All what I can say is that my panasonic BR player always updated is unable to launch the Cars movie from disney while the US PS3 can launch it without a fault. Plus updating a standalone BR Player is not that easy compared to PS3 online updates.

Now the buttons assigned on the dualshock are not as obvious as a full remote and sony's remote is quiet expensive for that task.

HDTVs and DVR boxes almost always have USB ports on them these days. Why? So you can update firmware. I'm sure BluRay players will be the same way if they're not already. It's not like the PS3 is the only machine on earth that can connect to the internet. Almost everything can connect these days.

And yes, the PC is a very viable option. My HDTV has a VGA port on it. I often use it as a monitor for my laptop. Therefore, if I had a BluRay drive connected to my laptop, I could just play it that way. Or, with a Wireless N router, I think you can actually stream HD content over a wireless network. I know for a fact that wireless G doesn't quite get the job done, but N should do the trick.

These days you can literally do just about anything you want to do and connect anything to virtually anything else with the use of a router. The caveat to that is that you have to know some home networking basics, which is actually pretty easy these days.

I saw a standalone Blu Ray player for 299 the other day, I think it was BD Live 1.1 whereas PS3 is 2.0

You can get a blu ray player for $200 or $170 for a referb

i think PS3 has the best value among the blu-ray players currently on the market, at the price of $399

regarding the energy consumption, the latest 80GB model (65nm Cell and RSX chips) has improved a lot

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-blu-ray-players/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/147209/the_best_bluray_players.html