PlayStation 3



"It only does everything."

The third son of the PlayStation family had a rough start in life; being quite expensive at first, and very difficult to code for, it remained in a distant third place for a while. Yet it swiftly recovered later, due to the very strong support from Japanese developers who would not touch the filthy gaijin dog machine Xbox 360. So each system has rather different sets of exclusives, which you should weigh (see: 360 vs PS3) before choosing one.

Backwards compatibility was part of the reason for the cost: early models did it by including part of the PS2 hardware. Later models cut that entirely. All models are compatible with games for the original PlayStation, as it was possible to emulate it fully in software.

A nice point of the PS3 is that its games come on Bluray discs while the Xbox 360 only reads DVDs. As a result, you never have to deal with games coming on multiple discs. This also means that PS3 doubles as a Bluray player.

The PS3's controller is a point of contention, as many people are used to the Xbox style layout where the control sticks are laid out in an asymmetrical fashion. But you can find third party controllers with the alternate layout, so it's not a problem.


 * Name in Italics means the game is not on Xbox 360
 * Move_compatible.png Playstation Move compatible
 * Move_required.png Playstation Move required

JP Imports
PS3 can play disc-based games from any region. (Except Persona 4 Arena, but that was released worldwide, so it's no biggie.) Be warned however that the games listed below assume that you know Japanese.