Slim PS3

With the release of the Slim PS3 and the Xbox 360 price drop, it seems a good time to compare what each system offers. The major factors that go into selecting a console to buy are cost and how many great games they have. This table offers a quick way to compare the games that matter for each system and the total price to an average user. It’s not going to match what everyone will spend on a console over the time they own it, but it gives a good idea of what provides the best value.

Judging by this table we can see the average Wii gamer will need to spend around £100 less than a Slim PS3 owner or £200 less than an XBox 360 owner. The downside for them is that they lack Blu-Ray playback, a hard drive and HD output. More importantly, the Wii has roughly only half the amount of quality games that the other two consoles have.

The number games and features found in the Xbox 360 and Slim PS3 are a closer match. The total prices for the two consoles are still separated by around £100 in the Slim PS3’s favour. The Slim PS3 also has the advantage of being the only system which doubles as a Blu-ray player. Xbox 360 has slightly more high scoring games which is probably accounted for by it being on the market for almost a year longer. For some the decision of which to buy may simply come down to whether you’d prefer Halo and Gears of War or LittleBigPlanet and Metal Gear Solid 4.

Let us know what you think.

I’ve been looking for some bargain Slim PS3 console prices. The problem is no one wants to start a price wars so the best I could find shaved just a few pence off the recommended retail price. See the results of my research below and order one today before they sell out (if there are any still in stock).

Store	Price	Go to Website
	£249.96
	£249.99
	£249.99
	£249.99
	£249.99
	£249.99
	£249.99
	£249.99
	£249.99
	£249.99
	£249.99
	£249.99

(This is a case of exciting headline, boring story). Here’s a feature you will only find in a Slim PS3 but Sony for some reason didn’t even mention it with it’s launch announcement. It’s something that may (but probably won’t) interest those who use the console for Blu-Ray video playback.

The Slim PS3 will be capable of bitstreaming DTS-HD and Dolby TrueDS. These advanced audio signals are designed to give a clearer sound. It has been argued however that it does really make a noticeable difference. I’m on the side of people who think that in blind test, 99% of people would not be able to tell the difference and even for those that could the difference would be so minuscule that it would be quickly forgot and wouldn’t affect the viewers enjoyment of the film.

Well that’s just me, obviously enough customers have disagreed with me and well done to Sony for listening to them and including this feature in the Slim PS3.

Sony have spilled the beans on how much they are spending on promoting the Slim PS3 in Europe. I’m pleased to hear it’s a massive £82,000,000. Only £6,000,000 of that is going to be spent on the UK. This roughly works out as 7% which is around the percentage of Europes population made up by the UK.

Hopefully the advert (however dull) will bring a lot of people to the Slim PS3 which will in turn encourage developers to create even more amzing games and start to push the console’s hardware a little further as it still feels under used currently.

According to Screen Digest the Slim PS3 is expected to sell 4.3 million this year, which for the first time is more than the Xbox 360 which is expected to fall to 3 million. Wii unfortunately is still ahead despite its the lack of quality games with 7.5 million units forecast.

Maybe people will start to realise that they never play on their Wii and trade them in for a Slim PS3 which can do so much more for just £70 more than Nintendo’s console.

For those of you wondering how much the Slim PS3 will cost in South Africa, I’m happy to be able to unveil the details for you. It will be 4000 Rands. This is equal to £312, which is pretty step especially when you consider that that average South African earns just $9,700 per year compared with the average British person who earns $35,000 per year. The percentage of the population who can afford the Slim PS3 is far smaller in South Africa than in Briton as you’d expect and paying an extra £60 more than European prices will make the console even more of a luxury item reserved for a rich minority.

There are presumably great costs involved for Sony with selling the Slim PS3 in South Africa such as a lower demand meaning the average cost of shipping a single unit will be higher. Also Sony probably expect to make less revenue from games in the country so if they do indeed subsidise the cost of the Slim PS3, it will be harder to make the money back from selling games.

Unfortunately for the release of the Slim PS3 Sony seem to have had to bow the pressure of the success of awful Nintendo adverts designed to be as interesting and cutting as an episode of Noddy. The PlayStation has always used bazaar adverts to get its message across which were creative and intriguing. Now they’re just telling you what the console can do.

In fact they’re obviously aiming for non-hardcore gamers by only mentioning that it is a gaming machine in passing. Instead they’re focusing on the Internet features and Blu-ray. To be fair most gamers already know the deal with everything the Slim PS3 has to offer, so the advert probably should be aimed at those less educated in this area.

While the advert is slick, it isn’t “cool” it just gives a very simple message of “you can do more than just gaming with a Slim PS3″ At least it isn’t patronising like Nintendo adverts which barely show you anything about what the games and console do, just show people smiling and laughing while they’re playing them.

Update:
I’ve just seen a second Slim PS3 advert which will be airing as well. Thankfully this one does focus on games but sadly it’s still boring. Unfortunately for me they only call it the “new Playstation 3″ not the “Slim PS3″ or anything like that, so the ad won’t bring many people to this website.

Surprisingly the American adverts for the Slim PS3 are funny and at the same time tell you more about the console. It’s a shame we can’t just use their version.

American Ad (funny)

UK Ad (dull)

There are plenty things to look forward to if you’re getting a Slim PS3 or even the original model.

Next year we finally see the release of Grand Tourism 5 after waiting almost as long as the console has been on sale for the game we are expecting big things. There are dozens or driving games around but the Gran Turismo series is the only one that is up there with Super Mario Bros. in the list of the bestselling video games of all time.

Last Gaurdiad, Agency, Heavey Rain and God of War III are all Playstaion 3 exclusives likely to be big hits next year. The one that’s causing the most envy for Xbox 360 owners is probably MAG. Xbox 360 has ruled the first person shooting genre since its launch but the Slim PS3 is looking to contend that crown with the exclusive release of MAG. The main selling points of this game are the huge battlefields play on and that those battlefields will be hosting over 250 combatants at once. This number shatters the amount of players on any other game and that alone will make the game unique and tempt many Xbox 360 owners over to see what the Slim PS3 can do for them.

Many of us were pretty certain a Slim PS3 was on the way. The question was when. The answer to that was revealed at GamesCon in Cologne as the 1^st of September 2009. Just two weeks after the announcement!

The next question was; what will it cost? In the US it will be $300 (£181), in Europe it will be 300 Euros (£258) and £250 in the UK. So as usual we are paying a lot more than in the US but at least more than 27% of us have passports… hopefully that’ll make you feel better. It’s also nice that the Slim PS3 will be slightly cheaper in the UK than in most of Europe, but we can’t just drive for a few hours to get to another country… hopefully that’ll make you feel worse.

And finally, how will the Slim PS3 differ from the original. You may be surprised to hear that it is actually slimmer than the Playstation 3. Overall it is around one third lighter, one third smaller and uses one third less power. That means it’ll save you money on the electricity bill too, and it’ll stop global warming. You also get a larger hard rive. Instead of 80GB, the Slim PS3 has a 120GB hard drive meaning more room for your game downloads or whatever you like to keep on there. On the cosmetic side, the console has a matte finish on top (if you’re lying the console flat) meaning no more finger marks. The shiny finish remains on the edges. The heat sensors to turn the console on and eject discs have been replaced with traditional buttons. People have probably complained that the heat sensors took half a second longer to respond but I think they looked much nicer and its one area of the redesign I disapprove of, but then I haven’t spent thousands of dollars researching how to improve the console design for the Slim PS3 so don’t take my word for it.

It was no great surprise when Sony announced the Slim PS3 at the GamesCon conference in Germany. Rumours had been circulating about it existence for so long that they probably began before the console had even been designed it seems. Over the month leading up to the announcement of the Slim PS3 the clues that something was coming picked up pace and the only big event for an announcement of this nature was Europe’s biggest gaming event.

Previous to the event websites began circulating an image of a box which seems to show the new Slim PS3 console. Unlike all most images claiming to be of the new Slim Playstation 3, websites showing the image were given legal warnings to remove the image by an unknown company. It was almost certainly a company with strong relations to Sony. Someone was taking these leaked images more seriously them previous “leaked images” of the Slim PS3.

Next came reports for stores that stock of PS3s was drying up and Sony told them not to expect any more until September. Why would Sony have slowed down production of the console? There could have been a few reasons but the next piece of news was that Sony had doubled its orders for parts used in manufacturing the console. This was when the Slim PS3 looked not only to be likely but also that it would be in shops fairly soon.

The final clue before the official announcement was when Sony announced that the line-up for their GameCon press conference. They said they would be talking about the NetFlix store. As nice as that feature is, it wouldn’t fill over an hour of press conference time. There had to be a something else they weren’t telling us yet.

Sure enough the remaining time, and majority of the press conference at GamesCon 2009 was devoted to the Slim PS3.

When the first prototype PS3 was shown to the public it seemed to be designed as if money were no object. It really offered more than anyone needed; 2 HDMI connections (for those who wished to play their games on more than one screen at a time?), 3 Ethernet connections (for homes with 4 Playstation 3s to play LAN games I assume) and 6 USB ports ( for when you need to connection a keyboard, mouse, printer, iPod and two wired controllers to the console).

Thankfully for our wallets most of these excessive connections were trimmed away before the console’s release. Now with the Slim PS3 they have cut it down to only the essentials, only what people actually need; 1 ethernet, 1 HDMI and 2 USB ports. This is one of the ways Sony have managed to cut the cost of production enough to sell the Slim PS3 at little more than Wii console (despite the Wii’s lack of Hard Drive, HD output and modern graphics processing power).

Even before the Slim PS3 hit the market, Sony were already trimming excess features with the removed of backward compatibility with the PS2. Although a fairly nice feature, it’s unlikely to help sell many of the new consoles but did add considerably to the price.

The futuristic touch power and eject buttons have been replaced with standard push buttons. Not quite as fancy but more practical and serve the same function without the extra cost.

A matte finish covers most of the console instead of the glossy finish. While this is controversial, it seems to market is moving away from glassy finishes as with the DS’s redesign to the DSi, perhaps because of the irritation caused by finger marks.

The new logo is a matter of opinion of course since it doesn’t serve a practical purpose but I’m pleased it doesn’t remind me of Spider-Man anymore.

Of course the main thing is that it is 33% smaller than the massive original. It still doesn’t look anywhere near as neat and compact as the Wii but that’s at least partly because there is a lot more going on inside Slim PS3.