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PerfectCr wrote:

derFunkenstein wrote:

guess it's just priorities. After the kiddo goes to sleep, I either pick on my wife until she tells me to get lost or I plunk the Sennheiser's on my ears and fire up Sonar.

It could be that I'm just getting burned out on gaming. I WANT to play, but when I do, I tend to get bored quickly.

My wife and I have our own separate Tv/gaming rooms. She has her own 360 and 42" LCD, I have my 52" LCD and my consoles.

That's bloody awesome I always get jealous when I hear of people with spouses that game, mine supports my habit - doesn't understand it thou, she's an academic. Part of me is really happy for the price drop, the other part is worried - there was an interesting effect with the PS3's price in that you didn't have the near mind blowing numbers of young gamers on the platform, sure there were some but it's not so disproportionate as say, Live!. I'm going to have to pick one of the new models up thou as it uses less power, and outputs less heat.

Mine just plays Sims 3 or those goofy Diner Dash clones on her (my! dangit!) laptop after the kiddo goes to bed. Or Jeopardy on the PS3. I haven't personally turned on the PS3 in weeks, but she's very faithful to it.

Mine bought a Wii, and now never plays it. It collects dust. Except when I turn it on once in a blue moon to bowl or play a VC game.

derFunkenstein wrote:

Corrado wrote:

Their lying killed my all time favorite console, the Dreamcast.

Here I thought it was the absence of any and all EA support and poor attach rate thanks to absolutely no copy protection.

It was the lack of all EA support. Sony paid them not to do it. I worked at Electronics Boutique from about a month before DC launch to about 3 months after PS2 launch. We were told by the local Sony rep that they made sure EA would remain very close to exclusive with Sony. EB itself was paid to place Sony mech in more favorable locations in the store vs Sega stuff. Things of this nature. Lots of conniving maneuvers by Sony. Even the whole 'Every blade of grass in Tekken Tag Tournament will have its own model. This will make Dreamcast games look like Pong in comparison.' Turns out, Soul Caliber looked better than TTT afterall.



With regards to my SO, she plays Sims 3 religiously, but since we started watching Lost from the beginning, she is into the terrible Lost: Via Domus game on 360. She's excited to get LBP on PS3 though also.

My only complaint about Uncharted was that is was short. I beat it on hard in under 15 hours I think. Also, they added trophies after I played through it, and it only gave me the last one in chains. Like, collect 1 widget, 3 widget, 5 widget, I would only get the collect 5 widgets trophy.

I liked UC's length. Longer and I'd have lost interest. I get maybe 6-7 hours a week to play. 10-12 hours is the sweet spot for me.

Fifteen hours seems like a lot of gameplay time to me. I usually don't play for more than an hour or two at a time, and that's only on weekends these days. I think it took me about a month to beat Uncharted the first time.

Meh, lossless is lossless, whether it's decoded by the player or the receiver it's all the same. There's no 'garbling'.

Frankly, I think having the PS3 decode it is better, because it allows those with older receivers that can receive PCM via HDMI to get lossless sound.

The question now is, will you be able to decode with the PS3 Slim and bitstream, or will it *only* bitstream? If it's the latter, I consider that to be a feature being cut, and home theater owners with older receivers are better served with the older model.

Vrock wrote:

The question now is, will you be able to decode with the PS3 Slim and bitstream, or will it *only* bitstream? If it's the latter, I consider that to be a feature being cut, and home theater owners with older receivers are better served with the older model.

I assume it only sends bitstream if the receiver can handle it so older receivers will still be getting their stuff decoded just fine as they always were?

It's like saying that the PS3 supports 1080p/24 so therefore 1080p/60 and 720p are no longer supported so you should buy an older console that supports those old resolutions.

At least, that's what it seems like to me. I see it as adding an additional mode, not taking away all old modes.

Vrock wrote:

Meh, lossless is lossless, whether it's decoded by the player or the receiver it's all the same. There's no 'garbling'.

Frankly, I think having the PS3 decode it is better, because it allows those with older receivers that can receive PCM via HDMI to get lossless sound.

The question now is, will you be able to decode with the PS3 Slim and bitstream, or will it *only* bitstream? If it's the latter, I consider that to be a feature being cut, and home theater owners with older receivers are better served with the older model.

Vrock is correct - what matters isn't who does the decoding, but who does the digital to analog conversion and how. If the cut the feature to decode before HDCP encryption / transport that will be one dumb as hell choice on Sony's part.

In regards to Uncharted; Never before have I felt like I was playing an Indiana Jones adventure, Boobs McCroft didn't do anything for me and everything else has been so halfassed that it ended up being traded or given away (the indiana games, etc) - Uncharted hit one out of the park, plain and simple. The timing, length of missions and time between save points were all perfect - not to mention the amazing voice acting and fluid animation. I am jacked for Uncharted 2, 4srsly.

Anyone else notice how Elena from Uncharted looks and sounds almost exactly like Jennifer Anniston? It's creepy...

Scrotos wrote:

Vrock wrote:

The question now is, will you be able to decode with the PS3 Slim and bitstream, or will it *only* bitstream? If it's the latter, I consider that to be a feature being cut, and home theater owners with older receivers are better served with the older model.

I assume it only sends bitstream if the receiver can handle it so older receivers will still be getting their stuff decoded just fine as they always were?

It's like saying that the PS3 supports 1080p/24 so therefore 1080p/60 and 720p are no longer supported so you should buy an older console that supports those old resolutions.

At least, that's what it seems like to me. I see it as adding an additional mode, not taking away all old modes.

Well, in the case of decoding that requires CPU horsepower, which users power, which makes heat, and the PS3 slim is supposed to run cooler and with less power...so maybe bitstreaming instead of decoding is a deliberate choice. Or, maybe not. We just don't know for sure until more info is available.

I mean, it wouldn't be the first time Sony has cut features from PS3 (Emotion Engine, Graphics Synthesizer, two USB ports, SACD support, and now Linux support and ???).

don't forget the card reader.

PerfectCr wrote:

No the option to have the PS3 do the decoding still exists.

That's great, then. Sony did the right thing.

Curious, how do you know this?

derFunkenstein wrote:

don't forget the card reader.

Oh yeah, I always forget about that since I have the 20gb model...

PerfectCr wrote:

Vrock wrote:

PerfectCr wrote:

No the option to have the PS3 do the decoding still exists.

That's great, then. Sony did the right thing.

Curious, how do you know this?

Because they said the functionality was identical to the current PS3. This is an added feature.

But it's not functionally identical. You can't install Linux on it. What else can't you do, I wonder? Sony didn't exactly broadcast it when they removed SACD functionality from the PS3...

PerfectCr wrote:

Well internal decoding is pretty fundamental considering not everyone has the latest and greatest receivers and the PS3 is a Blu-ray player (some would say first and foremost )

Sure, but they are advertising decreased power and heat...and bitstreaming vs. decoding would certainly help there. It's quite possible I'm wrong, of course, and that the new units do both. I'll wait and see.

wtf, mate?

Lovingly ganked from the Ars forums, I thought you all should see that link.

Japanese people are odd.

Picked up Batman: Arkham Asylum at Toys R Us today and got a $30 gift card. :That will be used for Infamous, Ratchet, or maybe Uncharted 2 depending when it comes out.)

Just walked into bestbuy and they had like 5 PS3 Slim boxes locked up. I would get one but considering uni starts tomorrow that wouldn't be the brightest of ideas. Or buy them, hope for low supply and profit $$ off craigslist?

well since the slim officially launches next week I think "profit" is a risky idea.

derFunkenstein wrote:

well since the slim officially launches next week I think "profit" is a risky idea.

I ended up picking one up and am just gonna let it sit around as a blu-ray player until i have time to play. I had $155 worth of bestbuy giftcards that have been sitting around unused for years, figure this would be the only chance i have to get rid of them. (I rarely B&M shop anymore, especially at WorstBuy)

well heck you could sell below retail and make a "profit".

It's a fun machine. I really really like mine. What I don't like is that it's hooked to the TV.

derFunkenstein wrote:

What I don't like is that it's hooked to the TV.

Huh? Are you saying you wish it was portable?

No, I wish it was hooked to my monitor.

I've seen PS3 VGA cables but I've never taken a shot with one because they're not somethign Sony makes - I figure it needs a monitor that can understand component signals, and I don't know fi mine does or not.

HDMI to DVI to monitor won't work?

I'm sure it'd work fine if I didn't have a cheapy analog-only monitor. I've been putting off upgrading it but I may finally cave.

From what I remember, the 360 could switch between input types pretty much at will, but the PS3 seems like I have to reset the hardware by holding down the power button each time i swap, and that is just enough extra effort to deter my wife from playing. That's why I was thinking of a VGA cable, then it's one cable to swap and both could output 720p with little effort.

It's a lowest common denominator for res swapping, if you're already at 720p HDMI for your TV and you swap to the LCD panel that does 1920x1080, it's going to come up - assume 720p is a legal mode of the panel?

don't know about you guys but post the 299 announcement I've been flooded with relatives (6 so far) that have preorded or picked up a slim, and are asking about what receiver / pre/pro to update to, questions on panels, etc. An interesting effect if you consider the extra money people are now dropping on home "theater" gear post the price drop.