My PS3 was in semi-regular use for far longer than any other console I've ever owned. I first got it in 2007, and I last trotted it out a few years ago to play Metal Gear Solid. It was the console I played most in middle school, as I got into the Uncharted games. It remained number one throughout high school as each new Call of Duty came out. In college, it was my Netflix machine
When I got back into the hobby after school, it was the vessel for big games I had missed, like The Last of Us. I got a PS4 in 2016, and stuck my PS3 in the t. But I've never let it get too far away. It's a necessary piece of tech in case I decide it's finally time to play Metal Gear Solid 4.
Will PS3 Games Finally Be Natively Available On PS5?
So, when I saw that well-known insider Jeff Grubb said that he had heard Sony was working on a backwards compatibility solution that would finally make software programmed for the PS3's unique firmware play nice with the PS5, I was happy. My PS3 takes up significantly more space than my PS4 and Xbox One, and about the same amount as my PS5 — a console I actually play.
The PS3 was never the most pleasing console to use. It was heavy enough to seem like the system architecture was assembled from literal brick-and-mortar. Its casing was made from jagged black plastic so hard I'm surprised it was never deployed as a weapon in a John Wick movie. The DualShock 3 was so flimsy — while simultaneously costing roughly three times as much as the previous generation's model — that I wouldn't be surprised if it single-handedly helped a generation of gamers get their controller-throwing tendencies under control. I've rarely felt as unambiguously good about mothballing a console as I did with this one.
The PlayStation 3's Long, Long Life
And yet, nearly eight years since it ended its tenure as my primary gaming device, my PS3 is still sticking around. I have no idea where my Wii U or Wii or GameCube are, but I could get my PS3 set up in five minutes. As the excitement over Sony finally seeming to make progress on backward compatibility indicates, history has rendered the PS3 invaluable. Where else are you going to play Metal Gear Solid 4? Where else are you going to play the Resistance games? Where else are you going to play the Ratchet & Clank games, like Tools of Destruction, that never made it off the hardware (save through a higher tier PS Plus subscription that, even then, doesn't allow you to play it natively)?
Sometimes you hear stories about people who get away with terrible behavior at work because their skills are so essential, and rare, that they know they can't get fired. That's kind of how I feel about the PS3. This is a console I would be happy to never haul out of my t again, and if Sony finally manages to get backwards compatibility going, I can finally let it go.
