Sony PlayStation 3 (40GB)

Pros: Good price, awesome picture, Blu-Ray baby!, great games, very quiet and fairly energy efficient

Cons: I'll probaly have to upgrade to a larger hard drive at some point

Summary: My 2 best friends have an XBOX 360 and a Nintendo Wii, and I decided on the PS3 for myself because I like more variety in my gaming experience and because of the built-in Blu-Ray player. Movies REALLY do look better in Blu-Ray, and the PS3 even upconverts my current dvds to look practically HD, which means I don't need to re-purchase movies that I already have!

For me, this is a PERFECT system and just what I was waiting for. It was worth it just for the Blu-Ray player alone, or for the game system alone, but to have both in one package for under $400 is a sweet deal. Even my wife has been having fun playing it, and she's not a gamer at all. Plus 6 free Blu-Ray movies thrown in...how could I refuse? I'm really loving it so far and can't believe I worried so much about whether and when to buy one.

There are so many great PS3 games out and coming soon that the library / availability isn't an issue at all for me.

I sat out the last console generation, and have 0 PS2 games. So for me, backwards compatibility wasn't an issue, and frankly I'd rather not pay for stuff I won't use anyway.

2 USB ports is all I need, since the controllers can be powered in any USB port (computer, etc). The 40GB hard drive is fine for me now since I don't use too many of the media features accept demo downloads. I can see needing to upgrade to a larger hd in the future, but then they'll be cheaper anyway.

All of the supposed "cons" of this cheaper system didn't apply to me, so it was a great buy.