I read an article the other day on
the Register that mentioned in passing the PS3 uses 5 times more electricity to play a Blu Ray Disc film than a stand alone player would.
This sounded scandalous and I was indeed scandalised that people would unwittingly be paying so much more money for simply watching a film. So I decided to do some sums to see how many films you'd have to watch for the power saving to cover the cost of buying a BR player.
The PS3 uses an not inconsiderable 186watts to play a hidef film. A fifth of this would mean a stand alone player would use 40watts (rounded up from 37.2, because I'm sure they were being generous when they said a 5th).
Since all modern films are bloated over long indulgent twaddle, I'm going to say that each film is on average two hours long. Gives you a chance to watch some of the extras if not. My utility supplier charges 9.59p per kilowatt hour, which basically means the PS3 will cost 3.56748p per 2 hour film and the stand alone player a meagre 0.76720p for the same film.
Before you go jumping for joy, the best value stand alone player currently costs around £150, which means at just under a 3p saving per film, you'd need to watch almost 5 and a half thousand films to recoup the cost.
Alternatively, you can view that as a year and 93 days of watching films constantly on your stand alone player, to justify having paid for it out of the electrical savings you'd have made over using a PS3.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this in the slightest to be honest, but some part of me rebels at the train of thought that says the PS3 is a great games console because you can also play hidef films on it. I have all 3 of the other Sony consoles but have held of buying a PS3 because its far too expensive and has a poor range of poor Xbox 360 ports for the most part. I don't see why it makes sense to pay a £100 premium over the cost of a stand alone player to get the option to play some decidedly average games.