The Post in Which Todd Lands a PS3

For the last couple weeks I've been talking up to my wife how good Bill thinks MLB '08 is on the PS3. She doesn't care, but it gets the whole PS3 conversation rolling. So, of course, while at Bill's this weekend we made a point of playing the game and I made a point of saying, "Like, this is so awesome," over and over again. (I'm subtle that way.) I didn't expect much to come of it, but much to my surprise, with our anniversary being yesterday, Angie gave me the green light to procure a Playstation 3. Now, we really don't need a PS3 in our house, but I'm also not exceptionally stupid, so I jumped on it, also picking up a copy of MLB '08: The Show last night. My thanks to Bill for helping me drive that "need" home.

Now, I haven't really played any of MLB '08 yet, but I'll get some impressions up once I do. I will say that the PS3 is mostly a marvelously designed piece of hardware and it's an exceptional Blu-ray Disc player. The speed with which it boots and loads discs, relative to our Sony BDP-301, is remarkable (and a relief) and the thing is unbelievably quiet. Love it.

I did run into a couple of things I don't like, though. One, the Sony BD remote (sold separately) is Bluetooth only. Which means almost no universal remote on the market is going to control this thing, and certainly not my Harmony 688. There is a Nyko remote that includes an IR USB adapter that I may pick up for it, but still, it's disappointing that Sony either didn't realize or didn't care that this thing will be a lot of people's primary Blu-ray player and include an IR receiver (like the Xbox 360 has). The other problem is that you can't utilize the component and HDMI outputs at the same time. Since I'm set up to send an HDMI signal to my TV and a component signal to my video projector, this omission isn't insurmountable, but it is a pain. Regardless, the rest of the unit is so good, I'll live happily with that particular misfire.

Hopefully I'll be able to really dig into MLB '08 by the end of the week. I've got some all-day and into the evening work events this week, so we'll see. Based on the one game I played at Bill's this weekend, however, I have to agree with Bill that this is the best baseball game I've seen in years.