Hey guys, this is Austin, and the PS3 is now 10 years old.
So this is the OG original launch PS3,
I gotta say, things have changed.
Man, talk about a console that was ahead of its time.
I mean, the first prototype for the PS3 that they showed
had two HDMI ports, had multiple ethernet,
USB, I mean in theory, if it actually
went completely insane, you could have been
doing multiple screens of gaming with PS3.
Oh, it's so heavy too.
(laughs)
So on launch day, there were two editions.
There was a 20-gigabyte version which was lacking
a few features such as Wi-Fi and this was the full fat
60-gigabyte which had all kinds of extra stuff
and you know what, this is actually probably
the best PS3 that they ever made.
I mean, there was extra stuff like
having memory card readers, so not only
could you read SD cards, but you also could do MemoryStick
and even CompactFlash on the launch PS3.
There were also other nice touches
like having four full USB ports, which is actually
more than any PlayStation since has had
and even though this thing was a whopping $600 at launch,
Sony was still losing money on every single one they sold.
So inside, it was rocking a brand new Cell chip,
which in theory was kind of like an eight-core chip
but not really, it was a very unique architecture,
and on one hand it gave the PS3 a ton of power,
on the other, though, it made it a lot more difficult
to develop for, which, especially for the Xbox 360 around,
made a lot of games look not quite as nice on the PS3
until much later in its life cycle.
One of the big advantages the PS3 had
over the Xbox 360 was the Blu-ray drive.
So while the 360 made do with standard DVDs,
just like the PS2 and Xbox used, Sony stepped it up
with a full Blu-ray drive on the PS3.
And even though this thing was $600 at launch,
that still made it by far the cheapest Blu-ray
player you could get when it came out.
Not only did that mean that the PS3 was ready to watch
HD Blu-rays right out of the box, but it also meant
that games could have a lot more space on the discs.
In fact, a lot of Xbox 360 games ended up
coming on multiple DVDs, where pretty much all
PS3 games were able to fit on a single Blu-ray.
This really was a very close console generation.
So the Xbox 360 had some advantages,
but for example, it had memory card slots
whereas all PS3s had at least some kind of hard drive.
On top of that, this had no Wi-Fi at launch, whereas the PS3
did, so there were definitely advantages here.
However, the PS3 also cost a couple
hundred dollars more than the 360.
So here we have the entire PlayStation 3 line-up.
And the thing is, the original fat one was kinda the best.
So there were some small changes on the Slim
and the Super Slim, like losing those extra USB ports
and the card reader, but the biggest difference was that
the original PlayStation 3 could also handle PS2 games.
Not only does the fat PS3 have all that power
with the Cell processor, but it also essentially
had the guts of a PlayStation 2 inside.
So when you wanted to boot up a PS2 game,
you were actually running it on native PS2 hardware.
And then we have SOCOM 2, so this is a PS2 game
that is running on the PlayStation 3.
So the first thing it does is it gives us a upscale
1080p image, so while it might not be native HD
or anything, this looks a lot better than playing on a PS2
with something like a component cable.
One very cool of the launch PS3 was it was actually
compatible with Linux, so if you're on a version
of the firmware that's earlier than 3.21,
which this happens to be on, then you could
essentially turn your PlayStation into a computer.
To show what that capable of, in 2010, the U.S. Air Force
took 1,760 PlayStation 3s, tied them together,
and basically created a super-computer.
These things were no joke.
That means that the launch PS3 is actually fairly valuable.
As well there were some fat PS3s that could do PS2 games
via software emulation, by the time the PS3 Slim came out,
there was no way of playing PS2 at all.
But of course, it wasn't all bad.
The PS3 Slim was a lot smaller and a lot lighter
and importantly, it was also more reliable.
So while the original PS3s were awesome,
they were a little bit prone to failure,
certainly not as bad as the Xbox 360,
however the yellow light of death was absolutely an issue.
There are not a ton of these still around.
Then in 2012, they launched the Super Slim.
This was pretty much the same thing as the Slim
but it was just cheaper and had this terrible
sliding door for the discs, not the best upgrade.
Ten years later and we have the new PlayStation 4 Pro.
Now this is definitely a faster console,
it's actually kind of impressive at how close
these are in a lot of aspects.
For example, they both still use Blu-ray drives,
and while the PS4 Pro has just barely gotten beyond 1080p,
the original PS3 still completely supported it.
Woo, those graphics though.
So this is one of the PS3 launch titles,
Resistance Fall of Man.
This was cool back in 2006.
I mean even today it's not that bad.
Sure, it's maybe a little rough around the edges but...
the one thing that is ancient is that my triggers
aren't triggers, this is how I crouch.
Next, we have Need for Speed: Carbon,
so this was another one of the PS3 launch titles and again,
considering this is 2006, it doesn't look too bad.
So honestly, I think the big thing that really stands out
to me are not the graphics but the controls.
It's a little floatier than I'd like,
especially out of a racing game.
However, again, 2006, this was not bad.
Next we have Ridge Racer, so this was another one
of the PS3 launch titles and something that really
jumps out to me is that it actually looks noticeably
sharper than the others, so I'm not sure
if it's necessarily running at 1080p
but I do think it's running at least
at somewhat of a higher resolution
and it also takes advantage of the Sixaxis motion controls,
you can see by my sick drifting skills.
As I drift into a wall.
So Sixaxis was essentially Sony's answer
to the Wii motion controls.
So while it wasn't quite as full-featured
as the Wii remote, you did get some sort of rudimentary
motion controls so you can see that I'm steering
sort of decently here in Ridge Racer,
it really wasn't picked up by as many games,
but it was a nice gimmick to have.
And now we have The Last of Us.
Going from the launch titles to this really just
goes to show how much horsepower the PS3 had.
Not only is this a fantastic-looking game,
and honestly probably one of the best-looking games
on the PlayStation 3 period, but it's also an amazing title,
this might be one of my favorite games of all time.
10 years and 85 million consoles later,
while the PS3 might not have been quite as popular
as its predecessor, it's hard to argue
that it's not one of the best consoles of all time.
So when was the first time you got to try a PS3?
Definitely be sure to let me know in the comments below
and I will catch you on the next one.