I bought my PS3 slim foremost as a bluray player for two reasons - firstly it was actually cheaper than any unit i could find [by almost 100 dollars] and secondly from fear that said units may have issue staying up to spec.

Now i could be wrong about this but I just don't know what the future holds so it seems to have been the safest option.

Add in expensive hardware upgrades (having to buy proprietary hard drives that cost a fortune) and the need to buy a "premium" system just to get an HDMI port until recently, and you have one of the worst consoles, hardware wise, to ever grace the market. All models of the PS3 have allowed you to drop in just about any 2.5" hard drive as a replacement and they've all had HDMI from day one.

Hold on, This can be a two way street. I just shelled out for a BD remote to the tune of $40. and about the same for HDMI and other cables.

My Xbox came boxed with a remote control, a headset and a rather long ethernet cable.

The PS3 is STILL a more expensive console even after slashing the pice by 1/3 [here in Australia]. If you want to talk about costs and values lets be fair.

Aside from that i'd like to just echo what C3PX said.