If you said to me that you could buy a home media centre PC that ran Ubuntu had 7 (count’em) 3.2 Ghz prcessors output 1080P HDMI and also played Blu Ray movies for £270 I would bite you frikkin hand off. If you then told me that it could also play Playstation 3 games I would consider it a useful though not essential addition to that feature set.
Such a thought went through my head the other day and has led me to the question: Should I buy a PS3?
When Sonys underperforming console was released it cost a franky bonkers amount of money and boasted the same amount of noise as a jet plane graphics that were inferior to the rather cheaper Xbox 360 (The PS3 has more theoretical power, but it is harder to utilise) and an ability to play a disc format that shared worrying similarities with Betamax (no offense Mr Betamax).
So what’s changed?
In a word, plenty
Firstly it’s no secret that Sonys gaming division is in a bad situation (The long time divisional leader got the boot a little while back). It has gone from comfortable industry leader to third place in a single generation and it is loosing money hand over fist. In this kind of situation developers start abandoning a platform and offering big name exclusives to Microsoft or Nintendo. When you consider the number of people who will buy a console just to get their hands on Halo or Mario Galaxy it becomes obvious why this is a pretty serious situation for Sony to be in and the decision they have taken is to discount the PS3 to death. Now it is a fact that console manufacturers (Nintendo excluded) sell consoles at a loss for the first year or so of production on the grounds that as technology moves on components will drop in price and they will make a profit later in the game.