We have just a few more weeks left before we finally get our hands on Konami Digital Entertainment's Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, and the home stretch of the waiting period is killing us. To keep you preoccupied, we decided to feature some of the key characters of the game on a weekly basis to freshen our memories on their roles in the series. This week, we'll shed some light on the mysterious Patriots.

Is the Sony PlayStation 3 a game console with a built-in Blu-ray bundled in or is it in fact a Blu-ray player masquerading as a game console? The Guardian website in the UK thinks it's the latter.

The Guardian interviewed Sony Europe VP Matt Brown and read between the lines to conclude that Sony is propagating the storage format using the PS3 as the Trojan horse to carry the drive that will help win the war against the HD DVD.

"The PS3 is going to help us do the job," says Brown. He explained that by selling the PS3, they bring the number of Blu-ray owners up. That way, even if consumers actually prefer the HD-DVD format, they'll have a Blu-ray drive by default and that gives them a compelling reason to use it and buy Blu-ray discs with games and movies in them.

Evidence for this strategy, the Guardian says, is the fact that the high-end PS3 is priced lower than most Blu-ray players. Thus, the wiser thing to do in this case would be to buy the PS3 and  forget the player. The move is reminiscent of how Microsoft won its browser war against Netscape by bundling the Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system.

Ultimately, the article said that even if the console war is won or lost on Sony's end, its Blu-ray master plan will rake back the megabucks. Research firm Understanding & Solutions say that it's likely that Europe will have four million Blu-ray players, PS3s and PC drives using the format by 2008.

A bold interpretation of the status quo indeed. To read the full article published in the Guardian, click the read URL.