Grandma's Playstation 3

It happened Wednesday night; the realization that she finally had enough money. Sometime during her daily ritual of going over the bills and balancing the checkbook, something clicked. It didn't take much guessing to wonder what she meant when she said aloud, hunched over a calculator: "holy shit.... I could actually DO this.."

The next morning, she fucking did it.

She chose the 60GB version PS3 along with Resistance: Fall of Man and Genji: Days of the Blade. The reviews seem to agree with her first choice but not her second. No matter, though- she had seen the demos and knew what she wanted. Later that day she bought the necessary component input cables and an optical audio cable for the surround sound as well as another surge protector so her Wii and PS3 wouldn't be connected to some cheap ungrounded extension cord (her other surge protector had filled up some time ago.) She made the decision early, "if I'm going to do this I'm going to do it right."

When we brought it home, it took me a little while to hook up everything so all the wires were guided elegantly behind the two matching console towers through plastic tubing. We turned it on and set up her account to a surprisingly identical profile as she uses on her XBox 360. So... predictably enough, if you want to add Grandma to your friends list, her Online ID is OGHC.


She browsed the Playstation Store a bit and ended up buying flOw because it "looked pretty." She also got some demos for Lemmings and Go! Sudoku. Just as she had done on the Wii when she first explored around the system, she popped open the internet browser and checked her e-mail; just for the "because I can" factor of it all. The only she HASN'T done yet is set up her PSP for the Remote Play feature.


It's so incredibly shiny :)

She was almost afraid to start playing Resistance: Fall of Man because, as she puts it: "look, God of War 2 is coming out NEXT WEEK. It's almost HERE!! I'm playing that goddamn game the second I get a hold of it. I can't just play two games at the same time and really enjoy them, you know? Rayman is almost done; I can still play Wii Sports whenever because it's not a story based game. I'm done with Lost Planet. So if I start playing Resistance or Genji, I know I'm going to stop playing them when GoW2 comes out, and then I don't know if I'd start them up again. I just don't work that way!"


And yet, when I got home from work on Saturday, I found her ass-deep into Resistance, swearing at Chimera and rattling off names of weapons she hated that I hadn't yet known about, again. As is usually the case, she's ahead of me. She's ahead of me on all the Wii games except Excite Truck, and my Wii Sports skill levels are embarrassingly low compared to hers. Evan sent her the codes for Alien Hominid HD and Worms for the XBox 360 and she had to get even the most minor achievement before I could. What can I do! I've been working, dammit :)

This morning she played Texas Hold 'em on her 360, added some more friend codes that came in from you folks on her Wii, and then played Resistance for a while. Her distribution of playing time on each system is sort of amusing actually; I've even accused her of doing it on purpose so as to not hurt the system's "feelings" but she insists she just plays whatever the hell she feels like playing at the moment.

And that brings me to my next point.

When typing this post and the Wii post last time, I almost felt as though I was acting as a Nintendo or Sony apologist; lighting skipping my words around everything being said about both companies at the moment to avoid triggering an outbreak of fanboyistic hate-mail. That's the state of things that has been created in this manufactured and illusionary "console war" that we all bought into over the past year. But then I came to my senses.

I will not apologize for Grandma wanting a Wii and a PS3 since E3 2006. I hate that I feel as though I need to. She just wants to play great games, guys; she couldn't give a sh*t about corporate politics and projected competition, with one notable exception.

So here it is, Grandma's message to Sony:

"Alright, Sony. I bought your system. It cost me $850 when all was said and done, with games, cables, taxes and all. Eight hundred and fifty FUCKING dollars. That's a lot of goddamn money for me, I hope you understand. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go hungry or anything, but it was quite a long time before that kind of cash was available. I think, however, that it was worth the wait. Do you know why I bought it? Because of David Jaffe and Cory Barlog and Alex and Max and Jennifer and everyone I met in Santa Monica last year. Those people know what they're doing. They're damn good at what they do. I did not buy it because of Ken Kutaragi's opinion of the XBox 360. I don't fucking care. I love my XBox 360. I did not buy it because of Peter Moore of Microsoft's opinion of the Wii. I love my Wii. Are you noticing a pattern? I DON'T CARE WHAT ABOUT EXECUTIVES' OPINIONS OF RIVAL COMPANIES. All I care about is that they spend less time fucking bitching at each other and spend more time giving the developers what they need to make great games.

The money I paid was an investment into your ability to "wow" me. I think you can do it. I truly believe that! But goddammit, if you fuck this up for the developers, (and I think I speak for a lot of people when I say this) there's going to be hell to pay. Now on to the gaming! I got a PS3 motherfuckers!!"

Game on!