The Flow of Consciousness

Regardless whether he acquisition may be via self-purchase or via a generous, collaborative Christmas effort, I’m considering acquiring a Playstation 3.

I’ve been considering it for quite some time, actually. The format war is won, with Blu-ray the victor. While I’m not terribly keen of Sony’s dominance, I do acknowledge the market success of the format. This success is primarily evident in Amazon’s stonking great Blu-ray deals as of late.

I’m not one much for purchasing movies, as evident by my relatively small DVD collection (~20-30, most were $5 deals or gifts). I tend to buy something when I know it will have replay value, or I want to buy it to support the genre, director, or other such thing. I find that most of my purchases also tend to be action movies wherein sound or visuals play a large part of the experience.

Given Blu-ray’s high quality visuals and high fidelity audio, it seems prudent to consider my future purchases in this format rather than the ubiquitous DVD format. My TV, a Vizio 32″, is 720p, so I’d be able to take advantage of the HD format provided by Blu-ray.

As for a player, it makes the most sense to consider a Playstation 3 instead of a standalone Blu-ray player. I know that devices in the latter category are falling in price and have recently become cheaper than a Playstation 3, which, for the longest time, was the cheapest Blu-ray player. However, given the fact that I do on occasion play video games, it seems that a Playstation 3 would be of greater value to me despite the added cost.

I originally considered a PS3 60 GB edition, the higher-end package of the first edition of the unit. Like the lesser, 20GB package of the first edition, the 60GB packed hardware PS2 compatibility, but added a wireless adapter and the larger hard drive. Subsequent revisions of the console eventually removed PS2 compatibility, much to the chagrin of hardcore backwards compatibility fanboys such as myself.

The newest version of the PS3, the Slim, is more power and space efficient, but sacrifices the ability to run Linux—something all previous editions could do. I really want to be able to do this, but after a conversation with Shawn Powers on Twitter (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8), I decided that a PS3 Slim might be more efficient for me (9, 10).

Linux on the PS3 seems to be not what it’s chalked up to be, and the likelihood of me actually ever buying and playing a PS2 game is to slim that it’s probably just not worth it. Also, the new Slim costs $299, and a used 60GB costs ~$250. A $50 difference? For that price, I could go get a used PS2 and have full hardware compatibility.

What will I go for first? Probably Blu-ray movies. I’m really interested in the new Star Trek movie on Blu-ray, as it’s not only a visual and auditory feast, but a great story with ton of reply value. I also wouldn’t mind getting Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and a few other recently released action and science fiction movies. There are a few PS3 games I wouldn’t mind trying, plus the Playstation network is free and has all kinds of tie-ins with Netflix, etc.

I imagine that I’d probably stick to DVD for older movies; movies which were filmed before digital production was the norm. There might be a few which have been remastered and would be worth it, but I’ll likely rely on others’ reviews to decide whether or not the potential premium cost for Blu-ray is worth it.

I guess, then, that the point of this blog post is to call for other arguments. Talk me into or out of a PS3. Remember that I’m not a huge gamer any more, so main attractor is the Blu-ray player.