New Toys

Is this a toy for me? I think it is!


The PS3 arrived in the middle of last week. Thanks to work commitments that have me pulling overtime for the next few weeks, it wasn't until Friday night that I was finally able to uncrate and set up the Deathstar of consoles, but as the above picture shows, The Girl had already taken possession. It's fortunate for me she can't talk yet. If she could, I'd likely give her whatever she wanted.

Since this is my first console of the current generation, I believe I'm now required to fulfill the following fanboy rant: "Xbox 360 suxx0rs! Wii is a total fad! PS3 r0xx0rs!

Okay, I'm back, minus the IQ points required for that bit of inane stupidity.

Saturday saw us acquiring a few necessary extras for the new toy: component A/V cables to get at least a slightly better picture, an actual PS3 game (Armored Core 4), and used copies of Kingdom Hearts and Gran Turismo 3 (to which The Boy gleefully screams "Car!" whenever one passes his father during a race). And while I have a hard time accepting the fact, if next year comes around and we haven't acquired a new high-powered gaming PC yet, then I know I'll still be able to play Fallout 3 even if it's not on the perfect system.

Next Generation Gamer Angst

I've finally gone and bought a new console game system. To be honest, it was one of the more difficult purchasing decisions I've had to make (then again, my wife and I haven't gone car shopping yet), but in the end, I hit submit on an order for a new 60 GB PS3 from the Sony store.

The PS3 will join the Gamecube, Xbox, and Super Nintendo serving to take up space on the top of our small entertainment centre.

So why a PS3? The co-workers I've told react with surprise when I tell them I've acquired a PS3 but not only don't own an Xbox 360, but don't plan to anytime soon. Well, honestly, there's two main reasons: first, I needed a current gen system. I'm a game developer, I work on titles that go on the latest and greatest consoles, so I ought to have one of them. Second, the PS3 works as kind of a hedge against future expenses. While I'm primarily a PC game player, the cost of a new game PC is in the $5000+ range, and I don't know if we'll be able to afford that in the next few years. At least this way I have something for the bulk of big name titles coming out in the next few years. Third and finally, the PS3 fills a gap in my game library that nothing else does. You may have noticed in the list of consoles we already own that there wasn't a PSOne or PS2. That's not a mistake. The PS3 is the first Sony manufactured console I'll have ever owned. Considering my predilection for Japanese RPGs in the Final Fantasy mold, and giant robot games in the Armored Core mold, I've got a good back-catalog to choose from.

Now I just have to convince my wife that what the kids are really going to need for Christmas is a new HDTV to play Blu-ray movies on.