The PS3

[Madame Adequate]

All PS3's can play multi-national games.

That means multi-region dvds too, right?

Sadly not, as far as I know. DVDs will be regional, although not the same regions as they normally are. Or something. Anyway point is transnational movie companies are morons.

Add a HD-DVD drive onto it, and it works out about the same.

Microsoft arent forcing you to get all this additional stuff though, which is a good thing if you dont have a HD TV etc.....

Fair to say, I shouldn't have included "necessary". But it really does look like HDTV is the way the industry is going, so it'll probably become ubiquitous, if not necessary, over the next few years.