Finally...

Well the day finally came. I can now say I own a PlayStation 3. Oh and a PlayStation 5. I'm still not 100% sure how I came to own two new consoles in the space of a week, but I am certain my bank balance has been depleted.

I think it all started at the beginning of last week. I was idly flicking through eBay looking for cheap PlayStation 3 consoles (a console I've never owned) and I left a bid on a 120gig slim model in expectation of being comprehensively outbid in the coming 7 days. 

Later the same day I was looking through my Twitter feed and came across the account @PS5StockAlertUK which seemed a legitimate and reliable source for locating PlayStation 5 stock. I started to follow them and turned on notifications in hope more than expectation. The next day I began to see alerts from @PS5StockAlertUK coming through. I opened up my phone and saw a tweet stating stock was available from Smyth's toys. 

When I followed the link I expected the usual greyed out "Out of stock" button PlayStation 5 hunters have become so familiar with, but instead I saw a green button that said "Pre-order". All I can say is that I've never typed my credit card details so fast in my life.

Once the confirmation email came through I experienced a sense of combined elation and confusion. I seemed to be a step closer to a PlayStation 5 but wasn't sure what the pre-order entailed. As it transpired it meant I had to wait 5 days for stock to be allocated to the pre-order, and the delivery confirmation came on Friday afternoon. By Saturday morning I was the proud owner of a PS5. 

It is a great console and the controller in particular is a big step forward. The graphics are crisp and look glorious in UHD. Strangely the free tech demo/game Astro's Playground is one of the best games for the console so far. I can't warm to Spider Man Miles Morales and I have yet to really explore Ratchet and Clank or Sackboy, I've bought two or three games digitally as they were cheaper that way. Why isn't this the norm? Does the cost of maintaining servers really outweigh the cost of making and shipping physical discs? I guess it must as it is rare to find a digital game cheaper than ordering the disc from Amazon.

In the meantime I had completely forgotten about the PlayStation 3 until I received the notification that I had won it on Monday morning. My winning bid was matched by another bidder who had made around 20 bids raising in £1 increments. I'm pretty sure these bids were the seller of their accomplice bidding me up, but as you can no longer see usernames, eBay have made it impossible to tell if you're being subject to Shill bidding.

Anyway, the PS3 duly arrived and was set up. The console itself is pretty clean and tidy and once I had performed a factory reset and updated the operating system it seemed quite happy. I don't have any games for it, but I tried out an PlayStation game and it worked OK. 

However, the controllers that came with the console were DISGUSTING. I can only image they were used for many, many hours by a sweaty teenager who never washed his hands. I really don't want to know what the strange orange substance dried into the seams actually consisted
of but I imagine seamen is in the mix somewhere.

In order to feel safe holding the controllers I had to open them up and wash the shell and then scrub the seams with isopropyl alcohol. I'm pretty used to the filthy condition in which other people keep their games consoles, but these controllers were on another level. Once reassembled, I tested them and immediately ordered a new, clean replacement that won't require jabs to handle. 

One accessory I bought immediately was a memory card reader so that I could transfer my old PlayStation saves to the PS3. Unfortunately the card reader won't read third party cards, so I had to adopt a workaround to transfer some saves. I used a PlayStation 2 to read the third party card and transfer the contents to an official one. Once the official card was in the reader for the PS3 it transferred the old saves to the hard drive without any hassle.

I've ordered 10 or so games for the PS3 and look forward to being able to try it out. I have a lot of catching up to do with first party exclusive titles from this era as I was a 100% committed, dyed in the wool, Xbox 360 user between 2007 and 2014. Whilst I played Killzone on the PlayStation 2, I've not played its sequels or any of the Gran Turismo titles between 3 and Sport. I might as well get acquainted with the PS3 as the kids don't seem to be letting go of the PlayStation 5 in a hurry.