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Well, long time no post. I've been pretty preoccupied looking for work since I've been cut down 50% on my salary :( . Besides that I spend lots of my time sending my PS3 to service. First time it started working laudly, then it froze 5 minutes after starting GTA IV and after that it stopped detecting HDD. Second one renew came, but it freezes after 30 minutes of gameplay. Hopefully my third one will be fine.

Ofcourse my PS3 had to break down when I had time to play it since everyone left for a week...

First of all over a week ago my graphic card bokr down and a day later I crashed my car. Well, it was time to change the car nevertheless but it will be a problem since I have to import one from the Germany.

Just got the info that graphic card is awiting me at the store, but since I leave tomorrow for my cousin's wedding I won't be back by monday so I won't be around for a while.

Oh, one more thing, here you can download Broken Sword 2,5 for free.

There was a time when Command and Conquer was released as a free download to the public, now as we await Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 the predecessor is available for free HERE.

Finally, long awaited vacation! 4th-11th I'll be drinking myslef stoopid in the front of a hotel pool while my beloved bronzes herself 100m further on the beach :D . Is there anything more man can ask for? Well, yes, there is. Logitech G25, Ferrari Trophy and GTR Evolution.

Well, I guess I'll get my hands on GTR E after I come back, Ferrari maybe in a few months and G25, well, that's still a dream. Or just put it this way: 300$ is too much, way too much. BTW check Porshe driving wheel its 300 Euros!

As a happy owner of PS3 and BD as well (in PS3, not stand alone) forced to use the gray matter in my head by countless reports, posts and opinions how BD is doomed to share the faith of HD-DVD and many other disc storages I have to agree with them.

Blue-ray Disc will be no more, just like everything else around us. We had our compact cassettes, VHSs, 5,25" and 3,5" diskettes, I can remember using Zip drive at work many years ago, there were CDs and DVDs. Well those last two are still, but sooner or later we will stop using them. The same will happen with BD.

I guess there are two important questions:

1. When the successor to BD will become a fact. I remember when my friend bought himself DVD recorder for PC for incredible amount of money more less the same they are today the blue laser was a fact and was to take DVD's place.

2. What will it be?

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1. Some say 5 - 7 years, no idea though.

2. Some say digital download is the future and this might be right, but...
But yes, we can download games, movies and music through internet for a while now. Some use internet stores and some use torrents. Downloading whole CD is now matter of hours even for me in my backward country, downloading a DVD takes a day or two, BD takes weeks I guess. Well, we still go to store and buy CDs, DVDs ad I guess we will be buying BDs nomater how good the connection will be. There will always be a market for those things. BTW just look at the gramophone records :D.

After few years of steady descent EA Sports announced, that 09 will be available only on consoles due to poor sales etc. Well, considering the quality last editions offered and increadibly high price I am astonished they were still releasing this game and loosing respect in the eyes of gamers. I saw reviews of NBA 07 on consoles and the game was below the criticism. NBA 08 is said to be better, but I still won't get it on PS3. Frankly I am not sure wheter to download demo or not. Long story short: It's good they left PCs, cause 09 would be unplayable.

Well, since I thought I will be left without basketball on PC it's time to turn to the competition on PS3 and try out NBA 2KX. The demo of 2K8 was very promising, scoring (in the sense of computer basketball :D ) brought pleasure again after so many dry and annoying years with NBA Live. Still the game was missing some nice features from 2K7. I'll have to wait for the first reviews and decide whick version to choose.

They said that sport games (and many other) on PC are dyin, well the bad ones die, PC still has better capabilities and is more powerful, so to get the most of the game it has to be released on PC.NBA 2K9, Street Fighter, some other titles never seen on PC are coming too, so, hmm, I don't know how about you, but I am collecting money for GForce GTX280 :) .

I just recently encountered few posts regarding the info that games for PS3 will not be locked regionally. Did anyone had a chance of checking if its true? If so, then we're in business since games in Europe cost 60 Euro and in USA 60$! BTW movies are said to be locked.

I just had a quick thought, maybe not even worth of a blog post, but I've come across so many people on YouTube saying that downloading games is the future, not BD. Well, maybe so, in Japan when the next gen consoles will come out. First of all games tend to be bigger and bigger in size. I have only 1MB connection and downloading 4GB Yellow Dog Linux took me more than 13 hours maybe 15. I know that you can get 10MB for 50 or 70$ a month even im my crappy little country but this is not the most important issue. Soon all major games will be released on BDs even on PCs. While I can imagine buying few TB hard drive for PC, they are available and one might afford them but making them 2.5 inch and fit them with dozens of fans on a console is whole of a different thing. The same with downloading movies. In HD they already take 20GB of space. You won't fit 6 of them neither on PS3 not X360 with standard 120GB HDD. For PS3 you can easily buy any kind of HDD if it's 2.5 inch so extending 40GB PS3 is pretty cheap since 2.5" 250GB HDD SATA is less than $100. I doubt that MS will be selling their HDDs any cheaper.

This question kept me awake for some time, many asked themselves the same question, some of them went with X360 and some with PS3. Both choices are equally good for those who made their picks. But this blog post isn't about others, it is about my subjective opinion, so lets get on with it.

First thing to do was to searched through the internet and see what people had to say. There were many comparisons, but very few were reliable, there was even one that gave points for the looks of consoles and the way they were marketed :D.

Lets start with major flaws:

PS3:

1. The price - bothersome if you only intend to play simple and not demanding games. If you look what PS3 offers (BD especially) the price is pretty decent and manageable.

2. Few games, really, not much has changed since the release.

3. Lack of full coverage of what PS3 has to offer and It has been two years since the premiere or something like this.

X360:

1. Red Ring of Deat/Doom - overheating problem that many X360 had after release. The towel trick worked for few and caused irreversable damage to the console and loosing warranty.

2. Lack of HDMI support in versions besides Elite (correct me if I'm wrong), lack of HD in the cheapest version, HD-DVD and wireless bought separetely.

3. You have to pay to play through the internet. No idea whether internet access is free or you have to pay for it. It is only 5$ but it is the principle that matters.

Now the strong sides of both consoles:

PS3:

1. BlueRay Disc - won the media war defeating HD-DVD supported my MS. Great for watching films in HD, very durable, in other words - future and successor of DVD.

2. The functionality - you know what you've payed for. Great and easy menu, support for some DivX formats, great internet browser (checking, sending mails, posting on forums etc.), support for many 3rd party media not produced by Sony like keyboards, mice, wireless head sets, internet cameras and hard drives! Yes, as far as I know you can buy and install any 2,5 inch SATA hard disk from varius manufacturers and since they are pretty cheap it is a good idea if you don't want to overpay for PS3 with bigger HDD. BTW you don't loose the warranty when you switch HDD.

3. Reliability - while Xbox 360 was facing major problems with overheating, the malfunction rate of older Xboxes exceeded 30% while the newest one have 10% according to Wikipedia. PS3 on the other hand has the average malfunction rate in the industry - one digit percent figure.

4. Linux - yes, there is Yellow Dog Linx and it works. It works in 1080p, runs all the formats unsupported by the PS3 gaming system, lets you use PS3 as a work station. You hook up mouse and a keyboard and here you go. Some will say: Why the hell would you want to use that on your console! And I say, you don't have to. This is an option, if someone wishes to install Linux it's ok with Sony and it's ok with me. World is all about progress and development. I know I will buy myself new hard drive and install YDL soon.

X360:

1. Price - you get nice next-gen console depending on how deep is your wallet. Pricing policy here is more in depth here. If you just want to play simple games that don't need to be installed on HDD you can find Arcade or Core versions appealing.

2. Internet community - with PS3 Home still in development and maybe never released for 5$ a month Xbox Live offers much richer internet community.

3. Peripherials - the more expensive versions offer cables HDMI and headset (nothing that would make someone choose this console since headset and HDMI cable are not pricy, but MS thought about X360 users, being thoughtful is a good thing).

4. Games - there way more games on X360.

Conclusion:

If 100$ or whatever the currency in your country is doesn't make much of a difference to you, then PS3 is an obvious choice. You get a great console that with time will have more games on it and since there are no interesting exclusives (unless you are Halo 3 fan) plus a BD player and powerful workstation with your console for only 100$. Great deal? Yeah. You can connect many peripherials, browse internet actively for free, install linux or just have plain fun with games. You will find something you like. And if you save enough money you can buy movies on BD to watch them in HD (you pay extra fir HD-DVD add-on for X360 and HD-DVD is dead) or buy yourself 160 GB 7200 SATA hard drive and download them from the internet.

From the gamer point of view the only good exclusives on X360 IMHO are Forza and Halo 3 and since they are way better shooters on PC and driving games, well... no point in getting X360. I am not a Halo 3 fan I acknowledge it being way better than Resistance. Still GT 5 Prologue beats Forza and PGR series right to the ground. And as a hardcore gamer I recommend CoD 4for PC and GTR2/GTL/rFactor/LFS2 also for PC to all FPS and simulator fans. Good night, good fight.