Playstation 3 Madness

With all the hype surrounding these next-gen console wars, I thought I’d say my 2 cents about the PS3. The PS3 is not my favourite of the bunch (the Nintendo Wii is number one in my books), however it has been catching my attention lately since some people have been able to get their hands on it.

I have already made my mind up on which console I will be getting this upcoming holiday season, the Wii is cheaper, innovative and will create a revolution in the way video games are played. The PS3 is also going to be very hard to find when it first launches since only very few will be shipped out since the blue-laser is in such short supply which is a critical part of the blu-ray optical drive. A month ago, it never crossed my mind to purchase a second one, however the PS3 is looking very good as of late. Some may think that the price tag for it is outrageous but now that I’ve read what this machine is capable of, it’s a pretty reasonable price for what you’re getting.

Lately I’ve been reading that Sony has opened up the PS3 and a couple geeks have found it pretty easy to install any PPC distribution of Linux on it and use it as a computer. With all the processing power the PS3 has, $600+ to use it as a computer doesn’t sound that bad. You also have to consider the price of Blu-ray players out there on the market as well, many range in price $1000 and up. The PS3 has Blu-ray built in and it can play video games amongst all the geeky things you can do with it.

Other things about the PS3 that are appealing to me will be it’s graphics, and some exclusive games I will want to play since some of my favourite game franchises from the PS2 will only be continuing on the PS3 (Final Fantasy and Devil May Cry to name a few). Sony has also stepped up and offered to give a one year warranty for the PS3 since many first generation hardware still has a few bugs, that is nice.

However, some of the hype I’ve seen surrounding this console is just absolutely ridiculous.
Take for example this screenshot of eBay I took Friday evening at around 9:00pm:

It’s outrageous because people are willing to pay $1000+ for a pre-order receipt when it’s not even guaranteed that person is going to get a PS3 since they are in such short supply.

Other crazy stories I’ve read on the internet are poor people in Asia waiting in line to just resell them to make a quick buck. The most craziest thing I’ve seen happen in Asia has got to be the one guy that purchased one hundred PS3s to resell: