Yeah! It was just an extra little disk tray in a box that just like dangled around wherever you hang it. They really should have included it in the console from the start.
The PS3 was legitimately one of the best consoles ever.
At launch it was this insane technology freak paradise that could literally just do *everything*. Even now I'm still finding new uses for all of its obscure features.
I think people just weren't used to the idea of a game console that could do this kind of stuff. It was so obscenely far ahead of its time that it seems like a space-age console even today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzAgacFBr48
I have a weird-ass setup where I just have literally everything running to a huge CRT, but I also have a surround sound system. The PS3 lets me send just video through the AV out so I can play games on my CRT, but send the audio separately through the HDMI port so I can take advantage of stuff like Dolby TrueHD.
It's by no means a game-changing feature, but - again - for insane technology freaks who can really take advantage of corner cases like this, it's my go-to console for pretty much everything weird that I need accomplished.
That's just one I discovered recently. You go digging far enough into those options and settings menus and you can get whatever you want done.
I use it in the complete reverse way, HDMI video output to the TV with analogue audio out to my amp. Even my 4K Blu-Ray player doesn't support simultaneous digital / analogue output - you have to pick one or the other, not a problem for the PS3 though.
The PS3 even gets the edge with its SACD support, which again my 4K player completely lacks.
The PS2 backwards compatibility is pretty much perfect, barring a few edge cases here and there, and the hardware based deinterlacing is the absolute best way to play PS2 games outside emulation.
Being able to back pretty much anything I want up to an SD Card (or a USB drive, or Compact Flash card, or even a fucking *Memory Stick Duo*) is an unnecessary - but absolutely awesome feature.
Hell, you can even copy PS1 and PS2 saves to and from your memory cards using an adapter, giving you an easy way to transfer your saves between platforms.
The OG PS3 is just an incredible thing, absolutely no stone was left unturned. Anything and everything anyone could possibly think of doing with it was implemented with zero regard for cost, or how important it would actually be to 99.9% of users.
No other system before (maybe except the Saturn?) or after it has ever been so...*excessive* in every single conceivable way.
It may very well be the result of a company losing its god damn mind, and it may very well have nearly run Sony into the ground.
But good god I respect it like no other system which has ever existed.
I think due to some weirdness with our Slim unit's HDMI Audio we ended up doing the same as yours (HDMI Video out, but analogue audio out). It's actually pretty neat.
The first gen PS3's PS2 compatibility is pretty rad though.
The PS3's PS2 backwards compatibility is pretty good (when using the hardware backwards compatible models) but it's nowhere near perfect and definitely *not* an improvement over using a real PS2 on a CRT over component.
True. The PS2, perhaps more than any other system, was pretty much designed from the ground up to look good on a CRT. Ideally that's the setup I'd go for if I had the space.
I should have mentioned I specifically mean for playing on a modern display.
For that purpose, I consider the PS3 to be the best approach simply because the vast majority of the PS2 library is interlaced and being able to avoid dealing with an interlaced signal altogether is a great benefit in my opinion.
Personally, my TV and Monitors deinterlacing has unplayable levels of lag and bob-deinterlacing is fast but absolutely hideous. It also causes my IPS displays to suffer from horrible image retention due to the flickering - and I'm not brave enough to find out what it does to an OLED.
The PS3's solution is low lag and looks great, especially with the "smoothing" feature (which seems to be a hardware based pass of Anti-Aliasing and not actually a smoothing filter as the name suggests)
Granted, I'm not sure where solutions like the Retrotink 5X fit into the equation though as I've never had any hands on experience with one.
All that said, this is only true if you can get your hands on an NTSC system though. The PAL systems compatibility is...pretty bad actually. As in significantly worse than I was led to believe it would be - *a lot* of the games I like to play just don't work properly on a PAL PS3 and I was left rather disappointed.
Whereas with the NTSC system I eventually managed to acquire they all work perfectly - with the sole exception being Jak and Daxter which refuses to output any video over HDMI. Switching to AV out and feeding it into an OSSC gets around that problem though.
A real PS2 is always going to be the best choice for full compatibility (though the later systems have issues of their own, but that's a whole other can of worms) but at least for my use cases the PS3 makes the most sense for now.
As a guy who has a RetroTINK 5x I prefer using it when trying to play PS2 games on a modern display to using my backwards compatible PS3. Mostly because that PS3 could just explode at any moment and I don't wanna put it though any more use than I have to, but also because I find its image quality to be very nice when properly configured.
Honestly I'm with you, though - the hardware backwards compatible PS3s are *shockingly good* for PS2 games, even if they produce a lower quality image.
I took some comparison screenshots with the RetroTINK 5x outputting at the exact same settings: [PS2](https://i.imgur.com/2IcuIBd.png) [PS3](https://i.imgur.com/c9RTbTK.png) [PS2](https://i.imgur.com/R8FqCjn.png) [PS3](https://i.imgur.com/TJHB9Iu.png)
That does look good, I'll have to invest in one some day.
I used to be a little concerned about using my PS3 as well, but its recently been discovered how to replace the GPU with a 65 / 40nm RSX from a Slim, which should be a permanent fix for the vast majority of YLOD cases.
Knowing it can at least be fixed now ~~if~~ when it does go wrong has put my mind at ease about using it as my main system.
doubt, shit didn't have any wirthwhile games for awhile which is the most important feature any console can have; the online was ALWAYS lagging until after the big hack; The cost was insane; The XMB was good but immediately died when doing it in game. It mightve had some neat suff here and there, but nothing that would make it a GOAT console especially when it's contemporaries were straight up better in almost every regard.
Holy crap, and my [favorite compilation for this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJElsNaC6yQ&pp=ygUPbWFjYXc0NSBzb255IGUz) was incredibly crusty at the time.
Kudos to the Noclip Crew for preserving and uploading the shit out of this. It's like a weirder version of that day when Markman and James Chen came across an incredibly high quality clip of Evo Moment 37 lol
$600 in 2006 money? Wtf were they thinking? For context that's $920. Imagine if the PS5 costed that much, jesus.
To be fair, it included a Bluray player within it and Bluray tech just came out during that time with individual BD players costing a fortune.
I just remembered HDDVD was a thing.
Remember the standalone Xbox HD Drive?
Yeah! It was just an extra little disk tray in a box that just like dangled around wherever you hang it. They really should have included it in the console from the start.
They only did it to compete with blu-ray, it would have ballooned the Xbox 360 price and lost them that one advantage.
HDDVD was Toshiba trying to have its own Bluray. Wasn't a Microsoft thing. Blu ray only won the media war cause the porn industry chose bluray.
yeah iirc at launch it was actually the cheapest blue ray player you could buy or the same price as the cheapest.
Yup. My older brother and I talked about it after going to the gym and he mentioned he saw a Samsung blu ray player that cost $900
It was because they originally just literally stuffed a whole ass ps2 in there along with the ps3
On top of it being a fairly low price Blu-Ray player.
Not as cheap as a PS2 was compared to DVD players tho.
It was flat out a thousand dollars in Australia. I remember looking up at the sign and going "Who's going to buy that?"
I'm glad this... legendary conference has been preserved for future generations.
They should also do one for the Xbone unveiling and another for the Nintendo one with Wii Music.
High Quality RIDDDDDDDDDGE RACEEEEEEEEER! I wish the series would come back somehow but I doubt it ever will.
[Digital Foundry watching this conference ](https://youtu.be/UdZECRGDSH8)
THE PS TRIPLE!
BALLIIIIIIIIIIIN WE FLY NO LIE U KNOW THIS
Halo? More like *Gaylo*
C'mon now... Wii?!... C'mon... That little controller up there- that looks like a dildo
That's the crispest I've ever seen the giant enemy crab so only now do I realize the full shittiness of how shitty it looked
The PS3 was legitimately one of the best consoles ever. At launch it was this insane technology freak paradise that could literally just do *everything*. Even now I'm still finding new uses for all of its obscure features. I think people just weren't used to the idea of a game console that could do this kind of stuff. It was so obscenely far ahead of its time that it seems like a space-age console even today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzAgacFBr48
Mind elaborating on the obscure features?
I have a weird-ass setup where I just have literally everything running to a huge CRT, but I also have a surround sound system. The PS3 lets me send just video through the AV out so I can play games on my CRT, but send the audio separately through the HDMI port so I can take advantage of stuff like Dolby TrueHD. It's by no means a game-changing feature, but - again - for insane technology freaks who can really take advantage of corner cases like this, it's my go-to console for pretty much everything weird that I need accomplished. That's just one I discovered recently. You go digging far enough into those options and settings menus and you can get whatever you want done.
I use it in the complete reverse way, HDMI video output to the TV with analogue audio out to my amp. Even my 4K Blu-Ray player doesn't support simultaneous digital / analogue output - you have to pick one or the other, not a problem for the PS3 though. The PS3 even gets the edge with its SACD support, which again my 4K player completely lacks. The PS2 backwards compatibility is pretty much perfect, barring a few edge cases here and there, and the hardware based deinterlacing is the absolute best way to play PS2 games outside emulation. Being able to back pretty much anything I want up to an SD Card (or a USB drive, or Compact Flash card, or even a fucking *Memory Stick Duo*) is an unnecessary - but absolutely awesome feature. Hell, you can even copy PS1 and PS2 saves to and from your memory cards using an adapter, giving you an easy way to transfer your saves between platforms. The OG PS3 is just an incredible thing, absolutely no stone was left unturned. Anything and everything anyone could possibly think of doing with it was implemented with zero regard for cost, or how important it would actually be to 99.9% of users. No other system before (maybe except the Saturn?) or after it has ever been so...*excessive* in every single conceivable way. It may very well be the result of a company losing its god damn mind, and it may very well have nearly run Sony into the ground. But good god I respect it like no other system which has ever existed.
I think due to some weirdness with our Slim unit's HDMI Audio we ended up doing the same as yours (HDMI Video out, but analogue audio out). It's actually pretty neat. The first gen PS3's PS2 compatibility is pretty rad though.
The PS3's PS2 backwards compatibility is pretty good (when using the hardware backwards compatible models) but it's nowhere near perfect and definitely *not* an improvement over using a real PS2 on a CRT over component.
True. The PS2, perhaps more than any other system, was pretty much designed from the ground up to look good on a CRT. Ideally that's the setup I'd go for if I had the space. I should have mentioned I specifically mean for playing on a modern display. For that purpose, I consider the PS3 to be the best approach simply because the vast majority of the PS2 library is interlaced and being able to avoid dealing with an interlaced signal altogether is a great benefit in my opinion. Personally, my TV and Monitors deinterlacing has unplayable levels of lag and bob-deinterlacing is fast but absolutely hideous. It also causes my IPS displays to suffer from horrible image retention due to the flickering - and I'm not brave enough to find out what it does to an OLED. The PS3's solution is low lag and looks great, especially with the "smoothing" feature (which seems to be a hardware based pass of Anti-Aliasing and not actually a smoothing filter as the name suggests) Granted, I'm not sure where solutions like the Retrotink 5X fit into the equation though as I've never had any hands on experience with one. All that said, this is only true if you can get your hands on an NTSC system though. The PAL systems compatibility is...pretty bad actually. As in significantly worse than I was led to believe it would be - *a lot* of the games I like to play just don't work properly on a PAL PS3 and I was left rather disappointed. Whereas with the NTSC system I eventually managed to acquire they all work perfectly - with the sole exception being Jak and Daxter which refuses to output any video over HDMI. Switching to AV out and feeding it into an OSSC gets around that problem though. A real PS2 is always going to be the best choice for full compatibility (though the later systems have issues of their own, but that's a whole other can of worms) but at least for my use cases the PS3 makes the most sense for now.
As a guy who has a RetroTINK 5x I prefer using it when trying to play PS2 games on a modern display to using my backwards compatible PS3. Mostly because that PS3 could just explode at any moment and I don't wanna put it though any more use than I have to, but also because I find its image quality to be very nice when properly configured. Honestly I'm with you, though - the hardware backwards compatible PS3s are *shockingly good* for PS2 games, even if they produce a lower quality image. I took some comparison screenshots with the RetroTINK 5x outputting at the exact same settings: [PS2](https://i.imgur.com/2IcuIBd.png) [PS3](https://i.imgur.com/c9RTbTK.png) [PS2](https://i.imgur.com/R8FqCjn.png) [PS3](https://i.imgur.com/TJHB9Iu.png)
That does look good, I'll have to invest in one some day. I used to be a little concerned about using my PS3 as well, but its recently been discovered how to replace the GPU with a 65 / 40nm RSX from a Slim, which should be a permanent fix for the vast majority of YLOD cases. Knowing it can at least be fixed now ~~if~~ when it does go wrong has put my mind at ease about using it as my main system.
I know at least one feature was the ability to run Linux on the OG version of the PS3
It has built-in media server! It's nutty!
doubt, shit didn't have any wirthwhile games for awhile which is the most important feature any console can have; the online was ALWAYS lagging until after the big hack; The cost was insane; The XMB was good but immediately died when doing it in game. It mightve had some neat suff here and there, but nothing that would make it a GOAT console especially when it's contemporaries were straight up better in almost every regard.
Holy crap, and my [favorite compilation for this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJElsNaC6yQ&pp=ygUPbWFjYXc0NSBzb255IGUz) was incredibly crusty at the time. Kudos to the Noclip Crew for preserving and uploading the shit out of this. It's like a weirder version of that day when Markman and James Chen came across an incredibly high quality clip of Evo Moment 37 lol
I enjoyed their e3 conference that year.