Is the PS3 going bulimic?

And spewing all its fatty baggage all over the curbside like a supermodel after dinner?

One Chinese source tried to say so: http://bbs.levelup.cn/showtopic-803951.aspx
But the post has been deleted, as you can see.

Before said pics and details went down, several English languages sites caught them and reposted the pics, which are as follows:





Sony of course says it's all lies, beautiful lies. Who do you believe?


(Thanks Playstation Universe!)

Playing with inFamous (I wish I was)

Lucky me sitting in an Asian timezone was able to enter pretty quick and quickly enough Game Hunter's contest for inFamous demo codes. With only 20 available on a first-come, first-serve basis, I, in my mid afternoon daze that always sets in after eating too much Chinese food, lumbered into action to register with USA Today and got myself a code! I know it was just a marketing ploy to increase viewership, and I probably would have cancelled my account the moment I found out I was too late, but I won and as a result happy enough to go on living.

Infamous, sorry inFamous (for some reason), is a 3rd person action game. I hesitate to call it a shooter, because you're not exactly shooting. I guess you shoot bolts of electricity and throw electricity bombs, so it's sort of shooting. But this is not a TPS by any stretch of the imagination.

Actually the attacks, which look beautiful and are made better by a largely destructible environment, are pretty conventional. You shoot stuff, it dies. It dies in cool ways, but it still dies, or is at least disabled. Disabled enemies or bystanders can be sucked dry of their life force, healed, or restrained with arc binders, which I don't understand really because they must shock the hell out of you.

The electrical powers are fun, but what really puts this game in a room of one's own is the controls. The controls, the controls! They work so, so amazingly well.

I feel like all the promos were telling me about this game was how you could manipulate the environment with your Force-like electrical powers or be Famous or inFamous, but failed to mention that you're actually a Parkour superstar as well. You run, jump, roll, sure, but did you know you can grab on to just about anything that appears grab-onable? Railings, building ledges, window sills, the sides of a train. You can crawl up lampposts and girders, or launch yourself up the wrong side of an emergency fire escape. Rail slide stair railings, even building-to-building electrical cables and electrified train rails. All the while setting limits--no scaling smooth walls. (I noticed one bug in the game though--I was unable to climb over a chain-link fence! How ironic! Maybe it's a kind of subtle commentary on the emptiness of the protagonist's soul).

The best thing about all this is how simple it is. You don't have to do special button presses, you character just does what is appropriate in the given situation. If you jump on the electrified wire, he'll slide--if you jump to it but let's say you miss judge and fall short, he can grab it as well. And to get on such narrow objects is not the painfully bone-crushing task it could be at times in Mirror's Edge, but rather your protagonist (I really should look up his name) is smart enough to jump exactly where you were intending for him to go, so if you were to have missed by a couple inches, you'll actually be fine.

Did I mention that the game also manages to include a cover system that works as well as GOW2 if not better? I guess because the button layout is kept sparse (a big plus for a button retard such as myself), they had the space for it.

So as great as blowing up vehicles, launching people a hundred feet, watching wooden objects shred to pieces (a pretty amazing touch) and sucking the life out of innocent bystanders is, I had just as much fun exploring the city in all directions. Sadly the demo forces you to take the next mission if you delay too long, but it has done its work--I want more.

p.s. There is one thing I wish (hopelessly I assume, since the game has already gone gold) that they would change--the sound your character makes when he runs. I'm not sure how to describe it other than utter crap. It doesn't even sound like a CD-quality sound, rather just some garbled computer pc speaker tonal grunts. It's a bit disturbing and actually takes you out of the game a bit. A normal swishing sound of jeans would probably suffice. 

(thanks Game Hunters!)

New Army of Two video shows Shanghai looking pretty

Messed up! Man this game is going to be beautiful. I never played the first one, hearing only mixed reactions, but as terrible as this game might or might not be, it's worth the--what do games cost these days, $15?--price to see Shanghai's inevitable future self. If they release this on PC, my only question is, would China allow it? Or does it still hurt too many Chinese people's feelings, the way Fallout 3 hurt a lot (and I mean A LOT, like 6) of people's feelings in the US?

Burn motherheehaw burn

(thanks Joystiq!)

Killzone Cupcakes, yum

Nothing goes together better than evil death machines and tasty cupcakes!

Ok I better preface this plug by saying I work in PR and so to my chagrin (not really) I like to point out clever bits of gaming PR once in awhile. This little stunt to promote the PS3's newest big mama title Killzone 2, which has sold like cupcakes (which sell better than hotcakes) does it quite well--freak the shit out of the game media before seducing them with the taste of sweet deadliness. Seriously, who would trust a cupcake from a Helghast? They have an emperor so they must be bad people! Go democracy!

(thanks playstation blog!)

Get a plasma...

This weekend I splurged for a plasma tv. Well it wasn't really a splurge, seeing as prices have dropped so much and it was actually cheaper than my original LCD hdtv. But what it most definitely is, is awesome for gaming, and it's cheaper than LCDs that could match its image quality.

It's awesome in two areas--contrast detail and motion blur. Contrast detail is way sharper, and now I can not only see those fucking sniper assholes camping in COD as clearly as my overgrown toenails when I look down with my glasses on, but I can actually see the fucking sniper assholes when they're hiding in shadows. Take that fucking sniper assholes, I see you now.

Motion blur is totally gone except for what devs program into their games to make up for low framerates, but since there's none of that crap in COD, I'm playing a blur-free experience. It's much more noticeable than I thought it would be, and really makes my life of killing soldiers and sometimes Nazi Zombies much more satisfying as they don't disappear in a haze of pixels. 

So yes, get a plasma. Don't worry about the ridiculous energy consumption and weight, or burn-in, because a good one (I went with Panasonic) will get you more friends, all the ladies, and best of all, feared by your virtual enemies. Do it, do it now.

Dirt 2 Racin through Asia

Dirt 2, not a porno but in fact a PS3 game that lets you engage in some "off-road racing with an extreme sports attitude." Sounds like Dan Quayle is writing their copy again!

I only wish to point it out for having some cool Asian settings to race around, including China and Malaysia. Good up on ya, Dirt 2 devs, for including lesser known settings--I do assume by China that means racing along the Great Wall, around Tiananmen Square, and a sprint to the finish inside the Forbidden City. Anything less and I'll be superbly disappointed.

Something Useful Hits Home, Playstation Home that is!

I've been thinking for awhile to write about Playstation Home, the Second-Life lookalike service built by Sony but that really is more about generating ad revenue than letting people build flying penises to disrupt virtual conferences (I wish it had that feature though, seriously).

Basically Home lets you design a character with a pretty decent amount of customization in terms of facial features, and you can then run your avatar from your insanely real-world expensive apartment to other areas of the Home, including Home Central, the mall, bowling alley, movie theater and other areas designed by game developers to promote their games.

It looks great, but so far Home is a French Poodle that just won a dog show in Zimbabwe, i.e. looks like a million trillion Zimbabwe dollars on the outside, but is starving to death for food, I mean content, and content is (surprise!) the lifeblood of anything that has value. Yes, they did finally add clothes and furniture in the mall you can buy via microtransactions, but selection is pretty limited. In the mall you can also play chess, which is kinda cool, but like the arcade games, bowling and pool in the bowling alley, can only be played if there is actually an empty seat for your avatar. It's dumb to be that realistic as it defeats the whole advantage of a virtual world, but at the same time I like it for boldly daring to be so ironically annoying.

The movie theater is another place that could be cool, again, if they had content god dammit. all that plays on the single screen (what a crappy theater!) are a few trailers for games, over and over and over. Whoopity fucking do, how about we play a MOVIE in the MOVIE theater. Sony, you're a fucking distributor, why don't you have any rights to show MOVIES in the MOVIE theater? Worst execution of any concept in Home.

In the town square, called Central I think, there's not a lot going on either. The most popular activity I've seen so far is the music system which I under duress admit is kind of cool. It's cool that people can vote on what song should come next (I just typed suck instead of song by accident--typo or truth?), but the song collection is guess what limited as hell and mostly to crappy techno beats. At least you can make your avatar do various gestures, including a surprising number of dance moves. Makes me think the developers knew how barren Home would be and were looking for other ways to spice it up.

Well, guess what, somehow this idea succeeded, maybe because every other has failed so far, because you'll see a few dozen people dancing it up on the stage pretty much all the time. Bangin their heads doing the Rock n Roll gesture, or getting their robot on. It sure is fun. (note: periods can denote sarcasm)

the few outside companies that probably paid some pittance to get space in Home have created what I'll call "content" rather than content since it mostly sucks. Red Bull's space has some plane racing game that somehow has something to do with lethal caffeination overdoses, and some rooms in Far Cry and Drake's Fortune lands contain game environments but few or no interactive elements. It seems pretty worthless to me unless you're an obsessed fan of the games or on an extreme caffeine buzz.

This might all be beginning to change, however, if Warhawk's new Command Center and Sand Table have anything to say about it. Basically it's a war room, a place where you can see maps from the game and strategize, and meet others to start a game (one cool feature about Home--hopping into games with fellow lovers of the same game is pretty straightforward). The war room looks awesome, from the video on 1up's site:

PlayStation Home 'Warhawk Command Center Walkthrough' video

You can actually place markers on maps representing different units in the game to plan out different strategies and whatnot. This is so much better for one reason and one reason only--it makes playing the paid-for game more fun (and teaches you how to kill better, who doesn't want to know that?). It's also good for game makers because it'll get people more interested in Warhawk, and probably help drive sales and yadda yadda yadda. But for us gamers, the important thing is that it makes the real game more fun, and that really should be the underlying mission of any of the video game related content in Home.

(thanks kotaku)

Two tvs is always better than one

So this weekend I took the plunge and bought a new TV, upgrading from a Philips LCD (42PFL5403) to a Panasonic Viera series Plasma (TH-42PZ80). Same size, but the kick ass image quality of a plasma (not to mention ass kicking 475w power consumption).

I decided to take the plunge because my friend decided he wanted to buy my old tv, and the new one wasn't much more than I sold the only one more. The new tv arrived before he could take my old away, however, so we did what any green-blooded video game losers with unbelievably tolerant girlfriends would do--dual-screen deathmatch!

With his ps3 on his new tv, mine on mine, a few more friends over, and voila we were blowing each other (away) in Killzone 2, Resistance 2, and we blew some Zombies (away), oh make that Nazi Zombies, in COD: WAW.

Killzone 2 looks absolutely awesome, and multiplayer wins for so many reasons, including not terrible lag, anyone can be healed, in-game match type switching, cookable grenades with gauge, leveling-based access to new classes and weapons. Can't wait to try more of the single player.

Saturday only got better as evening came on (did I mention we started at 2pm), when movie night time whipped around, and it was time to watch two of the greatest films made in the last five years: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. Great Flying Spaghetti Monster Christopher Nolan is a talented man.

What did I learn from all this? Two tvs, not just better than one, but much more a life necessity than I realized. I thought my depression at the end of the night was from the sad awareness that Heath Ledger will never have the chance to reprise his role as Joker, and that Batman really is quite a failure in terms of Superhero-dom (doesn't save the girl, doesn't kill Joker, loses Harvey Dent, ruins his car... sigh), but I now know it was because I have seen the joy of having two tvs, a joy I most likely will never know again.

Beijing gray market video game vendors break non-existent Killzone 2 street date

My friend was at our usual Ping Le Yuan video game store this past Saturday, where he saw Killzone 2 already on sale, a good six days before it's official launch date. The catch? It's 500RMB, or about $70. Worth it? Probably not.

Flower!

As usual I'm late to the party, and I'm sure everyone has formed their opinions about Flower, what a cool artistic game it is, how much fun it is to fly around sailing in the wind as it swirls your little petals to their hearts delights through meadows, dabbling in brooks, breezing around solumn rock outcroppings, and so forth.

It is a beautiful game. It's a peaceful game, a game that frees you of the confines of your dank little apartment that's half a floor underground, of which the cutscenes only serve as a vicious tormenting reminder. Flower, are you mocking my existence?

No, well not intentionally so. But I envy its beauty, I want to own it, make it mine, a goddess I'll never know.

The thing, though, that really bugs me about playing it? It has made me realize how bad a game player I am. Not bad skillwise, although that's true too, but rather from a theoretical point of view. Or maybe an ideological one. I don't know. The point is, I don't play this game, even this game, in which winning hardly seems to be a point at all, because I enjoy it. 

I play it to accomplish all the tasks to perfection. FOR SHAME. It really does ruin the fun of it, why? Because I end up focusing on figuring out how to get all my damn flowers to bloom, rather than the joy mentioned nigh four paragraphs ago.

Is it different for each level? Do I just need to have a butt load of flower petals when I end the level? All of them? Does getting zapped on level 5 lower my flower budding capability? Are there three sets of green petals on every level? THE GAME EXPLAINS NOTHING ARGH. Shouldn't I be basking in this ambiguity, celebrating its enigmaticity, if that is a word? Letting my imagination run away with itself at the possibilities this game presents, or at the very least, let my fucking obsession with perfection drown in a pool of drool so that I can get on with finishing the levels that it will let me play regardless of how well I did on the previous ones? Isn't that what's so cool about it, that you can enjoy the loose interpretive narrative no matter how unskilled you are, which makes my girlfriend (who is so amazing at everything else) happy to play as well?

Yes, this is my problem with game playing, my vice, my flaw. So I ask readers, do you have any flaws in your perception of gameplay that interfere with your actual joy of playing the game? Am I alone? What a desolate place this is.

Sony headed for more trouble?

There's a Chinese report out that Sony might be headed for trouble keeping costs down as sales fall... that's just bad, bad news. If it's true. Although Chinese media does tend to be better at reporting on business stuff than anything else.

Original article can be found here:

http://homea.people.com.cn/GB/8807545.html

Want to buy a console in China? It's easy

Even though video game consoles are not officially on the market in China yet, it's not hard to find any of them in the major cities like Beijing, where I live, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.

Any of the three systems in addition to the PS2 are readily available here, and surprisingly the prices, despite being imported, are roughly the same you'd pay in the States. A recent inquiry at my local dealer said the PS3 is going for about 2700RMB (~$400), an Xbox360 Arcade is 1600RMB (~$220) and the Wii runs somewhere around $300 last I checked, but that was awhile ago.

Where to buy:

In Beijing there are two choices--big malls like in Zhongguancun, the electronics/tech gadgets lala land of Beijing, where huge multistory complexes exist that cram in about as many vendor stalls as possible--if there were a fire, I'm sure most people would not get out alive. That said, it's the easiest place to find just about whatever you want, including video games and their systems. Zhongguancun is too far for me, but there's a similar place on a smaller scale near where I live called Pingleyuan. It's a lot of the same stuff but much quieter, and the guy who sells systems there is cool and seems pretty knowledgeable about gaming. The other choice is the little shops around the drum tower area--for some reason that's a popular location for console selling.

I bought a white PS3 last June, 40GB model, and it was by and large a hassle-free experience. Generally you don't need to bargain much, but you can probably knock 100-200rmb off the price if you get games and accessories with it. Most shops will have plenty of accessories, especially important cables like HDMI and even HDMI to DVI cables for computer monitor users. As far as I can tell they do come with a warranty, but I'm not sure it's the manufacturer's--rather you can either return it for a refund, get it exchanged, or get it repaired depending on how many days have passed.

There are some things to remember, however--the most important, I think, is that pretty much any Xbox360, Wii, or PS2 you buy will have been modified to play pirated games. This is done for the obvious reason--cost. You get a modded console and you can buy games just like buying pirated dvds--something like a buck a pop. The downside to this, at least for the Xbox360, is that you cannot play online.

The PS3, however, has not been modded. I guess no one's figured out how, or maybe the infrastructure doesn't exist yet to pirate Blu-ray discs in mass quantities for cheap. This means all the games you buy will cost you their actual price, which is anywhere from 260-400rmb. I find that there aren't any bargain deal prices like you can find in the States on older games, and I've never heard of used games being sold here either. The plus side is, you can play online with the PS3.

Other important considerations: remember that all consoles are imported, and if you like to watch DVD you bring from home, you might want to reconsider buying one here rather than one from the US, as consoles are region locked and in China, all consoles come from either Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, or maybe Taiwan. This means no legit DVDs from the west will play in them. Lamer than a paraplegic chicken, I know. Even worse, the PS3s are all NTSC and won't play PAL anything. Yet oddly when I rip a PAL movie to an avi file, it works fine. Dunno what's up with that.

OH wait, the actual worst part is buying a Wii here, because you can't change the damn language settings. If it came from Japan, you're stuck with Japanese, which I imagine has caused many hurt Chinese feelings.

Finally, the Xboxes, depending where it was imported from, may have 110v only power supplies, in which case you'll need a power invertor or power regulator to convert the voltage--DO NOT use one of those little crappy Radio Shack ones. It will fail and then you'll cry.

Other links on buying video game systems in China:

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2009/02/09/buying-a-wii-in-china

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2005/07/29/buying-a-ps2-in-shanghai

And in Taiwan:

http://toshuo.com/2009/buying-a-wii-in-taiwan/

The latter raises an interesting point--that the Wii doesn't even offer Chinese, simplified or traditional, as an option, suggesting that Nintendo doesn't care much for Chinese-speaking markets. I'm sure that would change the microsecond China starts allowing consoles to be sold on the mainland.

Video Game Pirates are just Underserved Customers

During the Game Business Law summit Jason Holtman from Valve talked about how his company has reduced piracy of its products--and guess what, it's NOT by criminalizing them. Valve has succeeded by redefining the terms of engagement, looking at pirates not as douchewagons who just want to steal shit, but as underserved customers. In other words, they pirate because the game company isn't treating them right.

Valve's solution was to add value to its products and to make them as easily available in countries outside of the typical Western markets. I guess there's some stigma about developing nations because the governments might not be as steady, but the more I read, the more it seems to me that doing business globally requires one to understand the market in which you're trying to do business, more than worrying about which way the government policy winds are blowing. 

China is probably the far-off wet dream for many game developers and publishers right now; a huge market potential, but piracy, oh the piracy! It ruins the market, makes it unprofitable. 

I say bullhonkey. It's just that these companies' expectations don't match the situation on the ground. They want it to be tons of customers = easy money, but they don't want to make the deep investments required to get into the market and understand it. The profit will not be as explosive and ridiculously amazing as they think it should be. No one's going to be sleeping under quilts of stitched-together Ben Franklins. Any game company that really wants to reap the rewards has to think long-term, and has to really figure out what Chinese gamers want.

So what do they want? One place to look are the current successes: WOW, for example. I don't play it so I can't speak to why China loves it so much, but I'm sure market research companies can do the case studies other game developers/publishers would love to have. I think they will find that gamers here actually have a variety of interests, as FPS like CS are popular as well as RTS like StarCraft. 

I think they also want video games, as my earlier post about console sales indicates. The government has yet to approve the sales of consoles, but that it will happen is inevitable, and everyone should be preparing for this.

Most importantly, companies need to rethink how they're going to promote and sell their products. Rampant piracy makes traditional methods difficult, but Valve's experience is a valuable insight on alternative methods. Would that work in China? I have some doubts, but I think it stands a chance. 

Additional suggestions I have:

 Work with the gov't to promote "healthy" gaming (but only so far as that includes addiction rather than content)

Microtransaction gaming--sell the game for cheap or nothing at all and sell in-game accessories.

Episodic content--just a hunch, but I think Chinese gamers would enjoy this.

Understand that Chinese still don't have the spending power of the Western countries. Games need to be sold cheaper here (and if they're in Chinese, you don't have to worry much about overseas piracy anyway).

Sell online, partner up with Chinese online stores, e.g. Joyo-Amazon, Dangdang, buy360.

Support the gaming community: sponsor events, competitions, tournaments, charitable causes, etc. It's very important here to show you care about your customers. You need to show your loyalty in order to get theirs.

Any activity you want to engage in to limit piracy or warn piraters, get the government to support you first. If you have their backing, you'll be much better off if the Chinese public doesn't go for it.

In the same vein, remember that Chinese BBS forums can turn on you pretty quickly if you make a wrong step. Monitor the big ones and always be ready to respond. Engaging with consumers is one of the best ways to show you care about them.

And for me personally, would you console makers get busy persuading the gov't to allow console sales here? As that data I posted a few days ago shows, Chinese will buy them, and I guarantee you they want to play online.

 

(article from Gamedaily.com)

World Cyber Games, yeah China does it

The World Cyber Games, apparently the Olympics of computer and video gaming (I just learned that it exists), does have a team from China. Some quick facts:

2008 WCG competitors: 15

Tournament participant since: 2000 (the tournament's first year, when it was called the World Cyber Game Challenge)

The team competed in: FIFA, Counter Strike, Star Craft and War Craft

Won 2nd place in 2001 (But I can't figure out where they won their medals from the winner charts)

Sadly does not compete in any console games--hope that changes soon though.

Also WCG really needs to update their info and their website--it lists China as having a mere 123,000,000 Internet users, although now that figure is over 300,000,000, and the site has way too much going on on the front page.

(WCG)

China's annual video game review is out!

FTA:

China's 46 million gamers spent $1.7 billion on online games in 2007, up 71% from 2006. Advanced casual and casual online games made up 21% of the total, and new flash-based casual versions of popular MMO and RTS games demonstrated the hardcore gamers' appetite to play casual games along with subscription MMOs. Online revenue is expected to reach $2.5 billion in 2008 and $6 billion in 2012, for a 29% compound annual growth rate in the five-year period.

"China's spending on games is up thanks to their booming economy," said Lisa Cosmas Hanson. "14 million hardcore Chinese gamers play online games more than 22 hours per week. They play online, LAN, and single-player offline PC games in China's 185,000 Internet cafés and increasingly on their PCs at home, thanks to falling prices and higher disposable income."

According to the 6th Annual Review & Forecast Report, part of an annual subscription of reports for publishers, hardware makers, service providers, and investors who need to understand China's fast-moving video game industry, gamers are buying consoles with their disposable income as well. "In spite of the regulation that has banned the sale of game consoles in China since the year 2000, gamers are flocking to stores that sell illegally imported Wii, Xbox 60, PS3 and PS2 machines to take part in the excitement of console gaming," said Hanson. "While these consoles are expensive for the average Chinese consumer, gamers are willing to spend money on them to supplement their online gaming experience, and unit sales hit 2.48 million units in 2007, up 75% over 2006."

Piracy remains an issue for packaged software via digital downloads and counterfeit copies of games, but legitimate sales of packaged offline PC games surged 56% in 2007, over 2006. Chinese gamers are showing that they like to buy the legitimate copies to ensure quality and to get customer support. (Business Wire)

(My bold)

Xbox360 outselling PS3--is anyone surprised?

I'm not, but statistics, in my opinion, are usually a load of crap anyway. I mean Al Gore wins the popular vote but loses the election, so apparently 50%+ of people can be wrong.

But I digress. Stats are bs here however you look at because on the one hand, the Xbox360 has sold 8 million more units than the PS3, but on the other, it has been out a year longer. So that negates the success right? Wrong, because the lead a year ago was only 5 million, so it is outselling the PS3. I think. Who knows. 

On the other other other hand, though, I'm surprised that the PS3 has sold 20 million units and yet has been called a total failure in the press lately. I mean, it's been a huge loss to Sony, as they've never made a profit on it, but that's still quite a few units, certainly more than I thought it was.

We have a winner...

China is quickly becoming known for its knock-off video game systems, none more (in)famous than the "Vii", a Nintendo Wii wannabe with far worse graphics and sketchier motion detection. Here's another shot at the prize though, presciently titled the "Winner". It attempts to replicate the PS3's multimedia functions while adding a touch of Wii with a motion detecting controller, and it is priced to move at $120-150. Watch out PS3, you have some serious competition for dead last in the console war!

Chinese piracy for sale, special 2-for-1 deal!

It's not just a Samsung Anycall rip-off, it's a Sony rip-off too! The Amycoll PS3, how could you go wrong with this one?

Will the PS2 ever die?

It seems not. According to this report on kotaku, more people are playing PS2 than any other system, including the Wii, and by a ginormous margin. WTF? People, it's not 2005 anymore, come on and step up to the latest and greatest.

What does this mean? Are next-gen consoles just lame and sucky, like my great great grandmother's teats? Or are people just not seeing what the big hoohaw is about the Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3?

None of the above. Perhaps once console makers could rely on the market's steady growth to introduce new and more powerful systems that would outsell their predecessors, but the PS2 kinda futzed that up for everyone by selling enough systems to populate a decent-sized country. Obviously the next-gen consoles had no hope to match the PS2's sales, and I'm sure they weren't aiming for it, but Sony must feel a bit sad that the original Xbox is played more than the PS3 is.

Will another system ever sell as well as the PS2? Not until they all break down I suppose.

I predict, however, that the next-next-gen systems, perhaps the PS4 and Xbox^3, will do much better. The PS3 and 360 were stop-gaps, leaps ahead in performance but not really offering anything new in terms of gameplay. The PS3 did offer more innovation, but its high cost stifled it. Personally I think it's a great investment if you're not only looking for a gaming machine, but Sony is only starting to market it as such now. Next time around, boys...