Hey all. I live in the UK by the way. I would like a PS3 but I have other hobbies that use a lot of my spare cash. I'm also really in to PC gaming, so this would be a kind of secondary distraction, so I really should try to get all this as cheap as possible. I'm watching some PS3's on Ebay at the moment and I'm just waiting for the right one. I'm nervous because I have never used Ebay before. So anyway, could you guys offer any advice? Is Ebay even the best place to do this? And should I just find an 80gig version? Or get a cheap 40 and put a bigger hard disk in myself? I don't really care about backward compatibility with PS2 games. If it was only going to end up being about £200 instead of £280 brand new, do you think it's even worth buying a used one? Or should I just spend the extra £80 and get it new and from a trustworthy place (ie: a shop, or Amazon)? And I would get a full warranty that way too, not sure I would even have one if I bought it second hand. Also, seeing as they rarely come with all the games I would want, where would you guys go for cheap used games? I checked the prices of new games and it would cost me hundreds to buy all the games my friends have so I can play with them So if I can get them used I could save a lot of money. I searched a bit and saw some ok deals on Amazon, for example: Streetfighter 4 --- £22.99+ £3.00shipping "Used - Like New". Is that about as good as it gets, or are there better places to go? Thanks
The first question to ask though is why do you want a PS3 specifically? Personally, Xbox 360 is cheaper and will offer you a wider variety of media and games more easily and as less of a cost.
For cheeper new games, I use three places, Play (rarely the cheapest) Gameplay (very good service fair prices) but Shopto.net seem to consistanly be the cheepest. I've sold expensive things on ebay but never bought, but as a seller it felt they were more on the buyers favour. They won't release your money to the guy buy it from until you leave him/her positive feedback so if it arrives and it doesn't work etc your safe as you can just say and send it back. So I think you can be pretty confident about buying an expensive item from ebay... Would it be out of your budget to get a used 60gb if you are going down the used as then you'll have the PS2 emulator built in and you'll have a complete playstaion, if not just go for the cheapest one and upgrade the hdd... Sorry for the long reply...
mind justifying that standpoint? i have both systems and find that the 360 gets far more playtime. the ps3 i bought for exclusives, and while it has had some decent titles, and the exclusives announced at e3 have looked pretty strong, but it's nothing that i can hand on heart tell people to go out and buy one for. yet. for cheap games: hotukdeals.com occasionally flags a decent deal. recently went to comet and got ratchet & clank, uncharted, mirror's edge and motorstorm for £30. they also flagged a HMV street fighter deal, got it for £18 delivered. thanks HUKD! find-games.co.uk is a decent price aggregation site. cex.co.uk ebay.co.uk
From the sounds of it most of his friends have PS3s so would need to go that route if he wants to play online with them. Alternatively you could tell all your mates to buy decent PCs for the true online experience, although that might be a little bit more expensive Interesting. Exclusives apart, what makes you buy them for/play them on the 360 more than the PS3, if you don't mind me asking?
more comfortable pad (caveat being for games that rely on d-pad - ps3 all the way there), xbox live, and the ports are always of a higher quality. this last one is not as true any more, but eurogamer's roundups have always put the 360 on top, even if by a small margin.
Thanks all!! It's because I have a few friends and they all have PS3's and play games together online. They really want me to play too and I keep putting it off. Thank you! That was some great info. I liked the idea of the 60gb version but they seem quite expensive on ebay and also a bit rarer. I don't really mind though because I doubt I would ever play a ps1/ps2 game really. I don't own any, and if I want an old games fix I have tons on my PC. I think getting a cheap 40gb ps3 and just upgrading the hard disk would be great though. Thanks for the info about Ebay too, I feel more confident about doing that now! Wow nice thanks! That's a heck of a deal you got on those 3 games. I'll have to check that out, thanks! Lol I wish! I have a really good PC and in fact one of my friends does too, but he just doesn't seem to enjoy PC games anymore. He used to love them but he just gets bored of FPS/RTS/RPG type games now, almost instantly. In fact every game I have showed him he got bored of right away. Load up Streetfighter 4, Tiger Woods 09, or Virtua Tennis though... and he can play them all day and night. I think it's partly the games, partly that you play them on a huge TV while sitting on the couch, and partly because they are so plug n play, and PC's require a bit more setting up which annoys him. I've just been sticking to my PC for over a year and missing out on playing with them, but I figure for a few hundred quid, I could just do it and have best of both worlds.
I think you should consider getting a PS2 for lots of reasons. For a start you'd be opening yourself up to a world of games, there are some real gems out there in the PS2 catalogue, I wouldn't want to think that you denied yourself the chance to play these just because of the selection of choice on eBay. Games are widely available and cheap too, and they are still being made for the PS2 (heck the new DJ Hero game is being released for the PS2!, xbox, gamecube, can you say that?!). Most of the games that you mentioned, Streetfighter 4, Tiger Woods 09, and Virtua Tennis, you can find the previous iterations of these games for the ps2. This is especially important if you will be playing some of the games that are the staple of the console. So if you and your friends start to play something like Killzone 2, you could fully immerse youself in the story by paying the first Killzone on the PS2. With God of War 3, A new Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, Ratchet & Clank, Beyond Good and Evil, and the new Team Ico game around the corner, you could find something you like there and that quick fix of extra content will always be available if you buy one of the previous games. If memory serves me correctly, you can grab a preowned PS2 phat at Game for £30 and a Slim for £40, im sure ebay will offer good bundles too. I don't have a current generation console. All I have with me if my PS2 and an xbox and I don't feel I need to make the step up yet because theres is still so much wonderful content I have yet to experience on this platform. I have a list of games to play, a BIG list. So I may sound like a nostalgic PS2 fanboy, but seriously all I want you take from this post is that you consider a PS2 in any shape or form. Edit: Dear Mr Sony People are still buying PS2's preowned at £30 and games for it and none of that money is going to you. I'd happily take a £20-40 premium on a PS3 console if you could reincorporate PS2 emulation. Red Eye
Yes by all means. In the 18 months that I had one, it broke roughly every 4 months, the first time after 2 days. I was noisy, would freeze more often than not for no apparent reason, would scratch discs, it cost £35 just to play online. It's biggest IP's, Gears of War and Forza 2 (at the time) bore me senseless and were so disappointing that just couldn't be bothered to persevere with it. I bought the PS3 the month it was released, same as with the 360, yet I still have the PS3 and it hasn't put a foot wrong. Had an email from a colleague today who says he is on his 7th xbox 360 and another colleague is on his 4th. The whole point of a console is that it is easy and less hassle than a PC, but I can trust my PC, but lost all faith in the 360 to the point where I was scared to play it in case I had to ring MS yet again to get UPS to come around. I managed to rack up 10,815 gamer points somehow, but aside from GFW-L I don't plan to add to them.
Red Eye, you've just reminded me that I have 2 PS2s and a load of games in the loft to sell As an owner of an original 60GB PS3 with a large collection of PS2 games, I can safely say that after going back and playing a couple of them after PS3 games, the difference was so great that I never wanted to play any of them again (I went back and played the original Killzone just before the release of the sequel, which incidentally I actually really liked despite it being regarded as a disappointment, but ended up not even completing the first level). I have great memories of playing those games when I first got them, but for some reason it just isn't the same as going back and playing some of the old PC games, which seem to stand the test of time a little better. Also, getting a PS2 would mean that he can't play online with his mates, one of the main reasons the OP stated for buying a PS3.
Well I dont get to play all the latest games at the moment but I can appreciate how you feel, smc8788. I didn't mean for books to buy a PS2 as a replacement of a PS3, but in addition to a PS3 (provided he doesn't purchase one that is BC)
lol, fair. mine's red ringed once, was a pretty straightforward swap and got a month's free live for it too, but i don't play it very often. to be frank the main franchises bore me too, but there are plenty of other, good games for it. and as for having to pay for live, i don't like it either but frankly the service is usually about an order of magnitude better than PSN - which i regularly get disconnected from during games.
Ah, I see. That's probably a better option than getting a BC PS3 if you want to play PS2 games anyway, considering that they generally sell for a premium over the newer models yet the output from the PS2 seems to be comparitively better than the software emulation on the PS3.
Just out of curiosity, is there a Cash Converters/Generators near you? I picked up my 60GB for £200 just before xmas and I've not had any problems with it (but then again I do work there so I made sure I picked the best looking, most cared for system at the time of purchase). Same goes for games. My shop tend to undercut Gamestations 2nd hand prices by a few quid. And you'll never have any problems with the discs either...god bless BluRays' protective coating! As for the warranty, it's a bit of a grey area. We've only ever had 2 PS3's returned and we managed to get both of them repaired (free of charge) by Sony. It's a hell of a lot easier than Microsoft's repair procedure - just a week turnaround in both instances!
Yep there's a cash converters near me! I might have to check in there and see if they have any good ones. If not though, I'm feeling a bit more confident about Ebay now, so I think I'll just get one soon when I see a nice deal. I actually missed out on one last night because I was too chicken to bid, but now I feel better I'll just go for it.
I've got a 60GB PS3 as well as a huge library of PS2 games. All of my experiences of playing PS2 games on the PS3 were far from perfect... so I just stick to PS2 games on the PStwo and PS3 games on the PS3. I must admit, my PS2 probably gets more play time than my PS3 - but that's because of the sheer number of RPGs I've got on it. And life-sucking games like Disgaea 1/2 and Makai Kingdom. I don't know why, but Disgaea 3 had me totally hooked for about six months (I got it from the States - it's nice the Sony finally did away with Region Locked games) but I find myself going back to Disgaea 1 and 2 for the humour. Cash Converters can be a poor place to buy. But then, so can eBay. I've picked up musical instruments in Cash Converters because they obviously had no idea how much the instrument was actually worth and price it really low... but sometimes they're as expensive as buying new! As with so much, depends on what you're after.
i picked up one for £220 from CEX and stuck a 320GB HDD in it. if you get one definately buy valkyria chronicles. in terms of 360 vs PS3 i would just say that the Xbox is NOT a nice machine to have in a room, the sheer noise of the thing is enough to put me off. its not nice hardware, and i like nice hardware, so i got a PS3.
Thanks guys Butters, I mean crompers Was that one you bought new? There's an 80gig Boxed version in my local CEX for £235 but it doesn't give any info at all. I might call them tomorrow and find out if it's in ok condition. I missed a couple of really good deals on Ebay actually, because I was busy making my dinner when I should have been placing my bid, doh! I saw an 'apparantly' 1 month old 80gig go for £160. The ad looked shady to me because it gave no information about the condition of it, so someone either got ripped off or got a really nice deal. Most of the good 80gigs though, seem to go for about £200 or so. With £15 for delivery, it's only about £60 cheaper than just buying a brand new one from Amazon... so I'm tempted to just do that. I'm in no major hurry though anyway so I'll probably just keep sniffing around for the next couple of days, until I find one I really want. Then I'll pounce on it like a ninja tiger.
