So you sit in front of your TV and look at your old console system just gathering dust while it beckons you to "turn me on...I'm so lonely and you don't play with me anymore." Ok, so maybe your PS2, XBOX, N64 or whatever flavor of gaming console you blew your hard earned cash on a few years back does not talk to you, but that is what it would say if it could talk. Sure the last generation of gaming systems still play games, but all of us who are into gaming know that the magic is just not there anymore when you know there are new "cutting edge" gaming consoles in the stores or your friend's room, for that matter. Don't we all have a "friend" who is always the first to have the latest thing in tech and never let's you forget that he has it and you want it! Most of the time these friends end up living in their parent’s basement for their entire lives, but that is another story.

We all hear the buzz on the net about the new gaming systems before they are released. There are always the "leaked pictures" of what these top secret machines are going to look like and we all know that most of these pictures are complete nonsense. Then the magical day comes when the marketing hype goes into full swing and the local junior TV news reporter gets stuck in some parking lot of a big box electronics store doing a story on the long lines to be the first to have the latest thing in gaming. You watch this multi-million dollar publicity machine roll over the media landscape and into your life and the only questions you really have in your head is...."How good is this thing and should I buy it?"

The Playstation 3 has been on the market for a little while now and from the average consumer's perspective, its momentum in the cut throat gaming marketplace seems to be more of a steady adoption rather than a meteoric rise to the top of the heap. There are a few reasons for this gradual uptake of the PS3, but perhaps one of the key reasons is simply the price. There will always be a core element of consumers that are hardcore gamers and will be the ones that you see lining up at the local game store at midnight to be the first to own the newest gaming technology available. To these people, price is secondary to the aim of simply getting their hands on the next hottest thing. For the vast majority of consumers though, price is a big factor in making the decision to "buy or not to buy...that is the question." People will speculate on the various price levels a new console will drop to at a certain time after it has been released. It would seem from purely anecdotal evidence, that consumers rationalize their purchase around these price levels and "bundle offers" to finally take the plunge and adopt the new technology. I would imagine if we could get our hands on the magical global sales statistics for a particular gaming console that the sales graph may look very much like a staircase reaching upward in fits and spurts as each group of consumers reach their threshold. While it is interesting to ponder the inner workings of the gaming industry, it is probably not the main purpose you are reading this article and I can feel your mouse cursor moving closer to the back button with each passing word, so let's get to the fun stuff.

This review of the PlayStation 3 is not an effort to scrutinize every minute technical specification of the hardware, but more a general impression that a typical player can expect when they get their new PS3 home, fight through the layers of packaging and finally set it up in the space designated as the shrine of gaming. We have been testing the PlayStation 3 for about six weeks now and this review acts as a short to medium term PS3 ownership impression to this point.

When you first open the box to your PS3, you are greeted by that mesmerizing fragrance of new electronic equipment. This all adds to the excitement and anticipation of actually getting the system setup and running. When you first see the unit, you will be impressed by the elegant finish as well as the weighty feel of the console. The Playstation 3 comes with a standard set of cables and a single Sixaxis controller that will allow you to be gaming pretty quickly. If you intend on using a HDMI connection however, you will need to purchase an HDMI cable separately.

Once you have the PlayStation 3 fired up, you begin to see a glimpse of what all the fuss is about. From the well laid out menu system, you can see that this machine it a lot more than just a gaming system. The PS3 really is a full featured home entertainment system. The sleek and sexy casing discreetly hides an impressive range of capabilities that include BluRay, DVD, CD, network ports, Wifi, SD & Mini SD, CF, Memory Stick, USB, Bluetooth, and a range of supported media formats, to name a few. I was personally surprised at what Sony had managed to squeeze into this system and perhaps that's why they rightly took there time to bring it to market.

As you work your way through the initial configuration process, you will begin to come across features that make you stop and say to yourself, "How cool is that...?" The answer to that question is...very cool. The Sony PS3 is chock full of very cool things that are too numerous to list off here, but a few are out of the box Wifi and built in web browser. I found the Wifi a breeze to setup and it has worked flawlessly ever since. The PlayStation web browser on the other hand is a great concept but needs a bit of improvement. The page load times in many cases are sluggish and often leave you staring at a screen wondering if the browser has completely crashed. We desperately hope that Sony puts some effort into fixing some of these browser issues in future releases of the operating system as we think that having a well working browser in the PS3 would give the entire package a lot of advantage against the rival console systems.

The first game we loaded up was Resistance: Fall of Man. This is a first person shooter style game title and does a great job of showing off the dedicated game capabilities of the Sony PlayStation 3. Depending on the TV you are using (ours was a Sony HD LCD), the image and frame rates were very impressive. The PS3 clearly has the edge over other systems in the market right now when it comes to raw graphic performance. The clarity and richness of picture was simply stunning in all areas of the game. We have heard that certain initial release games encounter some frame rate issues, but we have not experienced this in any of the games we have tested thus far. Resistance: Fall of Man also provided a great opportunity to test out one of the other big selling points of the PlayStation 3, free online gaming. Unlike some other systems on the market, the Sony online network is free to connect to and we tested online gaming performance on a modest broadband connection speed with no identifiable lag. Games we joined included 20+ players from a wide range of geographic areas with no negative impact to game play which was fast and frenetic.

We followed up the first person shooter experience with a contrasting racing genre game title. Formula One Championship Edition is a well constructed racing simulator built around a predictable game model of quick race and career mode style of play. The details of the game aside, the PS3 once again impressed us with the amazing quality of image during fast paced game play. There were times during the game that you could quite easily see yourself mistaking the game visuals for actual televised F1 racing if you were to walk into the room not realizing that the system was on. Once again the PlayStation 3 performed without a hitch and even though these are first generation games for the PS3, we were thoroughly impressed and could only guess at the true potential of the unit once game developers really exploit its full capability. I think that is one of the most important points to note in this review. These games are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what could potentially be achieved with the considerable grunt the Sony PlayStation 3 has to offer. As we saw in the history of the PS2, the developers took some time to learn how to fully leverage the ability of the system and in the later years of the PlayStation 2 lifecycle it was clear that talented development gurus had mastered the PS2 architecture and ringed every ounce of performance on offer.

The other big item on the PS3 that you'll be expecting a lot from is the BluRay playback feature. We have played a few titles in BluRay format and were pleasantly surprised at the supreme image quality. In some cases the image was so clear that we became distracted in a game of pointing out all the background detail that you would simply otherwise miss on any other format. I am not an avid collector of movie titles, but with image quality this good, I might just have to start building a movie library of my own.

We have been putting the PlayStation 3 through its paces since we first received it and to date it has not failed to impress us at every turn. We have had no technical issues with the system and performance of items, like the rechargeable Sixaxis Bluetooth controllers, have been flawless. The PlayStation 3 does tend to get a little warm during heavy game play, so be sure to give it plenty of breathing room wherever you choose to display your techno bling.

As you can probably tell by now, there is not much that we found lacking in the PS3. Sure, in another 5 - 7 years there will be another generation of systems that come along and make this one look old and tired, but right now the PlayStation 3 has the goods and can deliver outstanding performance in a number of areas. Only you can make that final decision to part with your hard earned savings and invest in the technology of today, but if I had just enough money to buy one system, then that system would be a PlayStation 3.

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