The bluray player really pushed up the price of the console and while the media can store a LOT more data the drive reading technology is still really slow, hence why most games on the PS3 have mandatory installs to optimize the game to run at all. I'm not really against the PS3 at all. I'm just waiting for more reasons to grab the console. Maybe when it drops its price to sub $500 and a few of its upcoming games turn out to be great (Heavy Rain & Team ICO's new game). Singstar is already a great reason to get a PS3 (*blush*) but I need more to justify the purchase.

The Arcade console can still go online as long as you have a memory unit plugged in (comes bundled) which you also need for saving data anyway. Might be better off investing in the Pro version with the 20GB hard-drive