40GB or 80GB. That is the question...

May 7, 2008 5:07 PM

I'm looking at buying a Playstation 3 pretty much only so I can have a really good Blu-ray player. It's highly unlikely I'll ever buy any PS3 games beyond GTA4, Rockband and maybe Little Big Planet. Given this, should I just buy the 40GB model of the console or are the extra features of the 80GB model (flash card reader, SACD support etc) worth the extra cash in the long run?
posted by Effigy2000 to technology (16 comments total)

80GB is the only one that can play PS2 games. Does that matter to you?
posted by ALongDecember at 5:13 PM on May 7, 2008

Yeah, the 40GB doesn't play PS2 games, many of which are excellent and cheaply obtained. If your financial situation is anything better than "sub-prime", I consider it a no-brainer. (If your financial situation is "sub-prime", consider getting a DS and some Chinese-made accessories)
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:19 PM on May 7, 2008

"80GB is the only one that can play PS2 games. Does that matter to you?"
posted by ALongDecember at 11:13 AM on May 8

Very unlikely I'll ever want to play PS2 games. As a Nintendo fan-boy the PS2 never attracted my attention and I doubt it ever will. That said, my partner is partial to some of the Singstar games but not so partial that she'll ever buy a copy of one of them. So does it matter to me? Not very much, no.
posted by Effigy2000 at 5:22 PM on May 7, 2008

You should be asking yourself this question.

My only additional input is that for $500 the new 80GB sku (out next month) will include MSG4 as well as the newish dual shock controller. But seeing that you're not into games, it doesn't really matter.
posted by wongcorgi at 5:37 PM on May 7, 2008

40Gb is fine. It's the most popular one now, and the ONLY one in some markets, so the 'missing' features are becoming more and more like oddities. Nothing new/important will use them.
posted by rokusan at 5:37 PM on May 7, 2008

Seems to me the extra disk space will, in the long run, turn out to be worthwhile. Anyone who's been around computers for very long soon learns that there's no such thing as "too much disk space".
posted by Class Goat at 5:41 PM on May 7, 2008

The 80GB doesn't play all PS2 games, and even those it does play it does not necessarily play perfectly.

And you can get a PS2 for the price difference between a 40 and 80GB model.

Lord knows the flash reader shouldn't be an issue. Just dump the file onto your pc and share it over the wireless, or dump it to a USB drive, or just get a USB flash reader.

Likewise, the storage space is a nonissue. You can dump any 2.5" hard drive you want into the PS3.

Finally, the 40GB has 2 USB ports instead of 4... but you can just plug in a hub.

Do you already have an SACD collection? If not, I cannot imagine why in a billion years you would pay for the 80GB.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:02 PM on May 7, 2008 [1 favorite]

Seems to me the extra disk space will, in the long run, turn out to be worthwhile. Anyone who's been around computers for very long soon learns that there's no such thing as "too much disk space".

It takes about an hour and $100 to swap in a 250 GB 2.5" SATA disk. It was the easiest hard drive upgrade I've ever done.
posted by b1tr0t at 7:03 PM on May 7, 2008

Also, if you like games like GTA4 and Metal Gear Solid, you might like Assassin's Creed. Amazon had a special on it (sold by Amazon, not Target) last week for $39 or so, and some brick and mortar shops still carry it at that price.
posted by b1tr0t at 7:18 PM on May 7, 2008

how to do the upgrade.
posted by b1tr0t at 7:22 PM on May 7, 2008

Oh yeah, Assassins Creed does kind of interest me, actually.

So the PS3's life in my living room will be pretty much exclusively as a Blu-ray player since at this stage there's basically 3 games I might own for it; four at the most. That's cool since Blu-ray is pretty much the only reason I want one. Dosen't sound like I'll need those extra features then, does it? But whereas I understand (and agree with) Class Goat's comment that there's no such thing as "too much disk space" (at least when it comes to PCs), I need to know;

If its only going to be there to play my DVDs and any Blu-ray discs I buy in the future, is there any forseeable reason to need an 80GB hard drive?
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:04 PM on May 7, 2008

The big reason I'd suggest the 80GB over the 40 is that while you don't think you'll be playing a lot of games on it now, you'll likely have it for a while. You've already identified three games this year that you'd like to buy for it. The thing about the PS3 and the 360 and the like is that they release tons of content for games (Rock Band will likely be putting out new tracks for you to enjoy for ages to come, and the more songs the better -- you will not want to delete them to make room).

Also, I understand that many PS3 games copy many of the assets over to your hard drive for quicker loading. So that's another thing to consider. I imagine in the long run you'd be happier if you got the 80 over the 40, because of it's flexibility with PS2 games (hey, just in case) and how long you'll probably be using your PS3.
posted by pazazygeek at 8:05 PM on May 7, 2008

If its only going to be there to play my DVDs and any Blu-ray discs I buy in the future, is there any forseeable reason to need an 80GB hard drive?

No. None at all.

pazazygeek, I'd suggest that they just get a PS2 if they want to play PS2 games. A real live PS2 isn't any more expensive than the bump from 40 to 80GB, and if you get a real PS2 you know that all of the PS2 guitar hero controllers will work, and every PS2 game will work.

Likewise, if they ever find themselves running out of disk space, they can just buy a bigger 2.5" drive and put it in at a much, much lower $/GB cost.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:12 PM on May 7, 2008

The only reason for the 80GB unit is partial hardware support of PS2 games. If you need the 80 for more disk space, your money is far better spent on a new hard drive. The drive is user upgradeable, sony even tells you how to do it.

The downside of the 80GB unit is that you have a few more chips inside. As a result, it draws a little more power, and runs a little hotter.

In Europe, you don't get any hardware emulation of PS2 and PS1 games, just software emulation. Most people seem to think the software emulation is crap. If Sony puts effort into building better software emulation, I suspect 40GB owners will finally get software emulation too.

GTA4 and Assassin's Creed take up around 4GB of space together. I'd like to run Linux on my machine and try out the vector units, so that's 10-20 GB of space gone. The PS3 is a media center PC, so I may move my videos and MP3s over to it. There goes the rest of my 250 GB disk. You can also download trial games, download-only games, and HD movie trailers
posted by b1tr0t at 8:20 PM on May 7, 2008

this is the drive I installed in my PS3.
posted by b1tr0t at 8:21 PM on May 7, 2008

Right well that pretty much answers that for me then. I'll save my pennies and buy the 40GB model and maybe upgrade the hard drive to a bigger size somewhere down the line, if I ever need to. Thanks for your help all!
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:32 PM on May 7, 2008