Just played on the PS3 for the first time the other day at the game on exhibit in London and I safely say its not worth the time or the effort to save up for one, I played Motorstorm and all I can say is its nothing that the 360 cannot do, look at the new Colin Mcrae, it's got a similar richness in graphics on that is on both of the machines.  

Oh the main reason that PS3 needs blu ray is because of Sonys compression formats not being as good as microsofts, this is why the first gen hd-dvds look far better than the similar blu ray discs, even though blu ray discs had 10 more gigabytes of space, they didnt even come with all the extras that Hd-DVD's came with.

The fact that the PS3's blu ray is inferior in speed affects load times, it loads at 9mb per second (max), the 360's DVD by comparison loads at 16mb per second (max)

Microsoft's Larry Hryb (aka major nelson) has an interview with a tech guy about HD-DVD and Blu ray at this link
Click Here

He also in another interview ( Click Here ) talks about the fact that 720p upscaled is better than 1080p native due to the fact that the majority of TV's do 720p only and that there is a trade off that you would have to make between better graphics and frame rates and the amount of special effects such as bump mapping and more complex particle effects.

Overall both the 360 and the PS3 have gone down very different routes, but they are similar in attainable power, the 360 has the advantage though: its cheaper by at least £100!