Sony Home feature and it's fairly boring but also very impressive at the same time. The media within media displayed is very impressive and I like the idea of going to a virtual movie theatre and sitting down to watch a feature. It would be nice if they had more short films or features to watch instead of just programs that are basically ads for product but still it's kind of interesting. I like the mall and the arcade but honestly there's just not enough things to do, see and purchase to keep it interesting. Maybe once more companies get on board it can get fleshed out with more desireable content and exclusive events.

Still, I do find the place, small though it may be, to be oddly compelling and sometimes I just go there and sit under the ferns to the far right of the arcade or the far left of the theatre whichever you prefer. Attempting to be brutally honest due to hurt feelings I've suffered in internet land, I once again have made a semi-realistic but somewhat troll-like avatar to tool around in so everyone realizes I'm an older burnt out shell of a man who plays games. So if you're ever in that weird hub land and see me sitting there, stop by and do a funny dance in front of me or just say "hi".

Oh yeah that Wolverine game I was playing? I totally platinumed that baby!