Yesterday, Sony held a little press conference and called it Destination Playstation. At this press event, Sony announced a bunch of information that I've been waiting for. They announced the release date for Metal Gear Solid 4 and announced a bundle pack that includes Metal Gear Solid 4, an 80gb Playstation 3, and a Dual Shock 3. All of this will hit shelves on June 12th, 2008 for a very reasonable price of $500. For $500, I'll get the game I want, a Playstation 3 that'll play nearly all Playstation games and has decent harddrive space, and their "new" controller. I don't even have to bother with owning a Sixaxis controller, I can skip right to the new controller.
I'm pretty happy about this bundle. SO happy, in fact, that I've begun taking an active look at what games I really want for the Playstation 3 and what Blu-ray movies I should by.
and thus... rambling begins.
Game-wise, there isn't a megaton of wealth out there, but there's a few things I'm interested in. Two games that are already out are Uncharted and Stranglehold.
Uncharted has been described as the perfect action movie come into the game scene. The game takes a lot of cues from Die Hard, where you control a "regular" guy in extreme action situations. I don't know all the details, but it sounds pretty fun. Not $60 fun, of course. I would definitely pick it up for $30, or perhaps stretch it to $35. Used copies are floating around the $40~$45 mark. That should go down by summer.
Stranglehold is another "action movie" game. Directed by John Woo and "starring" Chow Yun Fat, Stranglehold is the sequel to their first collaboration, Hard-boiled. I've played the demo on Xbox and it is one of the most ridiculous games to come out last year. I love it. Not $60 love it, though. This is another 30 spot, at best. I wanted the PS3 collector's edition because it included the original Hard-boiled on Blu-ray, but now.. I don't really care. I don't really care to watch Hard-boiled, and the game was developed for the Xbox. I think I'll probably just pickup the 360 version when I find it for $20 or less.
Another game I want to pick up in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, which is already out in Japan and April here in the US. Though, paying $50 for a mere fraction of what will be Gran Turismo 5 is way too much. It's the equivalent of a demo, really. $50 for a demo is ridiculous, but it's really a showcase for the Playstation 3. It shows off how good the graphics can be. Maybe If I find a super cheap copy in Japan, I'll pick it up. Like, $35 cheap.. :shrugs:, maybe not.
And that's it really. There's not even anything else in development I'm terribly interesting in except for Resident Evil 5. Wipeout HD is also kinda iffy.. that series really died for me after Designer Republic broke off from Psygnosis/Liverpool.
Something I did do immediately in celebration was purchase Scanner Darkly on Blu-ray for $20. Hurrah, my first Blu-ray. I started to take a look at what other movies I would want as well, but that momentum began to fizzle off.
Netflix is really helpful in keeping you from buying movies. With every movie I came across, I thought to myself, "Am I really going to watch this more than once?" I Love Scanner Darkly and would watch it a couple times over. It's also that kind of movie that I would want to watch with people when they're around. But other movies like that?
War of the Worlds is another movie I was thinking of. I would definitely love to see that in beautiful Hi-Definition, but all the other movies I came up with I already own or it wouldn't make a difference if I owned them on Blu-ray v. DVD. Even Scanner Darkly is somewhat useless on Blu-ray because it's animated. War of the Worlds isn't out of Blu-ray though..
There are some movies that are out on Blu-ray that caught my eye. Like Blade Runner, Wings of Honneamise, and Fifth Element. Each of these movies have been "remastered" for Blu-ray and weren't originally filmed with HD in mind. How good could these movies really look compared to DVD. Plus, how many times would I really watch them? Wings of Honneamise would be spectacular except they don't even sell a stand-alone Blu-ray. It comes with a DVD version and is $80?!
One movie I came across that could be amazing on Blu-ray is Paprika. That movie was brilliantly gorgeous, but I didn't really like it. The movie was all about the visuals and effects. Purchasing it reminds me a lot of purchasing Fantasia and Fantasia 2000 on DVD back in the day. I love those movies and thought it was a brilliant display of music and animation.. but now they just sit on the shelf.. taking up space. Is that how Paprika will be in a year if I buy it?
Lost season 3 is out on Blu-ray.. but I already own the DVDs and I haven't even watched them yet! Plus those Blu-rays are expensive.. screw that.
All-in-all, my little Blu-ray mania ended pretty quickly. I have Scanner Darkly, will pick up War of the Worlds, and might buy Paprika. I still have until mid-June anyways, so there's no rush on Paprika. Also, I'll pick up Cloverfield on Blu-ray.
Even with owning a Playstation 3 in the future, it doesn't really seem worth it. I'll play through Metal Gear, and then Uncharted. But then it'll probably just sit there... much like my PSP. My Wii is the same way too. I haven't touched my Wii since November.
Hopefully, owning a PS3 will revitalize my Playstation spirit and I'll finally start digging into my backlog of Playstation 2 games sitting on my shelf. We'll see.
Also, HD isn't going to matter at all until I buy an HD TV.