I was reading an interesting article about how the PS3 is a dud for Sony. Then I came across a preview for Gran Turismo HD, which the demo for is now available to download. As you can see to your left and in the screenshots at the article, Gran Turismo HD looks incredible. There’s no denying that it is by far the best looking game you can play on a console at the moment. Then I realized it’s not the best graphics you can possibly get at this exact moment and this won’t change for a long time. One of the biggest arguements for console over a PC loaded with a high-end graphics card, CPU, RAM, etc. was the price.
Obviously, you can easily spend more than $500-600 for the graphics card alone but I think there’s a line in price where the hardcore gamer that demand the highest graphics possible and the more casual gamer meet, and that line is lower than $600.
Sony has priced themselves out of the console wars. It no longer competes as a gaming machine, it’s an entertainment box with gaming capabilities. Sony admits to this. When the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add-on came out the PS3 was no longer the best entertainment box you could get. Now, both the 360 and the PS3 have the ability to play High Definition movies but one major difference, PS3 cannot play your old DVDs! The PS3 only has the Blue-Ray blue laser sensor that can only play Blue-Ray discs, it is different from the regular red laser used in normal CD/DVD players. So you would need a separate DVD player by your television to watch all those DVDs you’ve bought over the years. Either that or buy them again in Blue-Ray version, of course if the movie you want is under the studio that supports Blue-Ray.
Right now there is no way that I would buy a PS3 even if it was cheaper than the Xbox 360. I would not have fun with it. Then again, I’ll probably get one once Final Fantasy XIII comes out (the picture below is an actual gameplay screenshot).
