10 years of PS3.

By Sam Coles:

It’s hard to believe that the PS3 is now 10 years old, I was 13 when the console came out and that point I was still rocking the PS2. I didn’t jump to the 7^th generation of gaming until 2009 when I got my Xbox 360 it was the first console that was mine where I didn’t have to share it with anyone else. I didn’t get a PS3 until the tail end of 2013 when the 8^th generation began and honestly I regret not getting one sooner with the variety of unique exclusives and the amount of PS1 classics I played on it. Let’s take a quick look at the history of the PS3.

The PS3 was released in November of 2006 a year later after the Xbox 360 and at first it was met with resistance because it was expensive I’m going by American prices it was $600 for the model with the bigger hard drive which was a tiny 60 GB. However this was during the transition from SD to HD and most people were still using old CRT televisions still and that’s why the PS3 came with AV cables as well as HDMI out. As well as that the PS3 was the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market so it put the new format on the map like what the PS2 did for DVD but people were not willing to pay through the nose for it so Microsoft had the upper hand.

The other reason why the PS3 was so expensive originally was the fact that the system could play PS2 games and this wasn’t emulation, they pretty much put PS2 hardware within the system and this was also problematic as the original PS3 was prone for failure as it had a habit of overheating.   

Sony were the underdog of the generation due to their poor start with sales etc. but also their online network was lacking to say the least and was a bit counter intuitive, but it was free to play online throughout the generation which Microsoft made you pay for, but Sony would change that for the PS4. They did update the PlayStation network over the years and it was better than was to begin with as they added the plus service which would grant you access to free games each month and they later added trophy support similar to achievements on Xbox.

The other issue the PS3 had was the infamous cell processor which was a pain for most developers so most of them would outsource projects to third parties who knew what they were doing with the processor. When people utilise it properly we got some superb games with excellent visuals that the Xbox 360 could not produce, sometimes third party games ran better on PS3 a great example of this is Oblivion it has better graphics, draw distance and loading times, it was made by 4J studios better known for making the console versions of Minecraft.

Over the years the PS3 slowly caught up with Microsoft in sales as it started produce excellent exclusive games such as Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War III and many more. They revised the console twice to make the system more affordable but at a cost of losing PS2 backwards compatibility however all PS3’s can play original PlayStation games which opens up a huge library of classics from the 90’s.

The PS3 is a classic console and rose from the ashes after a rocky start and is a system you must own you can pick one up for a cheap price these days and I would highly recommend getting one.