DVDead: PS3 vs. BD30K

I was off today. So I took the opportunity to relax and watch a flick here at home. Then, when I was just starting to unwind, the DVD player went kaput. It just died out on me, beyond repair. I can't blame the thing though. I mean, it's been running the show in our house for many years. It's just too bad that we don't have any means of watching home films (except for Pay-Per-View). So I think it's time to bury this dead DVD player and move on. By "move on", I actually meant "upgrade".

Good thing the format war is over. Now it'll be much less confusing to "upgrade" our home theater to the next tier, which is Blu-ray Disc. Honestly, I was hoping that HD DVD would win. So that I'd have another reason to buy an XBOX 360 other than just to play Obsidian Entertainment's Aliens RPG. Unfortunately, they didn't. So now, I need to decide between to BD players: Sony PS3 (40 GB) or Panasonic BD30K.


PS3 would be the more practical choice of buying a BD player since it also functions as a gaming console. The problem is there aren't any games available...or any games available that I like. If it also happens that I decide to go with a PS3, I'll be getting my hardware at Best Buy, and they only have the 40 GB version. Which means, I won't be playing any PS2 games since it isn't compatible with the PS3 40 GB. As for the Panasonic BD30K. It has better image quality than the PS3. At least that's what I've read in reviews. But it's a tad more expensive than the PS3, and you can't play games on it.

Well, one on one square off between the PS3 and the BD30K. I might go with PS3's games or I might go with BD30K's image quality. But since I'm no console gamer nor an image quality whore, I might pass on both and wait for a better, cheaper Blu-ray Disc player.