PS3 buying advice

[2seas]

So having read the sticky i think a PS3 is the right option for me. Just a few questions:

- Is the 80gb adequate or do people find it gets used up quickly? i'm a bit behind on the times so can someone explain why you need all this memory - isn't it just there for saving game info, which i wouldn't have thought would take up so much room?
- Is there a best (cheapest) place to buy them - sticky said about £300 quid but is that still current pricing?
- Am i going to get ballbagged by a PS4 coming out in the next few weeks?
- HDMI cable separate?

[FlickingTheVeeS]

I got mine from asda 6 weeks ago, think it was £219 if u buy a game, thought it was a good price. think 80G is plenty.

[WeirdNeville]

I believe the 'slim' PS3 is 120Gb now.
You do need the space, but 80 or 120Gb is adequate. Games install to the HDD Which eats space, then games saves and downloadable content take up more room. You can also download films and music to it. There is an add on box called Play TV so you can record digital telly to PS3, that eats space too! Luckily they made it easy to switch out for a bigger hard drive, it's just a standard lap top hard disk in there. I have a 500Gb one which is really overkill. 80 or 120 will be fine for starters.

The HDMI cable I believe isn't included in the box. I got mine from cables 2 u for under £10 - don't spend £20 or more on a marked up cable, you won't see any difference in quality.
As for the best deals- try kelkoo or pricerunner to see what you should be paying.

[RizzoTheRat]

The older chunky ones are very easy to swap the hard drive (loads of guides on line but any 5400rpm 2.5" SATA drive should work), think it's a lot tricker on the slim. If you're only likely to be having one or 2 games on the go at a time you really don't need the hard drive space, I picked up a second hand 40GB for about £180 with a warrenty from Game, thinking I'd change the drive for a bigger one, but with only 2 or 3 games installed I'm not using a fraction of the space.

I use it a lot as a media player but keep the files on my PC and stream it with PS3 Media Server http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/ which works really well and happily plays 720p MKV files.

[redtwin]

A £2 HDMI cable off Ebay works just fine on mine, you lot paying a tenner, must be made of money!!. I suppose I might be missing out on the fine detail of a leaf on a tree, but to be honest I don't pay much attention to trees when I am unloading a full AK47 magazine into a baddie's head.

I have an 80GB fatty and it only gets full when I have lots of game demos downloaded and try downloading HD movie trailers etc. I also stream direct from my PC so no need to load movies directly onto the PS3.

[eybic]

I have a 60gb one (I think) and about 12 games, the memory is full so when I get a new game I have to delete old data. I will be putting a bigger HD in it. I called GAME the other day or it might have been Gamestation and they offered me a 250gb one for £275 or a 120gb for £250.

Edited by eybic on Thursday 8th April 08:32

[WeirdNeville]

eybic said:

I have a 60gb one (I think) and about 12 games, the memory is full so when I get a new game I have to delete old data. I will be putting a bigger HD in it. I called GAME the other day or it might have been Gamestation and they offered me a 250gb one for £275 or a 120gb for £250.

The whole console?
You can buy a compatible Hard disc Drive with 500Gb for under £50 on ebuyer. It's a doddle to swap it over, all you need is an external USB hard disc to back up your PS3 to and then restore to after the swap, so you can just borrow one for the swap.