The Price of Gaming


Are you ready for the PS3? More importantly, is your wallet?

The Death Star of Gaming, Sony's Playstation 3 is on the horizon- literally just a week away. Online, some gaming shops already have it in their inventory for pre-order. How much is the uber-gaming console? Well, according to Play-Asia.com, the Japanese version PS3 with a 60GB hard drive can be yours for a paltry 990 dollars. That amounts to about 50,228 pesos. Got that? FIFTY THOUSAND PETOTS.
What else can you buy with 50K? Well, you can probably buy the most expensive PDA phone, like the O2 XDA Exec, or a cheap laptop. You can buy a pretty souped-up Desktop PC with a lot of trimmings like Mega-sound, big monitor, 200+GB HDs, DVD writer drives and a nifty table. Or you can buy an Xbox 360 and several legit games. Or you can live vicariously for a week or two.
Also according to Play Asia, the PS3 20GB version sells for a slightly lesser $899, or Php45,200. Still quite a price. 40+ was the most expensive price I saw for an original Xbox a couple of years ago.

Games for the PS3 at launch, however, are hardly must haves. There will probably be a Ridge Racer title, and the shooter/action title Resistance: Fall of Man. Bigger titles like FFXIII, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Virtua Fighter 5 aren't due out until next year, while some like Tekken 6 are still... shudder... TBA. Not exactly a lineup that will drive me into the game store with my life savings.

Even with the prospects of a happy end of the year, I don't think I'll be getting a PS3 anytime soon. Give me a lower price and next-gen fighters and Solid Snake and I'll bite. But thankfully, that won't be for a while. Still, if anyone has 50K to throw away, I'll be happy to come over and test the unit for you, absolutely for free. Heheh.