The Power of the PS3.

I don't mean the pure processing power of the PS3 (though it has that too). I mean the power it has to entice people looking to get into current-gen gaming, and have to make a decision between a PS3 and Xbox 360.

As a disclaimer, I have an Xbox 360 at home (actually my brother's) and a Wii. Does this make me biased? Probably. Almost certainly, even. In spite of that, I'm going to put forth my arguments, and leave you the reader to decide.

Recently, three people I've talked to have expressed interest in or bought a PS3. The first case is pretty clear-cut. A co-worker bought a 52" HDTV for his family (though I suspect it was mostly for himself!), and needs some quality content for it. Blu Ray is winning the format war handily at this point, so he did his homework, found that the PS3 was the cheapest player around, and bought one. He's not averse to gaming, and his 11-year-old son isn't either, but so far they don't own any games for it. The console is used purely as a media player - an upwards-compatible, Internet-enabled one at that. I can't question this decision. For his situation, the PS3 is a perfect fit.

The second guy who's talked up the PS3 lately is a self-avowed hardware geek. He loves gadgets, devices, and especially computers. To him, the PS3 is superior to the Xbox 360 because of its hardware advantages: built-in 802.11, Blu Ray playback, Linux support, and a self-upgradeable hard disk, all at an affordable price point. He's an occasional gamer - he doesn't shy away from some ol'-fashioned multiplayer Mario Kart or a deep game of Starcraft, but he doesn't game regularly, and owns no consoles. Coming from a pure hardware standpoint, I can see why he came to his conclusion. But he's missing a big part of the equation. Hardware doesn't exist in a vacuum. A console is nothing without its game library. The original Xbox and GameCube both had better hardware than the PS2, but got left eating the dust of the best selling console of all time. This guy owns a DS, too, which he admits to buying cause he wanted to play Tetris. Next time I see him, I'll have to pester him about why he didn't get the technically superior PSP. ;)

The third guy is the most interesting. He's a "casual hardcore" gamer. He doesn't keep his finger on the gaming pulse much, but he loves certain games. And when he gets into them, he goes all in. This is the dude who got me into WoW, and months after I've dinged 70 and quit, he's still grinding away, doing 10-man raids and endgame arena PvP. He recently got himself a big-screen TV, but unlike the first guy, is looking for a game machine. He's been doing his homework, and while he's still undecided, is starting to lean toward the PS3. Yes, the Blu Ray is a factor, but mostly, to his eyes the games list looks identical. "Call of Duty 4 is on both, Assassin's Creed is on both." This frustrates me. Anybody who's played either the Xbox 360 or PS3 can tell you that the 360 has the far superior line-up at this point in time. Yes, multiplatform games play equally well on either, but the 360 has globs more worthwhile exclusives. The PS3's free online infrastructure is swaying him as well - he doesn't get why you'd need to pay $50 for a Live subscription. Again, this is troubling, because while the PS3's service looks great on paper, most non-gamers don't realize you pretty much get what you pay for. In this case, almost nothing. The last thing that's scaring him about the 360 is the dreaded Red Rings of Death. I can't argue that. Microsoft's console has had a notoriously shoddy history, and it might take years to change that image. I fear that's the last nail in the coffin, though, that will drive him decisively towards a PS3.

So really, what was the point of posting the last five paragraphs? Perhaps just to say that Sony is not out of the console race yet. Yes, they're lagging the 360 and Wii badly, and only their recent price drop has prevented them from dropping out of the game altogether. But it's far too early to count them out. In the eyes of a person on the gaming periphery, the PS3 looks every bit as attractive as the 360, and that's going to equal a lot of sales. After all, the Wii's audience is widely made up of people way outside the conventional gaming circle. While the 360 will continue to gobble up the core gamers, and is unquestionably the console I would choose if I could only have one, the PS3 is only going to pick up more momentum this year. This may honestly be the closest, most tightly-fought console race yet.