If you own a PC, you may not see the point of a dedicated games console.

After all, if you want to play a game you can just buy the PC version, right?

The trouble is that many of the best games never get released for the PC. And those that do often have high system requirements and may chug along at an unplayable rate if your PC is a few years old or has a graphics card that isn’t up to the job.

If you think games consoles are just for kids, you might be surprised by how much the video games industry has grown up over the past few years.

Nowadays you’re just as likely to find an adult behind the joypad as a teenager. This is partly to do with the games themselves, many of which have become more sophisticated and more adult-themed over the years. But it’s also to do with the hardware, which is much more powerful and has a lot more to offer a grown-up audience than earlier consoles ever did.

Sony Playstation
It all started when the Playstation 2 (launched in 2000) offered DVD playback as well as gaming. This combination proved to be such a massive success that Sony has gone even further on the multimedia front with its latest console.

The long-awaited Playstation 3 (PS3), released on 23 March 2007, can play audio CDs, DVDs, mp3s and display photos from a digital camera. The PS3 also plays movie files downloaded from the internet as well as high-definition (HD) games. It has a 60GB internal hard disk as well as four USB ports and memory card slots.

On top of that, its built-in Blu-ray drive means you can enjoy HD movie discs. Blu-ray movies are sharper and more detailed than standard-definition DVDs, but it’s too early to tell whether the format will ever take off in the same way, especially since there’s another HD format to compete with: HD-DVD. Microsoft recently launched an HD-DVD add-on for its Xbox 360 that enables gamers to watch HD movies via the console.

The inclusion of Blu-ray compatibility also appears to have had a direct impact on the cost of the console, and the PS3’s £425 price may put casual gamers off. On the plus side, the PS3 has some excellent-looking games on the way (including Metal Gear Solid 4 and Gran Turismo HD) and is backwards-compatible with the entire PS2 and PS1 back catalogue. The fact is that the PS3 will take some time to build up the collection of games available to Xbox 360 owners.