PS3 Slim Could Be Slower Than The Original!

By no means is this a fact but i thought it was interesting nonetheless. A few Youtube videos have surfaced the other day where someone was kind enough to go through the effort of comparing the two. Now human error is always likely to occur in such as situation, were both consoles started at the exact same time? were the games installed to the HDD? etc but it still raises interesting questions either way. The first video is a standard start up test, where the slim was slightly slower at booting up than the original ( as seen in the video below).

Click here to view the remaining comparison videos.

As you can see there is about a 4 second difference between the slim and original versions of the console, not a massive difference I hear you all scream but a difference all the same. Alas this was not the end of the testing as the Blu-Ray boot-up process was next on the list. I was actually very surprised at the deceptively lengthy 8 second difference between the two in this test. This is when I started to question what changes Sony had actually made to the console to make it more cost effective. You can catch the video below.

You might be thinking “well that’s that, the original must be faster” but strangely enough this may not be true as the PS3 slim wasn’t content to sit there and take a thrashing. In the next video the slim is shown to be faster where it counts, in the game department (we are all gamers first and foremost, naturally). Two games we all know and love were tested, Killzone 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum. Both the initial game loading process and level loading where faster on the “petit” PS3 slim, of course this doesn’t mean this is the case for all games but it certainly is an indication of what to expect.

In the end I guess it depends on what type of consumer you are, which will determine what you do with this information. As Sony never fail to remind us this is a console marketed to do “everything” and so it is not just pure gamers who will be purchasing Sony’s new interpretation of their console. That being said if you were to ask us which we prefer it would most certainly be faster load times (nothing like your immersion being snapped away from you by a loading screen ay?). Again it does make me wonder what differences reside underneath the shiny exterior of the original and the matte finish of the PS3 slim.  The maker of the video’s claims that both versions of the console share the same HDD, which would be the first suspect in terms of differences. In the end there could be a multitude of factors contributing to these difference including Blu-Ray drive speed to say the least. As it stands it is unlikely that these few seconds will deter the main consumer base from being attracted to the seductive new price point of the PS3 Slim.