Just touch up the Vita a little and use that as the controller, it'd be cool by me. The Wii U pad is way too big and the Dual Shock design sucks.

Yeah, cause that worked out so well this generation...

This might not be widely remembered but PS3 was supposed to come out the spring of 06 but they had to delay the release because of a blu-ray diode shortage.

Maybe they're all set to go and they're just waiting for MS to annouce a date and price point, so they can beat both.

Yeah, I can't imagine they'd have time to change specs or make any sweeping changes based on what MS announces. I think Jabroni is right. It's probably just date and price they're watching. They don't want to come out at $200 more than MS's console again.

Sony is offering a PS+ deal. buy 12 months, get 3 months free. This is the standard deal they offer every now and then. If you have a 12 month card (like from the Target price mistake) that will work to get the 15 months as well.

I recently got a AC3 PS3 bundle from warehouse deals for a great price. It was supposed to come with a 30 days plus trial. Just pulled it out to redeem it today and it seems someone at Amazon slipped a 1 year sub in there instead. Woo-hoo! 15 more months for free!

Sorry, I need to vent a little...I'm an unhappy PS3 owner today. My son was playing Uncharted 3 when the system shut itself off. I turned it on and it said the system wasn't shutdown properly and needed to do the restore or whatever. I hit OK and it shut off again. Now it seems to be full on YLOD. I can't even eject the disk.

This is a 40GB fat PS3 which is actually a replacement unit that Sony sent me back in August for my original PS3 which would lock up while playing blu-rays. I paid $100 for the repair work. Of course, the warranty on that unit was only 90 days so I'm probably SOL now and will have to pay another $100. Should I call Sony and complain? This unit has been used very little, probably only a few hours every weekend. And if they send me a different unit as a replacement, I'm screwed because I haven't made a backup recently. Ugh.

They're very receptive and helpful on their phone line. I'm not sure they'll do anything for you, but absolutely I'd give them a call and check. I'd be pissed as well -- 90 days is not enough of a guaranty for a $100 service. I wouldn't be surprised if they make some sort of accommodation for you.
As I posted above, they will give you a "recertified" Slim PS3 for $99.99 (including shipping) if you send in a complete first gen console. If you're given the choice, go with that over another repair. The new systems come with a one-year warranty. I'm getting mine in a couple of days; I can't wait!

That's why I went ahead and took the refurb slim offer from them.

Awesome, I think I'm going to go for it, my first time. Can I buy the download code off Amazon and then enter it to get the 3 months free or do I need to buy direct from the PS3 website?

Also, how long does the 13 for 13 deal last?

I would think it would work, but to be safest, you should buy a $50 code on Amazon, fund your wallet with that and then buy the year on the PSN Store instead.
It will be gone with the store update tomorrow. Buy now. The PSN Store is online now.

Thanks for the tips. I think I'll go for it tonight. Will it be obvious in the PSN store when I login via my PS3 how to get the three months free?

Which games are worth it in the 13 for 13? I don't like long, involved games and would like pick-up-and-play stuff, might even be nice to have something my wife would enjoy or tolerate to be in the same room with (or our toddler daughter, even). My tastes are BFBC2, Borderlands 2, Legend of Zelda, Boom Blox, World of Goo, Pac-Man, tower defense games, and retro games like Mega Man III, Contra, and Elevator Action. My wife really likes World of Goo, Boom Blox, Words With Friends, Super Mario Galaxy, creepy mood games like Eternal Darkness, and puzzle games.

You don't have to do anything. When you purchase a 12 month sub in the store, it will automatically be extended for another 3.

Get Unfinished Swan. That's a no-brainer at this price. Shank 2 was once free for PS Plus, but it's a fun fighting platformer (I wouldn't call it a Contra-clone and it's not retro, but if you like that sort of game, you'll like it as well). If you've never played Psychonauts, it's a phenomenal PS2 platformer game -- it's not upgraded with HD graphics or trophy support, but it's still well worth playing. Warp is an action/puzzle game your wife might like.

I've been watching reviews and I think Unfinished Swan will be great for her and I'll pick up Psychonauts for me. I really don't know about Warp, though. I think she would really like the puzzle element but the violence would really turn her off.

I think you can turn the gore off. Honestly, I'm not a huge fan of that game anyway. It's pretty frustrating.

If you've never played a Hot Shots Golf game before, they're really fun, cute and relaxing. The full game plus all the DLC for $6.25 is a really good deal. It's not an especially deep game, but to fire up for a quick round, it's quite fun in a casual way. It never gets dated and I like it more than Tiger Woods Golf honestly.

Feb 20th???

http://kotaku.com/5980715/is-sony-go...on-february-20

The video makes me slightly concerned that the buttons on the controller won't have the colors on them, like the PSP/Vita. It may seem like nitpicking, but when you're prompted to press buttons in games (and that happens a lot now in games), having them colored is a big help in processing them faster.

Exciting if they indeed announce it then.

As absolutely idiotic as it is that the PS3's HDD is not transferable, leaving you with possibly no recourse if your system suddenly dies, I must say that I'm a big fan of the online game save storage and auto-backup PS Plus feature. With my new system, I was able to restore every single game save I've made since 2007 in about ten minutes with a single button press. Awesome. Now onto the more daunting task of re-downloading 300 GB worth of game content.

Speaking of which, did anyone else notice a huge improvement in download speed with the Slim? It's still by no means "fast", but it seems worlds better than before when a simple mandatory patch could take a half hour to download. It might be a function of my new HDD (I'm very proud to say that it was dead easy to swap the included 160 GB HDD with a 750 GB that I bought off Amazon -- the only time-consuming part was finding an available Flash drive to put the PS3 System Update on). Either way, system or HDD, it's moving much faster than before. I love the new Slim. It's so quiet and elegant. Much prefer it over the newer Super Slim model that looks like a portable CD player, circa 1987.

My PS3 is a slim and I think the downloads go really slow.

So I got Playstation Plus and picked up a few of the 13 for 13 and while it was great to get some deals, I have to admit I'm feeling some buyer's remorse. Maybe I'm not understanding everything I can do with Playstation Plus. Help me out?

You'll get free games every month; usually one of those is still a full priced retail game. It really comes down to whether or not they offer the types of games you like for free.

It's mostly a coupon club of sorts, but one nice feature is being able to back up your saves online (including copy-protected saves). It may come in handy if something happens to your system.

1. "Free" games that rotate throughout the year, both for PS3 and Vita.
2. Additional discounts on games, dlc and other content (themes, avatars, etc).
3. Additional free content (themes, avatars, dlc)
4. Timed full-game demos
5. Advanced release of demos, betas, etc (sometimes)
6. Cloud saves
7. Auto-download of patches, auto sync of trophies and auto install of downloaded games, demos, etc. This happens overnight based on a schedule you define

It's worth it for me for 1 and 2, but the rest are really nice features.