Monday, March 19, 2007

As a diehard fan of Microsoft's Xbox 360, I fully expected to find plenty of issues with Sony's oft-delayed PlayStation 3 (PS3). The price is an obvious sticking point: A fully-loaded 60 GB version of the console retails for a horrific $600, a full $200 more than the premium Xbox 360 version. Availability, as I write this, is still an issue: The console has yet to ship in Europe and other major markets, and in the US, finding a PS3 is like winning the lottery: You have to be really lucky, and in the right place at the right time, though there are indications that this situation is finally improving. And then there are the technical issues: Shipping as it did a full year after the Xbox 360, the PS3 doesn't seem, at first glance, to offer much advantage over Microsoft's console.

Well, I have a PS3 now and, truth be told, Sony absolutely has a winner on its hands. Yes, availability and pricing issues need to be overcome, but I'm sure that time will ease all those pains. From a technical perspective--and perhaps more important, from a usability perspective--the PS3 is at least as good as the Xbox 360. Indeed, it is clearly superior in certain ways, a fact that should send a shiver down the spine of any gamer who was hoping that Microsoft might miraculously win this round. I'm here to tell you that it's not going to happen.

Labels: Video games