Sooo I finally bought a PS3 yesterday. MGS4 did it (I basically bought a PS2 just for MGS3, so this was inevitable). My local GameStop was sold out completely (the guy there said he won't get any new PS3's until the new 80GB model comes out end of August). MediaMarkt still had one MGS4 bundle left so I took this one.

First impressions:
  • OMG its huge! Ok, power supply is integrated, but the 360 looks tiny compared to this thing.
  • I was actually planning to wait for the white PS3 (black entertainment devices are plain ugly IMHO) but it looks like it will never arrive in Europe.
  • System and WLAN setup was fast and flawless.
  • Surprisingly, picture quality is worse on my TV then my 360. I have an 2 year old 32" LCD Sony Bravia, and have the PS3 connected through HDMI. The 360 is connected through VGA. There's a lot of edge aliasing going on in the PS3 picture. I suspect that's because the VGA connection runs at the native display resolution (1280x768 or so), while the 720p HDMI connection has a non-native display resolution so that the TV's scaler kicks in. Basically looks the same like when I had connected the 360 through component. Still I would think that connecting one Sony device to another Sony device through a digital connection would generate a better picture.
  • During a game, the TV signal is lost from time to time (maybe once per hour for about 2 seconds). WTF? I've read about this in forums but thought this would only happen with some obscure TV's. Again this is a Sony TV and a Sony console. This definitely didn't happen when I had my 360 running through HDMI.
  • The XMB looks slick and feels much more responsive compared to the 360's dashboard.
  • Way too many system settings... half of which don't interest me at all (mouse sensitivity???)
  • The system didn't notify me that a software update is available. How is a typical user supposed to notice that he isn't uptodate?
  • Not impressed by the web browser, feels terribly slow and unusuable without a mouse...
  • Downloading the new firmware took FOREVER (20 minutes or so?), and displayed another progress bar for installation which took another couple of minutes. I don't remember waiting for more then 3 minutes for a system update on the 360...
  • MGS4 starts: ugh more installation... this isn't funny.
  • Start screen with all those little flowers looks REALLY messy on my TV...
  • Ok, WTF is this David Hayter interview shit before starting a new game?
  • Hmm, ingame graphics isn't quite as impressive as I remember from the trailers...
  • Snake's character model looks really great though.
  • Adaptive camo is nice.
  • 2 hours later...
  • MGS4 doesn't know whether it want's to be a shooter or a sneaker... definitely too much emphasis on guns and shooting, which would be fine with me if shooter controls wouldn't be horribly broken, getting out of that abandoned hotel with the hot chick's team was an extremely frustrating experience
  • story didn't exactly grab me so far... cutscenes are cringe-worthy when they try to be funny
Guess MGS4 needs to grow on me. When I launched MGS3 I was immediately fascinated and couldn't stop playing. This didn't happen so far with MGS4. Will post more impressions when I finished the game.