About 9 months ago, the wife and I forked out a large sum of cash to purchase a Playstation 3. But it has been well worth the money. The graphics look amazing and the powerful processor loads games faster than ever before (papa is always in a hurry and does not have the patience for cut-scenes and load-screens. Very often, the planet needs saving or cars need chasing.) Sure games for this apparatus are pricey, but due to the fact that it has an Internet feature, two things can save you money. First, you can download free demos to give you a taste of new games. They are not only a few hours of good fun, they prevent you buying an expensive game, that turns out to be a grave disappointment (I have a nice stack of ps2 games that could go on e-bay as "good as new". Second reason is that most games now have an on-line game play option that allows you to play with/against other players from around the globe. This makes that games stay interesting for months after you've finished the story line. (Which BTW is something game developers are gonna regret in the future, I think, because you end up buying a lot less games!)
Add to this a headset (bluetooth or otherwise) for chatting with other on-line players and you'll soon make a whole bunch of new "friends".
Not only is this a game console, it ii also a blue-ray player, which will, if we believe the insiders, completely replace the DVD, because of the sharper images and because they store more MB (although I doubt movies will then become longer).
The only downside to the PS 3 is the fact that Sony and game developers won’t leave you alone. every once in a while you'll find that a game can not be played until you have down loaded the ever important up-dates to make your all ready great experience an even better one. After that comes the installing of the up-date and before you know it an hour has passed. Needless to say, downloads always become "available" when you only had an hour to play in the first place.
This is the only negative I could think off and it is only a minor nuisance. So had I written this review yesterday I would have given the whole thing 4.5 stars out of the possible 5. But yesterday I felt courageous and maybe a little mischievous; I decided to hook up my external hard drive to the play station, using a USB cable. And then it happened! All the movies and TV programmes that I had on there actually played on the TV, with picture perfect DVD quality- no more having to struggle with a streaming media server that never connects properly or loses the signal half way through the program, no more struggling to keep the baby off the laptop, or watching stuff on the desktop monitor. It just plays everything on the beautiful wide screen TV. The ps3 went from game console to home entertainment unit in 1 (one!) easy step! Of course, I cannot give 5 out of 5, because I am already waiting for the next generation of consoles.
I might not be posting for a while, as I have four seasons of Sopranos to re-watch.
Playstation 3 Rating: 
