And they're a lot nicer to it this time. It seems that the power of the box in now getting the firmware it deserves and a lot of the problems with the launch model have been ironed out. You can get the 40GB model for 289 now, which is pretty good.
Next year, I'll be looking at getting a media box of some sort. Will the PS3 do it? If I have files on my PC (as a main store), will I be able to read them straight onto the PS3? I know it's got ethernet but there is a big difference between having network ability and doing something about it.
Comments
Hmm I still think as a games machine it is second fiddle to the 360 it has no exclusives worth buying except maybe Uncharted:drakes fortune and also for all it's power it tends to run at a lower resolution than the 360. Take GTA4 for example the PS3 version runs at 640p, compared to the Xbox 360's HD 720p they look pretty much identical tho and almost all cross platform games do.
If I were buying a console today it would be the 360 it has the catalogue and the exclusives.
As to the PS3's media capability's if you have a proper media server it can connect to it and supposedly works quite well. With XP I had media extender and I did have mine get mp3's off the main machine but it seems to have some limitation with custom directories so it couldn't find movies unless they were in the "My Movies" directory. That might be something that's work roundable or fixed in later iterations I haven't cared enough about it to work that out.
Having watched Blu-Ray on a big-ass TV, its a big selling point. If you're willing to take the fiscal hit on buying the discs, its a big plus over the 360.
Bluray does look good you need the HDMI with HDCP to take full advantage of it (if not it down samples to SD) but if you have that it will look pretty tasty
Blue ray drives for PC are relatively cheap at ~£120. It's certainly an option if you have a decent sized monitor.
Watching films really belongs in the living room, and with the size of Rob's new tele, if its HD compatible then he's not going to be getting a monitor anywhere near the same size!
The 360 will have an external BluRay drive by next year for sure, and it'll probably be cheaper than a PS3, even if you factor that in. As a media extender, I'd call the 360 'OK'. I used it for a few months, but soon found it too limited and upgraded one of these. It cost about the same as a PS3 and won't play games, but as a media player alone it's hard to fault; much much better than the 360. Even on my little telly, blu-ray movies look fantastic through it.
Watching movies (even blu-ray) ones on a monitor is not quite the same as on a telly. TV's (well, god ones) have postprocessing hardware onboard designed to reduce MPEG artifacts, that PC monitors don't. You might find software to do the job, but you'll need a hell of a PC to real-time emulate a DSP in software - especially at the same time as decoding the 1080p video stream. Also, monitor panels are designed for a different purpose than TV ones - they're optimised for crisp text and fast white-black-white transitions, at the expense of colour reproduction and viewing angle. Blu-ray is never going to look shitty, but it aught to look better on a TV.
Edit: Also, I agree with Pete, re movies belonging in the living room.