Gaijin

Get a drive from Newegg. I bought a Hitachi 160GB drive for $80 a few months ago and swapped my 60GB. Don't bother with 7200 rpm ones, the speed bump does nothing and will only add heat. Doing the swap is painless and quick. My old 60 Seagate is a spare, and my 80GB PS3 will probably see an upgrade in few months as well. I'm happy the thing takes ordinary HDD's. Get the 40, swap the HDD with a new one, keep the 40GB as a spare, and buy a DualShock 3 and use the Sixaxis as the "2nd" controller. I replaced all my Sixaxis' with DualShocks and use the Sixaxis' as "spares".

There are many knowledgeable people on the fence about it all. A lot of people that were interested are turned off by two "competing formats" knowing that only one will wind up being around in the end and do not want to buy the losing one. DVD sales, while tremendous, are not what they used to be (and never will be no matter what happens). While the HD formats sales are "insignificant" compared to DVD 's currently, they are still profitable, and as adoption rates go up, and new players are phased in instead of plain DVD players, the discs will slowly rbegin to replace DVD's. Apple is rumored to announce Blu-ray drives in Macs at MacWorld. Good thing is you can still play DVD's on whatever player you bought, BD or HD DVD. Player prices WILL drop, regardless of opponents...DVD won out on DivX early and player prices dropped dramatically in a short time. HD DVD and BD players debuted at the $800 range and a year later, and now you find them both under $300 and 200. The PS3 will drop again in price this year, as will standalone players.

They should have never trusted Microsoft and joined with BD so this war never would have happened. Toshiba can keep on making players...but they'll stop if no one makes discs for them. HD DVD could in theory wind up be than UMD...because Sony at least has movie studios that they still release content from on UMD. Here's an interesting blog about a meeting with Warner and their views on the war: Media Wonk attended an industry dinner in Hollywood in early December where he ran into Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group president Kevin Tsujihara and home video president Ron Sanders. Although always nice to see Kevin and Ron, Media Wonk was somewhat taken aback by their apparent alarm at the state of the business. Now we know why. "Not only did neither [high-def DVD] format really take off as expected in fourth quarter, but standard-def was softer than expected given the release slate," Sanders said Friday, shortly after the studio announced that it will drop is support of the HD DVD format and release its high-def titles exclusively on Blu-ray starting in June. "We’re seeing research now that shows that consumers are starting to delay purchases because of the format war, not just on high-def but standard-def purchases as well. That’s very alarming.” As part of its ongoing tracking research, Warner has been asking consumers for months whether the format war has had any effect on the regular DVD purchase habits. "They're waiting for something to happen," Sanders said. "They're waiting for the whole situation to become clear so they know what to buy. If you look at the historical conversion ratios of box office into DVD sales, several titles this fourth quarter underperformed where they should have been." Whether Warner's move will clarify the situation any is an open question. Between now and the end of May, Warner will issue new releases simultaneously on standard-def and Blu-ray, followed by a release on HD DVD "after a short window." According to Sanders, however, Warner's decision was driven by consumer behavior, more than an expectation of resolving the format war. "It’s hard for us to speculate about impact this will have on the format war. All we can do really is make the best decision for our business and the rest of it will really take care of itself, in time," he said. "One of the things you see in the NPD data for this fourth quarter was that even with a $100 [price] premium, Blu-ray set tops outsold HD set tops in December. Even with Toshiba having the lowest-cost player in the market, software sales remained 2 to 1 in favor of Blu-ray." The studio certainly wouldn't mind if it did help resolve the format war, however. "Warner Bros.’ move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want," studio chairman/CEO Barry Meyer said in a statement. "The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger." And finally, because someone is bound to ask, Sanders insisted that no financial inducements were involved in Warner's decision, despite the fairly constant buzz of rumors that Warner was being actively courted by both sides. "There is absolutely no incentive from either side that would have changed the decision we made based on what we were seeing in the consumer data," he said. "The worldwide DVD business is about $40 billion. Any incentives we might have been offered would have paled next to the lost profits from that business if we get this one wrong.” Not quite Sherman-esque, but he's unquestionably correct that the long-term risk is greater than the short-term gain. And last one...not inspiring confidence by any means but what the hell: Michael Bay on BD and Transformers http://www.shootfortheedit.com/forum/showthread.php?t=842

Even if Warner got that much (unlikely given the fact that their releases always sold more on the BD side and they will still "support" HD DVD for another few months, unlike Paramount which PULLED their titles because of whatever contract they signed), it's time for this stupid war to end. One way or another. If HD DVD had gotten Warner, Disney, and Fox to switch, then I'd kiss Blu-ray bye bye too. But they didn't so I think it's easier for Uni to go blu, and Paramount to suck it up and come back. Once HD DVD is dead, we'll see more and cheaper players, not to mention no longer forcing people to go purple. The whole "choice" argument was crap for consumers...the only way to enjoy movies on the whole was to buy BOTH. Since the two formats just made a confusing mess for the public that were interested. many people took a wait and see. Since this is THE year for HDTV and High Def to really start taking off, it's time that we just stick with one format for movies. The whole "breach of contract thing" by Warner...pretty unlikely as well. Did Warner have some kind of "Neutrality" contract with HD DVD group? If they did, I'm sure they proably did everything they could have done beforehand to null anything before dropping a surprise bomb like this. Could still change, but I think the future is Blu.

Agreed. I just wish they were consistent. Their titles range from great looking (Serenity) to what the hell? (BSG Season 1). If they go Blu soon, they better do it right.

You'll probably see Transformers on Blu-ray sooner rather than later. Likely a "Special Uber- Edition" once Paramount and Dreamworks kiss HD DVD goodbye. Though "Transformers" was a high selling title for HD DVD, it still fell short. Add the Warner split, the PS3's sales surge, the fact that the Paramount switch did absolutely nothing to tip sales in HD DVD's favor (including the mentioned Transformers), and all the other studios backing BD and well...you really only have Universal that is being stubborn. And even they can see the writing on the wall. Of course, you have Microsoft wanting both formats to die, so prolonging the war, only works in their favor..in their mind. Anyways, the fat lady didn't sing, but she's getting ready I believe backstage.

Gameplay videos: Hadouken!

Why don't you just use a USB keyboard and mouse? UT3 supports it.

High Velocity Bowling.. PS Network downloadable game.

No one's going to dump a flat panel..they are talking old tubes which are being dumped at the dumps...of which I doubt anyone would give you more than $100 for if you are going to dump anyways.

Blu-ray still leading. Paramount switch does nothing.

Or...you can get $100 off a new Bravia if you find an old Sony TV to trade up with. Give your old TV, get $100 off Sony HDTV

Mad Catz or not, you can't get blood from a stone. Sad thing is there are a few poor souls out there that will buy it.

Saw one tonight...no stuck pixels or anything of that sort.

this thread is starting to de- rail. The PS3 had a shaky first year but is starting to make a comeback. Bottom line us it's not going to go away and while it's in 3rd in the US now, it doesn't mean it's the end. Look at the first year of 360 sales and look at the ps3's first year. The numbers after a year for each are remarkably close. Only the wii outsold both on the first year(and will probably slow in 2008 as the 360 and ps3 further drop in price).

But will it still have a button marked "Turbo Boost"?! inside?

PS3 and 360 will get the ports.

Yours must have gotten lost in the mail...I got mine weeks ago!

Monoprice has some of the highest quality cables around. NO fear in buying anything from them.

Yes but besides Warner, not many studios use it on BD. MS wanted the BDA to make VC1 the "Standard" that most studios use. You see a lot of HD DVD's encoded with VC1 however.

is going to be:

IV is apparently another "prequel" that takes place in between 2 and 3. And damn does it look good.

That's not really too far off base. MS only supports HD DVD for their VC1 encoder and the fact that any gains by the BDA will benefit the PS3 and Sony. Hence the constant backing whenever HD DVD is ready to cave. Heck, Toshiba was ready to give in on the ONE format and not even have the war when the two camps were negotiating and MS convinced them otherwise. They really don't care which one wins, as long as in the end, XBOX Live video downloads will one day take over iTunes and the optical home disc market. They kill 2 birds with little stones this way. The enemy of my enemy is my friend...until I stab him in the back . Bay is...well...at least he likes Blu-ray. I guess that's something.

Hehehe, these are great.

Just plug it in the USB port. Started the game with the Sexaxis, plugged the AC5 stick into the 1st USB port when the game started, and it worksed. Played for about 30 mins.