japanese PS3 should I buy?

I"m gonna wait on buying a PS3 till they come out with a version that does everything and instead of it being dropped less than 6 months after being introduced

Look at it. They released 20, 40, 60 and 80 gig HD versions of the PS3.

The 20 and 60 gig versions are no longer being made, the 40 and 80 have different processors and the 40 gig doesnt' have backwards compatability with the PS2 games.

 

Well the features are going down with every revision, I wouldn't wait too long.

 

yeah it's ridiculous, I remember playing german version of Turok, you were killing robots lol

 

One thing to consider is if backwards compatibility is really worth the hassle. The majority of my PS2 games are 2D, and look like ass on an HDTV. For me, it's a no brainer (and a PS2 takes up little real estate).

 

yeah, but there goes playing ps2 games via dvi/hdmi with smoothing, even though it doesn't make your image that much better, it is an improvement.

 

MGS2 looks absolutely great on my 80GB PS3. It's probably not worth $100 extra, but it would be if you don't already own a PS2.

 

It is a gigantic step backwards for most of my games though. It cannot and does not work with pixels. The best thing you can do with a pixel is leave it the fuck alone.

 

+1. The only game PS2 2D I have that is playable on the PS3 is Metal Slug 5. All the other games look like fucking cack (Metal Slug, King of Fighters, Samurai Spirits Zero, compilations, etc...).

 

You can turn the smoothing off though. I'm not sure why they'd still look bad.

 

In a lot of cases, b/c you're playing a 240p game on a display that can't handle a 240p signal. I know at one point the PS3 wouldn't output 240p. All games displayed in this mode would be forced into 480i (this is why it looks crappy). I hear a firmware update fixed that, but I don't know. I now only have the 40GB model, which has no backwards compatibility and there are no games that support 240p that I'm aware of. I guess I could buy a PS1 game and try that on my RGB monitor. I'm lazy though.

In the case of Metal Slug 3-4 (and I think 5) the games are interlaced by default (they're only interlaced, actually) which generally looks better on a 31khz display. Even high end TVs are awful at converting the 240p signal to something usable, as they don't really expect to get one. The PS2 or 3 is much better at doing this. Since HDTV is the wave of the future, even the majority of PS2 2D games use an interlaced + filtered display by default. There are only a handful of 2D games with their "proper" resolution available. For those that care, Metal Slug 6 is actually a high res game (backgrounds are high res) although the character sprites are of course the re-used low res ones.

If you want a great example of the atrocities the magical filtering that everyone loves to use is really capable of, get one of the latter Sega Ages 2500 titles (Gunstar Heroes treasure box is a must have anyway). They generally give the user the ability to turn filtering on and off, as well as change the display mode from 240p, 480i, 480p, and 480p with fake scanlines. If you have an RGB monitor, it's even better. I should bust out the tripod and take some pictures.

 

Ah true. I have a CRT HD TV, so a lot of the problems people are facing with upscaling etc. don't seem to affect me, or at least, not to a noticeable effect.

 

Depends on your view on the subject. There's basically two evils: interlacing the screen (fuzzy), or line-doubling (blocky). You'll get the second w/ your HDTV. You could always get an XRGB2 and turn on the fake scanlines. It will look more like the original. It will at least give you a stronger signal for your old systems if you wire them up an RGB cable. It's overboard for some people. I have one though. My arcade monitor requires it (at the moment) and it comes in handy if I want to play old shit on the flat screen.