PlayStation 3

While the Xbox 360 is content to be the middle-of-the-road man of gaming, and Nintendo’s Wii oozes simple-minded fun from every pore, PS3 is the console of choice for the man who wants his gaming with a hefty side-order of multimedia.

Packing a Blu-ray drive and bags of processing power, Sony’s great black hope comes in 20GB and 60GB trim, the latter chiming in with a built-in Wi-Fi router.

Wi-Fi is the not-so-secret weapon that delivers one of the PS3’s best touches. Remote Play allows you to use a PSP to access games, movies, images and music stored on the console’s hard drive, provided you’re within range of the wireless router. Sony’s plan is to have the infrastructure in place to stream content to a PSP in any Wi-Fi hotspot in the world by the time PS3 launches here in March.

Bluetooth is onboard too, letting you connect your mobile or headset to transfer files to and from each device. Want to view phone pics on your TV? Bluetooth them to the PS3 and make a slideshow on your 60-inch plasma.

Of course, buying a console and not playing games on it is like buying a car just for the cigarette lighter, so you’ll be pleased to hear that the current titles don’t disappoint. Office favourite Motor Storm puts you in control of various off-road vehicles, letting you barrel around dirt tracks with spectacular jumps and crashes so real you can practically hear the insurance man fainting. Sheer grunt keeps things motoring along even when 12 cars are exploding into flames around you. It’ll knock your socks off, trust us.

Sure the Xbox 360 has an HD-DVD add-on and cool multimedia stuff, but neither the Xbox nor Wii have so much flexibility straight from the box. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.

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