Good games for now.. That's why I bought a 360 first. BD hmm... Cool bonus I guess..

BD was a big selling point for me. It gave me an excuse to buy a 1080p display and have no intention of ever using a standard def set for anything ever again.

Of course considering all major manufacturers have stopped making them for the most part, that's hardly a bold declaration.

But, BD looks great for the films that take advantage of the additional detail and sound clarity, and the PS3 does a better job of DVD upscaling than either the Mac or the PC.

Once .avi support was added, I stopped using the Mac for big screen video playback and hooked up an external drive filled with hundreds of hours of TV programming to the PS3. While file compatibility isn't as varied as the Mac or PC, most major video formats are supported, and they access and playback faster than on a Windows Media PC optimized for media playback functions.

The PS3 is simply easier and faster to use as a media player than a PC, especially with the Bluetooth remote. No mouse, no loading up Media Center then switching to media remote, etc.

Turn on at the touch of a remote button, quick load up comparable with a DVD player, and instant playback of disc media, or a few clicks to access your HDD based media.

Doesn't get any more accessible than that, barring any voice activated search and play systems.

All Sony needs to do is add more codec and format support for increased file compatibility.

Nope. I play gaming systems to play games. I watch DVD's on this thing called a DVD player.

Media functions aren't important to me. Its nice if they're there, and can increase the value of a console but they are still unnecessary.

What's all the media hubbub?






Sorry.

:::runs off drunk into the night:::

I'm not a fan of non-pc media hubs for 2 reasons:

1) it raises the price of an already expensive piece of technology for a bunch of stuff that may be underdeveloped or not used at all by me.

2) Usually you have to keep everything on said media hub on there, yet on my PC I can freely move around my stuff like mp3s and downloaded videos.

May be true in case of BluRay but most other things are already there. powerful CPU and GPU are as useful for games as for media. The same can be said for the Harddisc all media connectors, upscaling etc. pp. So you could also argue that buying a game console and putting a media center (however this looks DVR, PC ...) besides it is terribly wasteful.



I cannot speak for the 360 but on PS3 you can move your media freely around. Its one of the nicest features of it. You can either use an external HD or copy mp3, divx movies etc. to and from the internal disc, a burned DVD etc. It is true that a PC is still a bit more flexible but it lacks many of the convenience features a PS3 has (like solid TV access and features like SuperWhite etc. , good remote support out of the box, nice form factor) Using a media center pc can do all these things but it is still a pain in the ass to setup.

I buy gaming consoles for games.

media streaming is great. i don't buy br movies but i use media streaming frequently. my ps3's primary use is still games, but the ability to stream movies/tv shows is a very useful feature (assuming you like some tv shows but hate commercials)

I buy a gaming console to play games. Having those other features is nice like the PS3 upscaling movies and the soon-to-be Netflix on the 360 but none of those would ever be a deciding factor in a console purchase.