Well, I finally bit the bullet and opened up the Wii system I've had sitting around the house for more than 3 months still in its original Costco bundle. As of this very moment, I'm waiting for the Wii to update it's firmware. Sony just lost another customer with all the games they're playing, no pun intended.
I'm not going to sit around until June just for another 80gb system bundled with MGS4 to come up. Who knows if they'll include backwards compatibility in it, which for me was a big selling point as I could get rid of my old PS2. My main reason for wanting a PS3 was for Rock Band, SingStar (if and whenever it gets released in the U.S.), GT5, and GTA4.
So here's how I talked myself out of it:
1) Rock Band - Already had the game, but without a system it was pointless. Plus, it's more than half the cost of the Wii itself, just for ONE game. Who knows how much downloadable content there'll be? If the Karaoke Revolution series tells me anything about Harmonix, it's that they'd rather sell me a new game (that's no different from the previous besides song selection) instead of making money from extra, downloadable content.
2) SingStar - I'm a bigger fan of the Karaoke Revolution series, but considering they have a SingStar store, this game seemed to have more potential. While it's out already in other countries, it's not released yet here in the States.
3) GT5 - Sorry, but I'm not going to pay $35 for a game that's supposed to hold me over until the real one comes out. If GT5 Prologue hasn't even been released yet, when the hell will GT5 actually ever get here?
4) Grand Theft Auto 4 - I had the original GTA3 version on PC before most people even knew about the series, but I never really got into the game. Not that it was a bad game, but with such an open world, whenever I play GTA I find myself just killing cops and seeing how many stars I can rack up. I always get distracted from the core game itself. I'll probably do the same thing in GTAIV. I guess that's the A.D.D. in me?
As far as the Wii is concerned, I always thought of it was a kiddie system and for me, I always considered the N64 to be a big disappointment, despite Mario 64 being my favorite game of all time. I could have opened up the system at any time but I made up my mind that I would enjoy a PS3 more than the Wii so I was just going to eBay the system. The deciding factor for me came down to a few different reasons.
1) PS3 unavailability - The reason for the 80gb PS3 not selling as well as a 40gb system seems like BULL to me. I personally think Sony is just trying to unload a bunch of 40gb systems that didn't sell. If your only choice to pick was one model and you had to have a PS3, then you're stuck buying the model they want you to buy.
2) Games - I had already previously purchased Mario Galaxy and then Mario Bros. Brawl came out. I'm not a hardcore gamer anymore so these games actually sound fun, not only for me but for my wife and the rest of the family. The games that gets the most play on my PS2 games at the moment are the party games.
3) My father-in-law - He turned 80 this past Oct. and unfortunately within the last year, his health (physically and mentally) has taken a turn for the worse. He does nothing but sit in his recliner and watch Law and Order ALL day long. It's a Catch 22. He can barely walk, so he has no energy to walk out to get the paper, go sit in the kitchen, and do his crosswords. So the only thing he can do is watch TV, but now his muscles have gone into atrophy because he's too weak to work out and all the mindless tv watching only makes the symptoms of dementia only worse.
We know he gets bored from watching TV, but he can't do much else on his own. I think he might find a little enjoyment from the Wii, while getting a slight workout. It may not seem like a workout to you or me, but at his age and his health, any movement is probably better than nothing.
4) Price - Not only is the system cheaper, but the games are too. Blu-Ray movies are still too expensive for me to buy. Plus, my TV already upconverts to 1080p anyway, I can't imagine the PS3 doing significantly better at upconverting standard DVDs.
Anyway, sorry for the long post but I was so willing to give my money to Sony only to be disappointed by them. Time to go try out my Wii now
Linear Mode
