Gizmodo recently claimed in this article that Sony’s upcoming Playstation 3 will consume far more power that any other gaming console, including Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo’s upcoming Wii. Here’s the important information from the article:

This will have a major impact on gamers planning to purchase a PS3 come November. While PS3 is well-known to be the most expensive console of this generation, many fans were writing off the inflated price by stating that PS3 will offer many things for free, such as its online service, wheras the competition charges a yearly fee. Thanks to PS3’s enormous power-usage, even though Playstation online will be free, PS3 owners who play for around 4 or 5 hours a day will essentially be paying the same amount that Xbox 360 owners pay for Live ($50 a year) plus power usage, except they’ll be paying it entirely on their power bill. In the case of Live subscribers, we’re paying for a superior online service and a miminal amount of power usage. I have a feeling that many PS3 buyers won’t realize this cruel economic fact until well-after they’ve bought and played with their new big, black console. I predict that PS3’s power usage will come back to bite PS3 owners in the wallet a year or more down the road when they finally realize just how much energy their consoles have been consuming, courtesy of their overly-large power bills.

 

To make matters worse, PS3 owners will have to shell out extra for component or HDMI cables since PS3 only comes with composite cables. Also, Sony fans who want to take advantage of free online voice chat will have to buy a headset separately since that isn’t included either. Sure, PS3 comes with the equivalent of the 360’s play-and-charge kit, but the sum of the prices of the headset and HD cables is far greater than the $20 a play-and-charge kit costs. I hope Sony fans have some deep pockets full of lots of money, because they’re going to need it.