I just bought a PS3… now what?
You read that correctly: I just bought a PlayStation 3 in the year 2024. And I could not have done it without a close friend of mine being kind enough to snag one for me from a game store in a city I don’t live in anymore (you’re a real one, Balmory).
Anyway, my old local gamestore was having deals on PS3s for $50 and given the state of Sony’s attention to backwards compatibility (which is pretty much nonexistent), I thought now would be a perfect time to catch up on a library that has been mostly abandoned by Sony and bound to only the PS3. Not every game has gotten the remaster or remake treatment since this console’s release and our current gaming landscape doesn’t exactly lend itself well to game preservation.
Since the late 2000’s, the industry has distanced itself farther and farther from the concept of fully releasing a game on the physical game disc. Buying a game disc today and loading it into your desired game box almost always prompts a patch or update or sometimes straight up adds brand new modes that should have been there at launch (like New Game Plus). This standard has moved us away from games being ready right out of the box. And so it made a lot of sense to fully lean into having an all-digital collection for video games.
The idea of the eShop was cool for my 12-year old self when I found myself snowed in on Christmas break but really wanted New Super Mario Bros U and realized I could just download it straight from the internet. But in 2024, eShops and digital gaming markets, while convenient, have proven they are bound to shut down eventually.
Chungking Express (1994) Dir. Wong Kar Wai
Maybe I’m just being pessimistic with rose-tinted nostalgia goggles, but I think I mainly wanted a PS3 just so I could access a time when games were a little more “ready to go” straight out of the box and get away from the world of remakes, remasters, rereleases and simply enjoy games for being a straight up video game and not some technological marvel with an Oscar-worthy narrative and multi-billion dollar water graphics.
When talking about the PS3 and this era of gaming, I think it’s also easy for me to come off as “games today suck” and “games back then rocked”, I don’t think that way at all. But the current state of the games industry has forced my hand a bit to try and preserve the era of games I grew up with.
Xbox more or less has backwards compatibility down unlike any of the other big 3. Most Xbox 360 games are still alive and kicking on the Xbox Series X|S. In other words, if you have a copy of Sonic Generations, Max Payne 3, and Dead to Rights from your childhood and pop the disc into your Xbox- IT STILL WORKS. But I said *most* games will work on the Xbox as not every game made its way into Xbox’s backwards compatibility initiative to continue being sold on the Xbox Marketplace. So that means games like Stranglehold and Spider-Man Shattered Dimensions are abandoned to the consoles of yesteryear like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
So because my Xbox Series S already has the 360 imbedded into its DNA, I didn’t see a reason to reacquire something like an Xbox 360. As for Sony, they haven’t put in as much effort to really uphold its legacy games outside of remakes and remasters like Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection.
So yeah, I chose the PlayStation 3 over the Xbox 360… in 2024. Partly because of preservation, partly because it made more sense than getting a 360 when I already own an Xbox Series S, and mostly just because I wanted a console that can play a physical copy of Stranglehold.
I used to collect retro video games way back in high school and it’s funny to see things come full circle: over the past year, I’ve reacquired a DSi, a Wii U, and a PS3- consoles I never thought I’d one day even think about collecting or repurchasing. But as gaming has become more and more distant from the concept of physical media and purchasing a game no longer equates to full ownership, it’s no wonder I ended up here.
In other words: I just really want to play Stranglehold (and you should too).
John Woo Presents Stranglehold (2007)
