damn, and i was expecting a midget with a hand crank... =p

Yeah, the PS3 is rated at sucking up more power, with the Wii sucking up the least. And yeah, ive never noticed the power brick making any noise at all actually. I didnt even think it made noise, haha.

Probably has to do with the inherent ways computers work. Basically, you may have to change the laws of physics to make them work with AC. 

yeap no kidding... I didn't turn on the gas this year... no central heat in the house... I just have all my electronics in my rooms... and as they are always on that will save me money lol.... for once I'm glad all those machines are heating like crazy lol

LOL... It's, by far, the biggest SMPS I've ever seen for a console...
Sucking up 203W it's a lot... I wonder how much is the PS3's.
I believe that the strange plug that connect to the 360 is carrying different voltages for some components (I think it has 5 pins, instead of the classic 2).

When winter comes I will be happy to put brick under my feet (I have yet to buy one, but I probably will by Xmas)!!!

the power brick has a fan?

edit; found this pic, a 360 power brick next to a model Wii (looks reasonably accurate)

So i tried to look up any info on PS3 power usage, and found a lot of conflicting reports. Like some said it only took 200 watts to run, others 380 watts (both are from reliable sites). I did find an interesting fact that the new 40 GB PS3s are supposed to run the smaller 65nm processors, so it runs cooler and only uses 135 watts now compared to 200 watts (this is from Engadget)

I also saw a site that did tests to compare the 3 systems. The Wii never surpassed 18 watts. Both X360 and PS3 did about 180w to 200w gameplay power, while just playing regular dvd (not blu ray) took x360 about 125w and PS3 175w.

There were other comparison tests, but yeah, it concluded that both X360 and PS3 are similar, with PS3 scoring higher pretty much most of the time, but not by much.

Man, this had always interested me since seeing reports of people dangling the brick by a string to keep a constant airflow on the entire surface. Not to mention how insanely hot the brick gets for my room mate's 360 (with the top and bottom of the 360 itself being similarly hot).

Hmmm woah, first time I see a console power supply with a fan. It looks very cheap, they should call PC Power & Cooling for some assistance ;D

@prlatino86: The 40GB doesn't has the PS2 chips, so that eliminates some power usage.

 And the 40gig has a smaller chipset.