Goodbye, PS3, It Was A Fun Seven Years

Last year was a sad year. Sure, I got some new consoles and handhelds, which is always fun, but I also said goodbye to my Wii, my Xbox 360 and my Nintendo DS, all replaced by newer, more expensive machines. Lots of good memories there, lots of good times to say goodbye to. My PS3, however, lingered on.

Know that I'm ruthless when it comes to old consoles. Given my line of work - and a finite number of AV ports in my house - I have to be. Same goes for old games; as fantastic as so many PS3 games were, I have so many new games coming in (especially since I do a lot of PC indie stuff) that I don't have the time to replay old titles even I wanted to.

So from the day I got my PS4, aside from a Yakuza 4 binge, I didn't play anything on my PS3. Didn't even turn it on. And yet despite my ruthlessness, it remained, plugged into my main TV in my main gaming room, waiting for the day that its last hurrah - Persona 5 - was released. I was that ready.

This week, that plan went right out the window. The game, one I am so excited for I kept a console for it, is also coming to PS4. So I'll be getting it on that.

It's already been moved into the living room to serve as a Netflix machine for my kids, which means it probably has only a few weeks/months left to live before its controller is smashed and its buttons filled with the kind of hellish paste that only juice, cereal and snot can combine to form.

Before you go then, PS3, I'd like to say goodbye. And thank you. And maybe sorry for subjecting you to such an undeserved fate. I never played you as much as my Xbox 360, but the games I did play on Sony's console were certainly some of the most memorable. I'll never forget the colour palette of the village battle in Uncharted 2, grinding my fingers to a bloody mess on Gran Turismo 5, gasping in horror/delight at The last Of Us or drifting through Journey with a very kind stranger.

I'd also like to thank you for the little things. Your XMB menu system is still the best around, a fast and logical means of getting to every setting and program you need to get to in the shortest amount of time. Your controller batteries were a blessing (even if the controller wasn't). And your boot-up sound was maybe the classiest of all time.

I remember one of my first "assignments" at Kotaku was to cover the console's launch in Sydney in early 2007. The launch was a disaster, as it had been everywhere else, and it looked for all the world like Sony had a dud console on their hands. The $1000 I'd spent to get my hands on one (living in Australia has its drawbacks) seemed like the worst investment I'd ever make.

Yet here I am now, writing a teary farewell. What a difference seven years - and a procession of classic video games - can make.