Greetings and a Happy Monday to my readers. As the topic title indicates, I was stunned over the weekend with revelations of a possible purchase by my parents of a Sony PS3. To understand why this is so surprising to me, allow me to put some context around this. (Although I imagine Sony critics need no further explanation beyond what I have already given as to why I am surprised.) My parents, particularly my mother, have long despised video games. Specifically, they thought it was a corrupting, anti-social activity for me to engage in growing up. If I didn't do well in a class in school, then video games were the main culprit. If I lacked friends at any point during the growing up process, then video games were responsible.



I have, at heart, a fairly obsessive personality. Specifically, when I find something that I like I tend to go a wee bit overboard and do it nonstop until I find something else to do. Some folks who are on my Xbox Live friends list may have noticed me playing a new hit video game at all hours of the night at some point, and then not seen me log onto Live for weeks after that after I beat the game and moved onto something else.



My parents are big believers in "balance". To them, playing a new video game for eight hours straight is a sign of problems. As you can imagine, these differences in attitude towards one of my favorite sources of entertainment were a source of conflict between us. This conflict has, of course, softened over the years as I've gotten my own house, a full-time (lucrative) job, and even a pretty wife. I think that accomplishing all these things without giving up my video games has shown them that being a productive, balanced member of society and occasionally playing marathon sessions of Oblivion or Mass Effect aren't mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, when my dad casually mentioned over this weekend while we were doing some furnace work together that he was considering buying a PS3, I was more than a little shocked. Well, my old man is nothing if not intelligent. Dad explained to me that he's looking to upgrade to a Bluray player now that the format war between Bluray and HD-DVD has finally been decided. Looking at the cost of stand-alone Bluray players, he's observed that there really just isn't that much of a difference in price between a Bluray player and a PS3, and that the PS3 carries with it a much greater amount of functionality. So, if he's going to get a Bluray player anyway, why not go with the PS3? Is there some quality difference that he needs to be aware of? Well, I haven't been following this that closely, but my initial response was that there was pretty much no difference between a stand-alone Bluray player and the one embedded inside of a PS3. (I'm sure someone will correct me if I made an incorrect statement there...) I told him that if he's willing to wait, the stand-alone Bluray players will likely drop in price faster than a PS3 will, but that the PS3 offered a lot of extra things that my mom and him would enjoy. 1. A hard drive to store MP3's on so they can play music through the TV's surround sound system on 2. A hard drive to store pictures on so they can be viewed on his 50" plasma 3. Access to firmware updates via the internet 4. Access to a web browser to surf the web on a large screen 5. Access to the Playstation store to buy goodies from (I presume that at some point the PS3 store will reach some degree of parity to the Xbox Live one though it certainly isn't there yet) 6. The ability to play games like Rockband that my parents actually like (Rockband gets a lot of credit for softening my family's attitude towards video games. They loved playing it over at my house. "Your mom doesn't think of it as a video game" my dad explained. Far be it for me to correct this thinking.) What else am I missing? I am actually very excited about the possibility of my parents getting a PS3. If they buy a video game console for themselves, I'm pretty much immune from any nagging in this area for the rest of my life. Help me Obi Wan Kenobis! You're all my only hopes. Throw down other benefits of going the PS3 route that might appeal to my parents that I have overlooked or missed.