What should I know about buying a Playstation?

Meow pretty much explained everything, but to answer your newer detail, think of the PS3 as your own home computer. If you want to store anything on it, you're going to need space. The PS3 has the capacity to hold music, photos, and movies, and it needs space.

As for games, many of them nowadays are required to be installed. Once you put a game in to play, before you can even hit the start screen, it may notify you that it is installing, and this obviously needs space. Games also have saves, new content, and future updates to fix any bugs or glitches. These all require storage capacity.

if you're planning to buy movies directly from the PS3's digital store, play games, and store other media, then going with a PS3 that has 120Gb or more should be just fine. I'm not even sure they still sell anything lower than a 120Gb model.

The current PS3 holiday bundles have everything necessary plus a game, but not much is necessary.

You may have to buy a HDMI cable but those are everywhere and can be gotten cheap online especially. If you're a Costco member they often have their own bundles which do have one.

"GBs" are gigabytes which is a unit of storage. More means more storage for games, movies, music, whatever. HD movies takes up a good bit of space so you want more if you plan on downloading a lot of those or full games or something. Netflix wouldn't really need much. Games use very little space for save data but some need to be installed to the system.

Well .. umm the PS3 plays Blu-ray discs. Though to get the best performance and quality picture you would need a HDTV i hope you have one and a HDMI cord they are cheap. I don't about a complete package. I know there is like bundles that come with games .. 1 sometimes 2 games. But things like the HDMI cord will have to be separate. And about the GB .. well its like a memory unit. You store your pictures and videos .. game content etc. Like saves so you can save game progress. PS3 also plays Netflix and Hulu video services etc.

Also i reccommend getting Gran Turismo 5. Get it !! you will love it along with a steering wheel hope that helps merry christmas have fun and take care !!

Don't listen to the one up there. Playstation 3 is the best gaming console and also is a home entertainment. Its like a pc also that can store video, mp3, picture and much more into it's hard drive. It can install os like Linux. So in conclusion ps3 is also like a pc but it can play games play Blu-ray disc. And one more differrent console has differrent exclusive which mean that some games only available on Xbox 360 or ps3. I see the only one interesting game is Xbox 360 is halo series but there are much interesting exclusive games on ps3 like: god of war 3, uncharted series, metal gear solid 4, little big planet and much more.

I would advise if you're tight on money, either get a used one from a reliable store like GameStop, because at GameStop they are required to inspect them, or Wal-mart. If you want a higher quality one, and are willing to pay up to 100$ more, Wal-mart can save a couple bucks, or any local gaming shop. I would definitely recommend considering a Wii or Xbox, as PlayStation is unfortunately getting out of date.