I’ve done the research.  I know Sony’s Playstation 3 is expensive and is not the world leader in “fun” games or units sold.  I didn’t buy the PS3 based on what it is not.

The PS3 is an incredible DVD upconverter.  So good that the night I plugged in my PS3 I watched 4 movies in a row because I was so blown away by the visual quality of the image (Saving Private Ryan, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, 300, and Casino Royale).  If you have a large DVD collection and have purchased an HDTV lately, don’t bother buying an upconverting DVD player, buy a PS3 – you get native BluRay support, too.

The PS3 has built-in WiFi.  Within a few minutes of powering up I had the PS3 on the Internet and I was browsing with their (admittedly limited) browser.  Being connected to my wireless network has benefits beyond surfing though.

The PS3 can access media servers on your network.  That sounds like something you’d need a degree to set up but if you own a PS3 just install TVersity on your PC and you’ve instantly set up a media server.  Now I can stream songs, videos and pictures to the PS3 (and thus onto my big screen and home theatre) quickly and extremely easily (even from iTunes now that Apple is removing DRM from all their songs).

Oh yeah, and the PS3 plays amazing games.  So far I have owned Guitar Hero, NHL ‘09, Little Big Planet and Metal Gear Solid 4.  I had to return MGS4 because it was too good but the rest are really, REALLY good.  “Too good” you ask?  The immersion, graphics and story were so good that I knew that I would need to devote a lot of time and effort to really enjoy it and, with 2 kids and 2 jobs it was unlikely that something wouldn’t fall through the cracks.  I’ll try MGS4 when I have more free time – it really is amazing.

Lastly, the PS3 on screen interface is pretty slick.  The XMB, or CrossMediaBar, is really well thought out.  So well thought out that I’ll probably try to copy it in an upcoming web project…

I wish I had more time to write about all of the things I’m learning in the home theatre field but I’m too busy doing…

Crank it to 11, everyone!

J