We lucked into a PS3 (at retail) around Dec 1, but we didn’t open it until Xmas. I put it on eBay at an outrageous price just to see what would happen, but apparently we missed the wave.

I was only willing to sell it if I got enough cash to cover both a PS3 and Wii at retail after the holidays but that didn’t happen. Things being what they are with the holidays, it stayed wrapped until Xmas.

I had a brief experience with a PS3 a couple weeks ago at a buddy’s house. We only played Madden for a little bit, and not being familiar with the controls it was a tad difficult. So now after 3 days with my own PS3 here are my first impressions.

The model we have is the 20gig model.

What it’s missing over the 60gb:

• - 40gb of hard drive space. (Not that big a deal thus far, and I’m sure we can upgrade this later.
• - Card reader ports, it doesn’t have the built in ports for memory cards. Even the 60gb doesn’t give you a PS2 memory card reader which is about the only card I can see putting in this. I have a 17 into one card reader and will use that via USB if need be.
• - Built in Wifi. Now, I already have an external wifi game adapter that we used with the PS2, but I can see this as being something I wish I had. I’m sure there will be a way to use a USB wifi stick at some point so that won’t be so bad.

Setup was easy. Plug it in Using HDMI the resolution is amazing.

Games played so far (2): Call of Duty and Madden 07.

I picked up these games and a second controller the night before Xmas as none of the games I had ordered were going to make the big day.

Game play:

Madden:

It’s a little rough around the edges, more so because once PS2 controls get burned into your head, switching them up is a bad idea. EA, you are dumb.

Game play is pretty good though once you make the transition. Being a launch game, expectations are somewhat high. There are far too many visual artifacts to please me. The review ratings for this game put it around a 7 and that’s fair. It’s still a keeper, and I look forward to Madden 08

Call of Duty:

Pretty much the same applies. Quite a number of visual artifacts at times and I’ve had the sound freak out on me twice. Luckily it reset at the next level. This game is still very well done. Reviews for this also come in around a 7 and that too is accurate.

Using the PS3 for other things:

Web browsing is a joke, the same joke it is on the PSP. It’s also not a funny joke.

Blue Ray, uh so far watching Talladega nights, I’m not seeing much different than a good DVD player puts out.

We did watch Cars using the PS3, and while not a Blue Ray disc, it was as good or better than our progressive scan DVD player. I was much impressed.

Playing PS2 games:

Ratchet and Clank Deadlocked plays well, even over the net in multi-player mode. The new R2 Trigger button hurts ya a bit but it’s not something you can’t learn to deal with.

We’ve played a number of other PS2 games and so far they all seem to work.

I think the biggest win for this is the PS3 OS and interface, which is modeled after the PSP OS/interface.

Creating users is huge, and the lack of a need for memory cards is a big win.

The wireless controllers are the bomb as well. Though the motion sensing part, well, I’m not too sold on that yet. There are a number of places in Call of Duty that use it. You wiggle the controller to fight off up close attacks, and you rotate it to set the fuse in bombs. Driving jeeps and tanks is horrible with the motion sensor. It’s a damn good thing those levels where you’re driving just simply aren’t that hard.

I don’t know what all the bitching is about. Maybe if I’d have paid > $1000 I wouldn’t be happy. But I am very pleased with the PS3 so far and look forward to the 2nd release games.

Go get a PS3.