1. I have a 360 and it's swell but I still think it was a mistake to not include a next-gen disc. That's one of its biggest flaws. On the other hand, I see PS3 as having what 360 has, and a lot more i.e. a more complete system: Internet browsing, the possibility for bigger games, hard drive out of the box, bigger hard drive, 1080 progressive, apparently cheaper Wi-Fi enabler, better backwards compatibility, likely a good bunch of japanese games, and Blu-ray movie playback. Not to mention sequels on my favorite franchises.

A lot of these and more wouldn't be possible without Blu-ray. Hear Microsoft?

Anyway, PS3 also has its flaws, like no vibration, lack of original IP (but having awaited sequels isn't that bad either), expensive....

Posted at 11:37PM on Jun 26th 2006 by boots 2 stars

2. boots, why should Microsoft commit to a format in such a manner as to force upon people a yet unknown such as the winner in their format war? I much prefer the external add-on option if it works well.

Not to suggest that Blu-ray will fail, but can you imagine 3-4 years down the line if in some mirror universe (lol) Blu-ray lost to HD-DVD and all those poor PS3 owners are stuck not only haven bought into it, but stuck keeping it.

Posted at 7:22AM on Jun 27th 2006 by GhostDoggy 0 stars

3. "Internet browsing, the possibility for bigger games, hard drive out of the box, bigger hard drive, 1080 progressive, apparently cheaper Wi-Fi enabler, better backwards compatibility, likely a good bunch of japanese games, and Blu-ray movie playback. Not to mention sequels on my favorite franchises.

A lot of these and more wouldn't be possible without Blu-ray"

I only see ONE thing here enabled by blu-ray... and you state it with the qualifer "possibility." Since we know so many games this gen are going to be cross platform they wont be bigger than what 360 can handle, and with the time it takes to produce a game these days, if they go bigger, and produce more content then it will be out on the NEXT gen.

Posted at 8:05AM on Jun 27th 2006 by Paul 1 star

4. excuse me two things there are because of blu-ray, but my point still stands.

Sony is screwing us and you dont even know it. It will be a mediocre game system and a mediocre blu-ray player. I hope that is not the case but i am guessing that it will be.

Posted at 8:55AM on Jun 27th 2006 by Paul 1 star

5. boots.... congrats on your new purchase of an Xbox 360, I was trading posts with you back on June 23rd and you stated that you were not going to purchase a 360 until the first price drop? What made you change your mind?

I am curious when you say a more complete system. Because I have absolutely no desire to browse the internet over my game console and I can not believe that there are allot of people out there who will pay $600 for a game console but not be able to afford a computer which is much better suited for Internet Browsing. The hard drive out of the box is such a small issue since so few of the core systems were ever sold in most of the major markets, and so far of all the 360 games I have played I have not run into any long loading times due to developers not being able to count on a hard drive present. The other thing is that you can not complain about a system not having sequels to your favorite titles when you have been a Playstation fan. That would be like me saying that part of the reason I feel that the Playstation 3 is far to expensive is because Halo 3 is not coming out for it. As for 1080p…. Sony and Nintendo said with the last generation consoles that not enough people had broadband and online gaming was not as important. So I think that is why Microsoft and Nintendo have not planned on supporting 1080p, by the time the masses have 1080p technology in the average consumer home it will be time for the next round of consoles.

As for the other points the WiFi, the backward compatibility, and the hard drives that is something that Sony has really out shined Microsoft. Paying $99 for a Wireless G is nothing short of robbery. While I like the Microsoft concept of backward compatibility through an emulator better, Sony’s implementation of backward compatibility is hands down far better. The hard drive while 12 gigs is not running out of space yet for me, I can see where I would like to have more room in the future.

One thing that is totally unrelated to Blu-Ray, but I think is going to make the Xbox 360 a better option its design architecture. Microsoft has stated that publishers will be able to write games for the 360 and that code can be recompiled with very little changes for Windows PCs. I think this will attract allot of publishers that can tap into larger markets. While Sony has opted to design their game console with a very proprietary processor that will take allot of additional effort and specialized code to fully utilize it.

Posted at 12:10PM on Jun 27th 2006 by Jim N 0 stars

6. "1080 progressive, apparently cheaper Wi-Fi enabler, better backwards compatibility, likely a good bunch of japanese games, and Blu-ray movie playback."

boots, just to let you know, you can use the original Xbox Wifi adapter with the 360...it costs less. I hate wireless for a console, personally...it's too unreliable. Not to mention that 802.11g is soon to be replaced with 802.11n, so you wouldn't want the old stuff built in. 802.11n supports 100+Mbps, which would put it right up there with Fast Ethernet (100Mbps).

I don't need the PS3 fluff myself (wireless, bluray, 1Gbps ethernet, flash memory reader, functions I can do better on my computer). I just need the games. The 'tard PS3 would work for me, but not having an HDMI port really sucks.

Posted at 7:21PM on Jun 27th 2006 by SuicideNinja 2 stars

7. I found this link on twit.tv, here is why Blu-Ray and HD-DVD will fail.

http://www.audioholics.com/news/editorials/10reasonsHDDVDsfailed.php

Posted at 12:48PM on Jun 28th 2006 by Jim N 0 stars