Is that one of them Playstations you kids play?

So I got a PS3 today from a buuuddy, just loaned. So far, it's been a pretty painless experience. I have a little previous experience with PS3, but that can hardly be considered tapping even the tiniest bit of its functionality.

Things I don't hate

• Free shit. There is TONS of free shit that I've become accustomed to paying for with XBL. I don't know if it's from previous ownership, but I make a PSN ID (DeathCowZ), pick an icon from a pretty good sized list, varying from different games, all the way to the yellow turd, just so I can wonder why it's even an option. If somebody adds me, you'll see what I mean. What's even more strange, it comes in two other colors(green and another I forget).

• Something else that is pretty amazing, is the PSN Store. In a matter of about 10 seconds, I can pop into the store, and find a specific game. Thanks to an intelligently divided array of categories to search through, it's super quick and easy to visually scan through all of the items available. Little to no caching of images and pages. A welcome change from my 360 stopping, caching, then loading a little, and then the image, slowly eating away my valuable time.

• The customization comes off as simple and friendly, but at the same time a little too...restrictive. I can pick from a wide array of different themes from any number of games, and not only does this changes my background, it changes my icons, the colors and the sounds. But at the same time, it doesn't let me change my background independent of my icon and sound set. There might be a way around this, I'll continue to tinker.

• The overall streamlined feel of it is something I'm very fond of. From a glance at my XMB thing, I can see some demos download, I can see what time it is, some random facts scrolling, what date it is, very nifty. Then again, every other console does that with at least a button press, and a return to home screen at the most. The life with Playstation, which is as I though, the Wii's weather channel and news channel on the same page, but still a nifty feature. The UI feels very...Apple. Very user-friendly, but still with a good number of options for any amount of tweaking and changing of settings.

Playstation! More like Grillstation!

Things I'm not totally in love with:

• Game installs, really? I'm not on my pc. So when playing a demo of a game, there is no 2X blu-ray drive slowing it down, so why do I need to install it when the data is already on my drive? As for normal games, I understand that it is a necessary evil, till the next round of PS3 systems have faster blu-ray drives. It really doesn't bother me too much, but seems unnessecarry.
  

• The totally random disconnection from PSN. Not sure if it's just me, but as I remember my other buddy with a PS3 had this problem often himself. We chalked it up to the resident router being possessed by the spirits of over-marketing to gamers, but my good 'ol fashioned linksys WRT54G is giving me the same problem. Only a couple of times, but I hope it doesn't happen again.

• The physical dimensions of it, they're kinda confusing. It's almost like they took what would have made a perfect design, and then threw a few kitchen knives at it, lopping off random parts. The curve that it has on the top makes it practically impossible for me to put anything on top of it without fearing spill-age or toppling; one thing that also annoyed me about the 360 with it's strange concave build. It was tolerable, as anything that was knocked over just rolled to the center...for the most part.
  

• The same controller design. Really Sony? The EXACT same layout? Well, not exact, but outside of the PS button, some new lettering, and very slightly raised start and select buttons to make room for said PS button, it's the same as the dual-shock 2 that I've had for five years. Well, minus the wear and major tear that old beast has seen. There is nothing wrong with following a formula, but a little change or innovation would have been nice. Sixaxis doesn't count, since I have yet to play a game that supports it in any way.
  

• Trophies and how they are too little, too late. This is one of the biggest blunders that Sony has done with their otherwise magnificent console. Not the inclusion, but how late they are to the party, without ANY standardization. Does every game have a platinum trophy? How many bronze trophies can one game have? Does a platinum trophy have to be a "get all the other" unlock? Without a set of guidelines, there with a maximum, a minimum, and rules to follow, there is no way to quantitativly say "I have completed these two games and all of the goals that it set forth for me." and to compare that to any other piece of software for the system.

Overall, I've never had a problem with the PS3, I just didn't see that much appeal in it. Game for game, you can't beat the variety and number of games that you can only find on 360, while a few more independent and indie games have flourished on PS3(see flOw, everyday shooter) there haven't been enough major exclusives to warrant me even considering one. And still, there are only a literal handful of games I'd like to play, about 1/2 of them are download-only games. And lacking ownership of the system myself, I don't think I'll be getting them. The PS3 has potential, with God of War 3, the Team Ico game, and whatever few previous Sony exclusives that are still exclusives are left, could just push it over the "It's pretty ok..." to the "I NEED ONE".

Retail Games Played: Burnout Paradise for about three hours, MGS4 for about seven hours. Tinkered with the UI/PS Store to the extent that I'm content with it..

Pic taken from Gizmodo, please don't sue me!