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Disappointment - Buyer Beware

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by bhalley1 1 view

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I bought my son a PS3 for Christmas. After we set it up I was disappointed to learn that Sony had made the following decisions:

1. The system does not support existing controllers from the PS2 system. Therefore you have to buy all new controllers (the console comes with 1 controller). Aside from the fact that the new Sony PS3 controllers cost approximately $50 each, this is an issue when you want to play an existing game such as Guitar Hero that uses a special controller. It wont work, so you have to keep the PS2 set up for these games.

2. There are only about 10 new game titles available at the moment, each of which cost $60.

3. The system does not support the memory cards from the PS2, so if you want to play an existing PS2 game on the PS3, you have to start the game over. Supposedly there is an adapter coming out soon, but why wasnt it available when the system launched?

Finally, I felt insulted by the whole "story" about how scarce the units were going to be. It was very hard to find one before Christmas, however within several days after Christmas, I went into the local BigBox retailer and they had a pallet full of systems for sale. I dont know why Sony or the retailers would hold these back from the pre-Christmas shopping, since they were getting the same price either way. I am just glad that I didnt pay 2-3x the suggested retail price on the web or newspaper classified adds.

2 replies

by thechas

Most of your issues could have been known ahead of time by doing a good job of researching.

While I'm not a gamer, and don't pay a lot of attention, I'm sure that reviews and blogs covered these issues even before the PS3 was released.

As to the supply issue, I suspect that the ramp up in manufacturing has crossed the ramp down in demand. Sony pushed very hard to get the PS3 in stores before the Wii and in time for Christmas.

If there is any "silver lining" for Sony it is the free publicity that the limited initial supply brought them.

Chas

by bhalley1

I did some research in advance of the purchase. Sony made no attempt (that I could find) to inform potential buyers about the controller and memory card incompatibilities. They did claim that the system would play all PS1 and PS2 games, which is - at a minimum inaccurate - given that the PS3 wont work with older controllers required for specialized games (and new versions of the controllers for these game are not available yet). I dont feel that I should have to resort to 3rd party research and commentary on issues such as this. Shame on Sony for not being forthright about their decisions about compatibility.

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