This is what Sony has been hyping for the past two years, what is supposed to begin the high definition era, and what is intended to destroy the competition. This is the Trojan horse by which Sony hopes to get Blu-ray into as many homes as possible. The stakes are much higher than for a simple gaming system; this is a format war for the home theater of tomorrow. It is also the first time Sony has gotten serious about online play, and they're hoping you're going to want to buy a lot of content through their new system. Sony has a lot riding on the PS3... but you know that already.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/ps3.ars/1
PS - i looked to see if it had been posted but couldn't see it