Grade the PS3 in it's first year of existence...

[jason_grumpy]

I'll chime in here, and like many others I will split the grade with hardware/software.

Hardware wise, I will give the PS3 an A+. This is possibly one of the most reliable pieces of hardware that I have ever owned. Since launch, mine has run nearly non stop 365 days out of this year (mostly folding) and hasn't so much as hiccuped. The added functionality not just for gaming really is the icing on the cake. BluRay, Mp3 Player, Video Player, Media Server capabilities, etc. In contrast, my dad's 360 is having issues reading discs after a year of use and being turned on half the time.

At worst, I've had to use a can of compressed air to clear out some dust in the vents. This is just normal wear and tear however.

Launch was hampered by some issues, such as PS1/2 game pixel flipping and bare bones firmware. Thankfully that was fixed with lots of features, and even some minor upscaling support was added for the ps1/2.

Software wise, this is where the PS3 fails. At best I'd give it a D. So far I have not seen any must haves for the PS3. The games are good, but not great. There's nothing that has stuck in mind thinking that 'damn, that was a great game'. Instead I've been more impressed with the visuals.

In contrast, my PS3 has more time total playing PSone or PS2 games and not PS3 games. Instead of developers focusing on the ultimate 3D environment, they should also be focusing on game content. No PS3 game has done this, but I suppose this is to be expected considering content has been dwindling away since the ps1 days.

This really isn't the PS3's fault however, as all consoles today seem to be lacking games with innovative story lines and content. I guess it's just much easier to develop a pretty landscape and guns and hope people like it enough to make it a blockbuster.

This might also be a matter of preference though, since this generation is the era of the shooter. PSone had great RPG's, PS2 had some great strategy games, but the PS3/360 is shoot-o-rama. To me, great shooter games will always be on the PC due to mod-ability, graphics, and controls. Consoles always have lacked this and still do. UT3 for example, If i decide to buy it, will only be for my PC.

Sadly I don't see this changing in the near future. Shooters for the PS3/360 are lined up as far as the eye can see, with a few scattered side-scrollers and racing games, and only two RPG's in development.

Squenix also didn't give me much hope for game development, as when asked recently if a PS3 port of FFonline was in the works they claimed it would take 5 years to do. A re-skin of textures and increasing polygons should not take 5 years. Coupled with their familiarity of the system (FF7 Demo), this concerns me greatly.

Their comments can only tell me that developers are having difficulty grasping programming for multiprocessor environments. Sony should have known that programming for multiple processors is extremely difficult, given that dual cores/quadcores/multiproc PC's to this day have very little non enterprise apps coded for them. Sure a great load of potential is there for awesome raw computing power, but it takes a lot of work to them all work as one core efficiently.

As far as another posters question as to what Blu-Ray has done for gaming, right now I'd say near next to nothing. If the best 25GB-50GB over 9GB can come up with is some extra maps in a shooter, call me disappointed. Where was the epic leap we saw when we went from 32mb carts to 640mb cds? Or 640mb cd's to 4GB dvd's? So far their has been none.

I would love to see a BR disc fully utilized with a great RPG -- even if using pre-rendered backdrops at full 1920x1440 resolution, full voice acting, massive 100+ hour story lines, and HD FMV.