Why the Playstation3 is now a must have.

When the Playstation3 first dropped, it was kind of a fantasy system. There was a lot of talk was about whether a 80GB hard drive was necessary (PS2 had accessory 10 and 20MB memory cards), as well as whether the BluRay format would even survive. A lot of people I talked to felt that Sony could and should have watered it down a little to lower the cost. After all, for each unit sold Sony was making a loss ever after three years of production( a gamble meant to help establish BluRay as the dominant format). For the first year or so, it was wildly expensive at about $499, so it was pretty much only picked up by hardcore gamers. But for a far larger group of people the price and continuing HDDVD vs. BluRay war meant that the purchase would be postponed until the price drops and the format war was cleared up.
So Sony relied on what the industry would call 'first-wavers'. These are the people who bought both Betamax and VHS players, or Laserdisc players for that matter. Some people just have to have the latest and greatest, so they got the flat screen, got the HD cable channels, and then had to have the cutting edge BluRay player.
But just a few months ago, things started falling into place for the rest of us. Sony lowered it's price on the base model to $299, meaning that even people who don't really game that much could consider it a good buy if only for the BluRay player.
So pick up your PS3 and look out for future blogs on how to exploit this magnificent machine!