PS3 500 GB God of War Ascension Legacy Bundle

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Unfortunately, my aging PS3 finally bit the YLOD dust which is what happens to early generation PS3 units that tend to overheat easily. My PS3 gamely held out through long recent sessions of Far Cry 3 and Skyrim, but finally chose to cash in its chips

Fortunately, it did so the weekend before the GoW4 Acension bundle was released.

That's how I found myself ripping open my new console's packaging, earlier this afternoon. (Thank you, Amazon, for guaranteed launch day delivery!)

Of course, after 7 years as one of the best all round multimedia hubs/gaming consoles of all time, it is hard to say much more about the PS3.

Yes, I was impressed by the compactness of this super-slim version.

Yes, I actually like the red color which isn't as pink as the photos suggested.

Yes, I love the quieter fan and its cool operating temperature.

Yes, I hate the new spring loaded disk tray*

*Although: this loading style is a lot safer when things go wrong. I had a scare when my old PS3 died with my rental game still in it. Luckily it lived long enough to eject the disk.

With that out of the way, let me focus on the question that I struggled with while making this purchase decision:

Should I wait for the PS4 or buy this PS3 bundle? Or even better should I wait for a price drop on the PS3?

Here's how I answered this for myself. Hopefully this will aid your own decision (even should you come to a different conclusion than I did.)

I chose to buy this PS3 500GB bundle at this time, because:

#1. The PS4 will likely not be widely/easily available until June of 2014.

Remember that the PS3 followed a similar tortuous path from announcement to availability. And, note that not even a box was actually displayed at the PS4's announcement.

Updated June 12: Well, I have my preorder in for a PS4. Fingers crossed on whether I'll get mine on launch day. PS3s were going for absurdly high prices for a while after launch. Hopefully, Sony has planned ahead this time :)

#2. The PS4 will possibly launch with an absurdly high price and debatable quality.

The PS3's launch price was around twice that of the PS2's (though Sony sold them at a loss), and initial versions also had questionable quality (e.g., heat issues.) The PS4 with its stock PC-style architecture might keep prices lower, but it likely won't be cheap, and likely will be plagued by early adopter woes. It might even be June 2015 before things stabilize.

Updated June 12: The launch price is much lower than I'd feared. Thank you, Sony!

#3. The PS3 platform has a few more years of life left

Early on, the PS4 will be limited by available content and might even lack backwards compatibility. In the meantime, the PS3 is an excellent bluray player, a highly capable streaming media platform, and I can imagine at least another couple of years worth of gameplay out of my current stockpile. Not to mention that new PS3 hardware (super slim models, rad colors, and Hard disk sizes), and big name games (GoW Ascension, AC4, new Skyrim DLC, etc.) are still being launched for this platform.

#4. This particular bundle is actually not bad

While not a killer deal, this bundle is nothing to sneeze at. We are talking about a brand new game from a major franchise, a rather nice limited edition color with matching controller (a decent red rather than a vague pink), 5 additional games, and a 500GB hard drive.

#5. When you gotta go, you gotta go!

The price of the 500GB PS3 will dip in the coming 8 months, possibly landing near 2012 Black Friday prices.

However: My PS3 is dead. Neither the price cuts on the PS3, nor the PS4, are here. I need to watch Blurays and play games today.

In conclusion, I must say that it was hard to come to this decision. If the PS4 is released next month and is dirt cheap, or if the price of this bundle is halved, then I'll kick myself.

But, for now, I'm enjoying this bundle!

As for *GoW Ascension* the graphics are simply amazing, and the sound quality is awesome. The game is unabashedly about its gorgeous combat, and does not even make a feeble attempt at dredging up a story. My wait for any hint of a story is eased by simply enjoying this game as a spectacle.

As others have stated none of the games come with cases or printed game material. And the DLC download coupon expires on Mar 31.

Sorry, gotta run I have to continue my date with Kratos and the Furies.

Happy Gaming!

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Having been an Xbox owner for the last few years and I wanted to pick up a PS3 to check out all of the exclusives I had missed, especially God of War, so it seemed like this bundle was made just for me, since it included all of the GoW games, and it was freaking RED. The hard drive is very spacious, much larger than the 120 gig one I have on my Elite Xbox, very sturdy construction, and I am glad they did away with the old style disc drive and have installed a top loading drive. This is great as I never liked the old one, not to mention my son broke my ex's PS3 after he jammed two discs in there.

There is one thing I do not like however. The games themselves do not come with proper cases, just card board sleeves. I could of let this slide for the Saga set, but Ascension was just released, it was the main attraction for this bundle! I suppose some people don't care and don;t get me wrong, the games are amazing. I just personally like to have cases for easy storage. Still, I would recommend this to anyone who wants an attractive PS3 with a large hard drive and A LOT of games to come with it.

Buy PS3 500 GB God of War Ascension Legacy Bundle Now

First off, the value with this bundle is excellent, the entire god of war series + a collectible console for 299.99 is great. Console works as advertised and is not nearly as loud as some people will tell you. You can hear the disk drive working in a very quiet room but its NOWHERE as bad as the first gen Xbox 360. Now onto the bad and the reasons for the 4 star rating.

I was quite upset that the god of war games that came with the bundle came in cheap sleeves and not in actual cases. It totally throws off your game collection if displayed on a shelf or rack. Unacceptable.

The new top loading disk drive won't win any awards, it feels cheap and like it would easily break if you close it too fast or too hard. Although I'm sure it could take some punishment it just feels like a HUGE step down from the auto disk loaders of the previous models.

Overall if you're looking for a new ps3 this bundle is the way to go. The pros outweigh the cons when it comes to value.

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bought this to replace my old PS3 that finally started to wear out after many years and many military deployments. I love pretty much everything about it, I'm not very picky. The only thing that kind of upset me was what a few others have mentioned. All the games are in cardboard sleeves! I'm still kind of old school and love to have all my blurays, dvds, and games displayed on shelves. I'm pretty upset I spent 350 dollars and they couldn't supply me with plastic cases.

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This is a great PS3 & the red is amazing, but for $350 it is a bummer to get cardboard game cases and downloads for two games. Also the GOW 3 case says 3D game but it is not only COO & GOS are 3D.

PS3 System = 5*

Game Collection= 3* ( games are great but but cardboard cases blow)