The good news for Sony: The PlayStation 3 has won another prestigious award for hardware design. The bad news: It has little to nothing to do with it's capabilities as a video game system.
The European Imaging and Sound Association's convergence panel has named the PS3 the best European media center for 2007/2008. The award description cites the systems audio/video/photo playback capabilities, included 60GB hard drive, Wi-Fi, ethernet, bluetooth and surround sound support and, most importantly, the Blu-ray disc player. Oh, and they also mention, almost as an afterthought, that the system is "of course a very advanced game console and a worthy heir to the grand PlayStation heritage."
We have to wonder how well Sony's convergent set top box would have done without its game-playing capabilities. Would consumers have been interested in an all-in-one TV entertainment center on its own merits, or are all these multimedia features just nice additions to a unit that's primarily meant for games. Leave your thoughts in the comments.