The PlayStation 3 is the best value for money gaming console today

We all love our gaming consoles and PCs but they can get very expensive. Not only do you have to pay out for the computer or console itself, but you then have to buy all the games at say £50 each and then any accessories on top of that.

If you want a top of the range PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, with steering wheels, motion controllers etc. you’re not getting much change from £1000.

But step back a couple of console generations and you can get all of the gaming fun at literally a fraction of the cost.

In this video I’ll show you my ultimate PS3 setup for playing any game to the best of its ability and how you can extract as much fun as possible from this fantastic system whilst not having to sell any body parts to fund it.

Basic Setup

To get going with this you’ll first need a PlayStation 3 console and at least one gamepad. If you can get an official PS3 controller I’d opt for that as it can be essential in some of the modding processes.

You can pick these up on eBay for around £50, but to keep things more consistent I’m going to be costing this project from the CEX website so we can get a reasonable estimate of the cost for a fully working system.

You can buy any model of the PS3, but some are slightly better for this project than others. We need to modify the firmware on the console so that we can run games from our legally obtained backup files. In essence this means that if you can get hold of a backup file you can run the game without having to buy a disk. Having said that, PS3 game disks are now mostly under £5, but it does mean that you can pretty much get any game you want right now over the Internet.

To mod your console you can either use the PS3HEN mod that works on absolutely all PS3 models, or the CFW hack that works on earlier models. Please have a look at these videos that show you how to mod your console either way. The CFW video will talk you through which models will take the CFW firmware. For general gameplay there’s not much difference in either method but if you can go the CFW route I’d do that.

Once you’ve got a modded console you now have access to the complete PlayStation 3 games catalogue.

Other PlayStation Consoles

So if that’s not enough to keep you occupied your PS3 can also be made to play PS1, PS2 and PSP games. This is one area where the CFW hack wins out as PS3HEN consoles won’t be able to play PSP games. Setting all this up is really easy and I’ve covered that in this video so make sure to have a look and get your console playing the thousands of great games from those consoles.

Even More Games

Another great feature of a modded PS3 is that you can run emulators for other retro computer systems and consoles.

RetroArch is a great emulation system that will let you play a whole range of retro consoles and home computers. Play all the 8 bit Atari consoles, Nintendo and Sega 8 bit and 16 bit machines such as the MegaDrive and Super NES, and a wide range of others. Again both PS3HEN and CFW can run all the software through the Homebrew app.

RetroArch also includes a copy of Mame. Mame is an arcade emulator that lets you play all of the classic arcade games such as Pac Man, Donkey Kong and Street Fighter. It uses the actual code from the real machines so you get a truly authentic emulation of that cabinet. It will also play everything else up to around the year 2000 or so right on your console.

Again I’ve made a couple of videos to show you how to install and set all this up and only requires you to copy over a few files to get it all up and running.

Accessories

With all of these mods installed you’ll now have more games than you can ever play. But what a great selection to choose from!

All we need now are some better controls to really enhance our gameplay.

Everything on the PS3 can be controlled from the standard PS3 gamepad. But there were a whole range of accessories produced to make games more realistic and improve the way you play the games. Most of these are now available through the second hand market at greatly reduced prices. So let’s see what you can get.

Steering Wheels

If you like racing games then you must get a steering wheel and pedal set. This is my Logitech GT Driving Force set up which I bought for around £50. Again you’ll find these on eBay and CEX for that sort of price. I choose this model as it was designed for the PS3, but can also connect to a normal PC over USB if I want to use it with that.

Using a wheel totally transforms the driving experience in any racing game. You will not go back to a gamepad after using a wheel. Everything just feels so much more natural and you can get that really fine control that you, or at least I, can’t get any other way.

And there are some great racing games for the PlayStation covering every sort of genre you want. So get those backup files installed and have fun.

PlayStation Move

The PS3 and Xbox 360 came out at the same time as the Nintendo Wii. The Wii wasn’t as powerful a games console but it had a unique motion based controller that really set it apart from the rest. Both Sony and Microsoft quickly launched their motion controls and the PlayStation Move was Sony’s answer.

In effect this is pretty similar to the Wii handset. You need a camera unit attached to your console that watches your handset motion and then then a move controller and sometimes a move navigation controller.

You hold the move controller and navigation controller in your hands and these talk wirelessly to your PS3. The handsets can detect motion and how you’ve tilted the controllers with internal gyroscopes and have a number of buttons and joysticks on them for extra control inputs. The camera unit can see the coloured globes on the ends of the move controllers to sense your position and body movement and all of this is then processed to create in game motion sensing.

For the Move sensors to work the game must support them, you can’t just use the controls with any game. You’ll find this mentioned on the disk boxes or there are online lists of games that fully support PlayStation Move.

First off you have a number of games that simply use the move controller without the navigation add on. These can be sports type games, shooting games and so on.

But for me the best part of the Move controller is when you pair it with a gun accessory and play first person shooters. This lets you mount the move and navigation controllers into the gun body and then use this to control the game. Moving and aiming are all done with movements of the gun along with button and joystick inputs to complete the control scheme.

I love this set up. It does take a little bit of time to get used to it but once you’re going it really does transport you into the thick of the action. Well worth the £30 for the official Sharp Shooter gun.

Conclusion

So that’s my personal PlayStation 3 gaming setup.

All in if you were to go out and buy it directly from the CEX shop it would come to just under £175 for the complete setup including all the extras.

Games are easily available, either for a few pounds per title or direct from the Internet.

So, for me this represents about the best value you can get for a fairly modern gaming setup. At least one that lets you play modern games, at good resolution with all the best gameplay and immersion that this system can generate.

Top that off with all of the retro emulation you’ve got yourself a complete gaming system with pretty much every sort of game you could possibly want to have a go at.

For me this makes the PlayStation 3 one of my top gaming consoles, even now in 2025.