Yack, just looked at the prices. Is there any reason you specifically want a 60 GB? You can get the 80 GB bundle for cheaper.
The old 60 gb had the ee/gs chips. The newer ones don't have that chip. Basically that chip is the ps2.
I plan to buy a PS3 sometime in the future but I'm a noob in consoles. Why do they have hard drives? Can't you run the games from the discs the games are on?
The newer PS3's don't guarantee 100% compatibility with PS2 games since they don't have the Emotion chip (PS2 chip) that the older one's have. The older ones have hardware emulation whereas the newer ones have imperfect software emulation.
Actually, the 40GB model can't play any PS2 games at all. The 80GB model is estimated to have about 80% backwards compatibility through software emulation, while the 60GB is at about 98%.
Bottomline - the PS3 is balls when it comes to consistency as to backwards compatability & these 500 SKU's Sony offers.
Considering there are more than 1500 games for the PS2, you should be more than ok with the 80 gig version.
Thanks for the info regarding compatibility, guys. I guess I'll just be keeping my old school PS2 (larg and in charge, not one of those slim ones) around to play PS2 games, then. All this different version stuff for both PS3 and Xbox360 is a little annoying. I was thinking about getting a 360, but can't find one with the Falcon chip in the local retailer stores. Not sure how much difference it makes, but if I'm gonna spend money on it, might as well have the lastest tech.
Only problem with that is that I likes me some obscure games (the latest King's Field, for example)... and I'm not sure how the 80GB version handles blue-backed discs, either (Crazy Taxi, Contra: Shattered Soldier). Those are all games I still play on occasion. I got my 60GB model right now, but if it ever dies and I switch to an 80GB, and I find it doesn't play any of my games, I'll have to buy a separate PS2... and that's just lame. I wish the 60GB hadn't been discontinued, and that perhaps I can magically find another one when mine dies after a few years (I assume it will, given that I went through 3 PS1's and 3 PS2's).
And another thing it's good for is caching game information on the hard drive for quick access during gameplay. It can potentially help load times, frame rates, and graphics in general. And while the 360 can do the same thing in theory, the problem is that consumers can in fact buy a 360 without the hard drive (the "core" system), which means game makers can't design their 360 games to depend on hard drive caching in any way, since it would render their games unplayable on some systems. Similarly, Blue-Ray support is built into the PS3, while the 360 has HD-DVD support as an add-on... ergo, the PS3 can utilize superior storage capacity for the same reason it can utilize hard drive caching: Microsoft made these components optional, in favor of a lower system cost moving more units at the beginning of the console war. Problem is, the lack of those two advantages might start hurting them in a couple years, especially if Blu-Ray wins the format war. I'm happier to be a PS3 owner every day.
