English Composition II

Abstract

My father always told me that "Nothing in life is free". For years I have always been weary when I was told something was free. I would have to double check and ask the question "Am I really getting this for "nothing". Most of the time the answer was; "No". The first time I remember dealing with this was buying my first car. It was a beautiful 1993 Ford Explorer, jet black, low miles, and it had a great stereo. The salesman had everything done and ready for me to sign. My father looked over the contract and noticed a "service fee" hidden in the price. According to the salesman, all service for the first three years I owned would be free. But of course the "free" service was paid for in advance. Today I am 37 years old, and there are still times I have to tell my father that he is right.

At midnight on November 17, stores everywhere in America finally began selling the long awaited PlayStation 3, also known as the PS3. Across the country, people waited in line for hours, and even days in some cases, to get their hands on a PlayStation 3. In Kentucky, ardent gamers fired BB guns at people waiting in line in order to get to the PS3s first. Millions of Americans tried to get a PlayStation 3 on that first day; however Sony had only produced 400,000 of them. On average, an additional 100,000 PS3 systems have reached stores each week since November 17. They've been flying off the shelves as gamers rush to buy a PS3. The PlayStation 3 has been selling for between four to six hundred dollars in stores, and over two thousand dollars on Ebay. Other popular video game consoles such as the Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii are available at much lower prices. So why are people spending so much on the PS3? The graphics and data processing capabilities of a PlayStation 3 far exceed any other gaming console or computer system available for six hundred dollars.

The PlayStation 3 is more than a video gaming console. It offers full supercomputing power at an affordable price. Each PlayStation 3 utilizes the power of one of IBM's fastest central processing units; a PlayStation 3 is eight times as fast and eight times as powerful as most computers. Buying a computer this fast and this powerful would cost thousands of dollars. Yet Sony is offering this computing power for only six hundred dollars. While this is the most expensive gaming console ever sold, it is still an incredible bargain. Like its predecessor, the PlayStation 2, the PS3 is capable of playing videos as well as games. While the PlayStation 2 plays DVDs, the PlayStation 3 can play Blu-ray discs. Blu-ray disc players cost around eight hundred dollars, and the PlayStation 3 offers Blu-ray capabilities combined with incredible gameplay for less than eight hundred bucks.

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