Wow ,

it was only september when i bought a Wii and i'm already itching to buy a PS3 .. and i've almost done so on 3 seperate occasions ...

However it took a little history leason to remind me that i don't need a PS3 yet ( even if i do want one )

I bought my 360 for £175 with 2 controllers and 4 games

The best deal i've seen on the PS3 is £285 with Play TV and 4 games

Now , this is just for me , i would still need to buy a second controller so add £30 and it's still just over £300 to getthe Ps3 package i want.

Sorry sony .. but it's just still too expensive to buy into the PS3 ... the deals on both the Wii and the 360 are vastly better value. ( and this from someone that never touches his Wii )

So unless a super deal comes out in the last week before christmas i'm guessing it'll be a fairly long wait till i get a PS3 .. it's going to be that £200 point that tips me over the edge i think.

Ilooked at my collection and i now have over 30 games for my 360 ... surely i've got enough games to entertain me .. and in all honesty as soon as Mass effect 2 comes out all my gaming time will be spent on that ... i simply won't have time to lust for a PS3.

Ok .. i bought a Wii about 2 weeks ago.

So i now own a 360 and a Wii

But i'm looking at the PS3 with lustful eyes. Now I know that it's still about £50 too expesive in the UK and that Multiplatform games are generally better on the 360 and that Blu ray disks are overpriced. I know all these things.

But i'm a gamer at heart and none of that matters when i could once again have all three consoles ... that i could play any exclusive on any format that i could play multiplayer games for the first time since my Gold trial ran out ( even then i couldn't be bothered to play multiplayer ) and i could get new films on Bluray ... oh the dream.

Realistically i should wait till next year to get a PS3 , with another holiday season out of the way the price of Bluray films and Ps3 games should fall even further and with luck the new year should bring with it more favourable exchange rates and even a cheaper PS3 ... although sony has been quite happy to rip off the UK for the last few years i doubt they would change their ways.

So that's it .. i will wait ... wait ... wait .... wait ...

lets see how long i hold out

Recession is a terrible thing. with the UK economy being hit harder than most it is unfortunate that Sony's announcement of the PS3 slim and a price reduction has been used by Sony to reposition the price in the UK more inline with the current euro exchange rate.

But why would Sony do this when the UK is one of the few regions where the 360 outsells the PS3?

It's quite simple really the UK market isn't that important to Sony, although they are outsold by the 360 the numbers aren't significant. Their main concern is the US and rightly so.

If you look at the NPD data the PS3is outsold by the 360 month on month. In the US the Slim and price reduction are serious moves from Sony to take a larger chunk of the market and quite frankly it is something that should be successful.

At $300 vs. an elite at $300 the temptation to go for the fuller feature set of the PS3 would surely be a major draw for most gamers. And this is assuming that the price cut of the elite takes place.

Now let us look at the UK even before a price cut on the 360 elite

£230 vs. the new price of the PS3 £250

Now personally I don't see the price cut in the UK being substantial if it happens at all but $100 = £60 and 100euro = £85

If Microsoft do the sensible thing and lower the price of the elite 50euros and £30 to get under the £200 barrier you've still got to think that people will be looking at the PS3 as too expensive simply because there is a psychological effect of seeing a£199 figure.

Let us look at the price of the PS3 around the world

Japan = £192

US = £180

Euro zone = £258

However let us look at more natural exchange rates where the euro exchange is around 0.70 and the Yen 0.005 ( a little high actually ) the US exchange rate is sitting at a pretty normal level right now with only a minor difference between the more natural rates which would be around0.58

Japan = £150 (who wouldn't buy one at that price?)

Euro zone = £209

US = £173

Now if you want to get really boring you can talk about sales tax and VAT rates which are between 6-10% depending on what state you live in and 15% in the UK. The euro prices will include tax but I'm not sure if the Yen prices do but their sales tax is 5% so very low.

Ultimately I don't believe that Sony will readjust their prices exclusively for the UK once the recession is over. We've lived with a £300 PS3 vs. a £200 PS3 in the states when times were good it's unlikely that Sony would bother to adjust the prices unless there is a seismic shift towards the 360 in the UK.

The dream of a sub £200 PS3 seems to still be a far way off.

At E3 MS announced digital downloads of 30 older 360 games.

Now I'm not a fan of digital distribution.But even for people that are the problem facing acceptance of this service is one of storage.

MS were eager to tell us how you could download the title as often as you like and whenever you liked after purchase but that doesn't change the fact that there is no suitable storage on the 360 to accommodate full 360 titles

with even say a 20Mbit connection that's 2.5Mbytes a second if your average game is 6000mb your looking at a wait of at least 40 minutes to start playing a game. Now this is fine for your first purchase .. but seriously.. say i fancy a bit of bioshock but my HDD currently holds Mass effect that I'm half way through playing ... am i really going to delete my game and spend 40 minutes downloading just to have to download mass effect again ?

now consider you don't actually get that 20mbit connection say you get 10 or 5 mbit .. your talking 1hr 20 or even 2hr 40 minutes just to download a game ... all these figures aren't too bad but not suitable for pick up and play gaming.

But the problem really lies in the fact that there is a very easy solution. if MS would allow an external HDD to store the vast amounts of data , or to scrap the stupidly small and expensive storage units for the 360 and replace them with larger reasonably priced drives.

Don't get me wrong .. I can cope with my 20gb 360 ... it's not too much of a headache for me at the moment .. but if I could get a 320gb or 500gb drive today for the same price as other 2.5in external drives ( so that's £50 - £80 ) I wouldn't even question it. at the moment I look at the 120gb HDD selling for £100 and then see a 1,000gb 3.5in external selling for £70 .. it just makes me look at the 360 drive as hideously expensive.

Personally i think that Microsoft's plan is that when Sony announce their inevitable price drop Microsoft are going to change their HDD specs to something like 120gb for the pro and 320gb for the elite and not take part in another price war. To my mind the prices of the xbox SKU's is pretty low and it's going to be tweaking of the set ups rather than massive price cuts that MS takes advantage of from now on.

But that still doesn't help me or 28 million other 360 users who are looking at a machine that doesn't match Microsoft's vision of the 360's future.

Something has to change in Microsoft's way of thinking.

So , call me cynical if you want , but i now understand why 3D Realms were making so much noise of late about the vaporware that was Duke Nukem Forever .... they needed money !

It's pretty typical really. After years of sitting around not coming up with anything to present to people the accountants suddenly realised that the funds were drying put so the PR machine went into overdrive .. we got a teaser trailer .. a "sneek peak" on a web TV show .. and lots of stories about milestones being passed and the game being 90% complete.

But in the end what are we left with a gaming comunity and a company ( Take2 ) who just either no longer cared or simply didn't believe the hype. The fact of the matter is that untill they were able to show off a proper demo, playable or otherwise, people would still think if DNF as vaporware... and in all the desperation for funding that is still something they couldn't do.

However , there is light at the end of the tunnel ... Take2 could now farm out the Duke nukem game to another developer. One that might actually be able to finish a game.

So another 2 year wait and Duke could finally be back... Ah , something inside me just can't let the dream die !!

Right well back to playing Duke Nukem 3d with the PC HD pack .... Good times !!

since the launch of the PS3 the constant rumble from the faithful has been "next year"

ok the 360 has a better software line up .. but next year... ok the 360 is selling more units ... but next year

We've all heard them say it .. and it's almost a tiring as any rant about how one system suxks and another is a gift from god.

yawn !!

However, it is a simple fact that the PS3 is a good machine and sony spent last year putting their house in order and have, in my mind at least, finally come up trumps.

Firstly Little big planet ... easily the best game realeased on the PS3 last year, is leading the way in bonding PS3 owners in the same way the 360 has been doing since launch. Dipping into user created content , getting e-mail messages about a cool level people have found. All this is the sort of buzz, a level of cool that the PS3 was missing. With sony announcing over 650,000 user levels being created with amazingly 35,000 new levels going up each week the people that have bought into the little sackboy world are really doing their part

Secondly the new and quite frankly vastly improved exclusive content coming to PSN... Flower , noby noby boy present something different and wonderful that again adds a much needed wow factor that XBLA has had at points .. and with more to come with games like fat princess games that hark back to the golden days of gaming or present content that's not marketable for full releases.

Finally Home... yes home .. it's rubbish , absolutely terrible ! but i'm thinking this will be a slow burn , if sony get it working properly it's a great idea and will evolve over the next few years from mildly entertaining distraction to fully fledged User interface

So this "could" be the year .... But with one big factor standing in their way ... PRICE

In the UK the PS3 is still almost double the price of a 360 pro and 1/3 more expensive than an elite !

Quite simple Sony are still hanging onto the idea that people will pay the premium for the Ps3 .. and to some degree it is true, people have bought a respectable number of units. But respectable isn't what Sony expected and it's not what they were after. Unfortunately it's their legacy that Sony should be worried about now. People are now looking at MS and Sony as equals when it comes to console brands. In a way Sony have already lost the console war this generation simply because they have given up so much ground to Microsoft.

It might seem like a hollow victory to the fans who in 2005 thought the PS3 would crush it's competitors ... but here and now a marginal lead over the 360 come the end of this generation will be something sony will need to work for.

And to do that they need to hurt themselves with a substantial price cut and they need to do that sooner rather than later.

I can't believe what a joke the Gamespot Game of the year award is.

1 Wii game, no 360 exclusives and 2 PS3 exclusives .... great a system wars battle rolls on.

it is unfortunate that MGS4 is bound to win this years award over what is in my opinion at least 2 games that are better ... my favorite site gamecentral doesn't even have MGS4 in it's top 20 let alone up for game of the year.

when you narrow down to a final 10 games of the year there are bound to be a few notable exceptions .. however simply put there is something seriously wrong when the best games on each system don't show up on the list.

Now taste is subjective that's fine but my best games on each system are between

Wii :

SSMB , Mario kart and World of Goo ... No more heroes is in the top 5 .. but not top slot

Xbox 360 :

Gears 2 , Fable 2 , braid

PS3:

Little big planet, Valkyria Chronicles , Bioshock

Worst of all though are the questionable inclusions ... namely Resistance 2

it pains me to see a shooter that isn't even deserving of a top 3 place in the shooters of the year get undue pops

Gears 2 , Far cry 2 , Left for dead all FAR better games than resistance.

Sigh .... the only good thing about the list is that it didn't turn into a Todger waggling contest with Gears 2 and MGS 4 going head to head !

The whole problem with Kane and Lynch lost Gamespot a whole lot of credibility ... now we have a GOTY award that does the same.

ok time to put my money where my mouth is and list my top games of the year

Fallout 3 (360/PS3/PC)
Grand Theft Auto IV (360/PS3/PC)
Fable II (360)

LittleBigPlanet (PS3)

Left 4 Dead (360/PC)
Advance Wars: Dark Conflict (DS)

Braid (360/PC)
Zack & Wiki (Wii)
Gears Of War 2 (360)
Valkyria Chronicles (PS3)
No More Heroes (Wii)
World Of Goo (PC/Wii)

disagree , that's fine , i'm right your wrong .. simply because this is my opinion not yours .. i'm not telling you what you think the best games of the year are i'm not stating what are the best games .. just simple what I think are the best games

About a year ago i set myself a target of a certain number of games ( a dozen ) to complete before i bought myself an Xbox 360 or PS3 ...

Well the day has finally come .. i'm ALMOST finished on my 12th game .. tomb raider Anniversary.

I say almost becuase the game crashed just before the end .. so now i've got to replay a section. But hey .. it's still pretty good going ... and i'm pround that even though i bought a 360 6 months ago and have completed 6 games on that machine i'm not counting those towards my list.

Now the problem remainds that i've still promised to finish another 5 last gen games before i get a PS3 .. and i'm still no better off than i was before as i've got a list as long as my arm to get through

This time however i'm very likely to stick to my word .. after all it's not like there is a big difference between the 360 and the ps3.

so now time to have a think and decide what those 5 games should be .. Hmmm while i make up my mind .. think i'll have a go at bioshock and GTA4

It's great to have so many games .. now if only i had the time !!

Sorry ... Just had to chip in my 2pence worth on the debate surrounding the "the objectification of women" and "fat-bashing" with of all games Fat Princess

FUNNIEST THING I'VE HEARD IN AGES !!!

for those of you who have not read anything about this you can read Danny O'Dwyer's Blog post or the original spark and now very well read Feminist Gamer Blog

I have only one thing to add .. would anyone see this as anything except for funny if it was say a simpsons game .. where each player gets to roll around Homer ? One better would the writer of the blog care if it was a game called Fat King ?

Of Course not !

These sorts of "people are so insensitive" type of cries are just so small minded ... and diversive !

Much like people who get up in arms about Res Evil 5

... what these people want to do is remind you that there is a difference between men and women ... between black and white .... and the simple truth is the quicker people get it into their heads that there isn't a difference then the quicker we can all just get along

but to the writer of that blog i have only one thing to say. Get off your high horse and think of this as any child / family friendly animated movie / cartoon... it's not designed to insult or ridicule anyone ... it's your cynicism that sees these things ... it's you that's causing the problem.

Oh my god ... i thought i only had 2 games left to fulfill my promise of finishing 12 games before i went next gen !

I've just got to the end of vice city storires so thought i was down to my final game .. when shock horror .. i realise ... it's 4 !!

so I'm still left with 3 games to finish.... And i bought another 4 xbox games so really i should add at least 2 more titles to the list !!

That said i've been playing a fair bit of Outrun 2 .. and for £2.50 ( $5 ) i think i've got my moneys worht out of it ... and i've only gone and bought another 3 games on 360 .. so the cycle of buying too many games has started again !!

I'm thinking that a couple of the games i finish from last gen will now be emulated through my 360 so i'm currently looking at finishing

Simpsons Hit & Run

Unreal championship 2

Metal arms : glitch in the system

Second Sight

Psi ops

.... and then still on PS2

Bully ( or C.C.E in the UK )

Okami

at least one God of War game

... i've got to say at this rate i don't think i should be buying a PS3 in 2009 either !!!

So .. new rule .. no PS3 until i finish a least 12 Last gen games !!

Yesterday i bought an HD-DVD drive for my 360

Now i know that the format is dead in the water and that there will be no future releases onto what will surely become for most people a very expensive paperweight. However this is my story and the reason i'm playing vulture to Toshiba's ill fated format.

1> firstly the drive cost me £25 ($50) including 2 films

2> the drive comes with the Xbox Remote control

3> web sites are shifting their HD-dvd disks out the door for £5 ($10)

4> I won't be buying a PS3 until 2009)

5> there is a good selection of high quality films availiable for it ... not to mention Heroes season 1

these three things combined i thought to myself it's such a small price to pay for a little bit of history... or at least it was .. i've gone quite mad and started ordering disks left right and centre and then realising how crazy i'd gone and cancelling half of the orders .... in a matter of clicks i've built up a collection of disk that would quite frankly shame the average Blu-ray owner. so far i've spent about £60 ($120) and amassed a collection of 9 films .. but there are so many more titles i'm tempted to spend money on ... so far i've been quite good and only duplicated films i already own with 2 of my favorite films.

so where do i go from here , there is a part of me that's tempted to buy films that i wouldn't buy if the format wasn't dead (superman returns springs to mind ) and films i already own just so that i can get the 'HD' experience ( like the Matrix trilogy ) however ... i think i will simply settle for a collection of 15 odd films and be thankful that i've bought myself a nice little stop-gap to ease me into the world of HD movies before i buy a PS3 next year

Ok .. i'll admit it ... i broke my promise and with 4 games still left to finish i bought a 360 pro

Now in my defence it was an absolute bargain !!!

all brand new

360 pro , 2 wireless controllers and 4 games for £176 !

( basically the best deal a shop could do with an extra 10% off from the nice people that do my credit card )

add in 2 more games pre-owned for £5 each and i've got a fairly nice setup !! And when i get round to having some MS points i'm going to buy the worlds greatest game ... SWOS.

but .. i'm still determined to finish 4 more last gen games !

and i will do before i play anything of substance on my 360 .. so for a little while .. no mass effect , no bioshock , no GTA4 !

AND ... i'll now have to stick to another agreement i've made that i won't buy more than 1 console in any given year !

so no PS3 for my till 2009 !!

... the big problem for me then is do i really want to buy a Wii in 2010 when i think it looks too dated right here, right now ?

Oh well .. that looks like another promise on shakey ground !!

It's always nice to see a great bundle and this is enough to make your mouth water

360 pro and a copy of GTA 4 for £199.99 from play.com

if they are offering it then others will follow suit ...

add to that the PS3 and GTA IV for £299.99 and you've got a good choice on your hands

Other the next few days it will be nice to see what bundles come up. if you've been waiting to buy next gen now seems as good a time as any !

That's it i'm down to my final 4 games till i buy my PS360 !

Over the last week i finally finished X-men Ledgend 2 ( which involved far too much level grinding .. i got to the end on level 30 out of 60 !! ) and thne i started and finished Black .. both on the PS2 ( my poor xbox hasn't been played in about 5 months ! )

Now Black was just plain rubbish ! sorry , i'm being deliberately harsh on it because it was really pushed by reveiwers here in the UK as a solid 90% game doing something different and exciting witht he FPS .. the burnout of FPS games. Personally except for the graphics which were quite nice this played like a PS1 FPS ... it was just full of design issues that annoyed me .... like not being able to step over anything over 6 inches high ... and not having the ability to jump over either .. it was a cheap way to pin you in while giving you wide open play areas ... in actual fact it's just a series of narrow corodors with see through walls ! i was looking forward to black so it's a shame it turned out that i didn't like it ... Still onwards

I think i've decided what the next 3 of the 4 game are going to be

Okami

Sam & Max season 1

Vice city stories

... the final game will either be mercenaries , Freedom fighters , God of war , Spiderman 3 , Hulk UD , Killer 7 , Psi-ops , Shenmue 2 , Second sight , Republic commando , Metroid Prime , Project snowblind , Driver PL , Kong , sniper elite , Bully , spider-man 3 ..

you know all this does is prove that maybe i need to set mysel a higher target before i start buying games for the PS360 too !!

and that's not even a full list of all the games i've got sitting round waiting to be played !!

Shame on me !! ... Shame !!!

it's been confirmed that GTA4 will be the first game to receive the new '12' rating for videogames in the uk

a BBFC spokesman said today " having seen the trailers for this game we think the teens will love it "

Ok , i'll admit it .. i'm missing the 360 !!

I borrowed a friends 360 for about a month, I stupidly told him iId got the demo of SWOS and imeadiately got told to return the 360 so that he could sample the gameing goodness.

Anyway that puts me back to my promise to complete 6 more games before i buy myself a PS360.

But i now don't know if i can make it !!! after all ... i've opened pandora's box .. how can i go back to my PS2 or even Xbox knowing that there is a world of HD gaming out there waiting for me !!

Well i'm going to have to .. i've got "commitments" and exams to worry about and a PS360 would only get in the way !

But the biggest question i'm having to ask myself is what do i get ?

I'm currently coming down on the side of the PS3 ... simply because i've got ready access to a 360 .. and the PS3 will give me BLu-ray as well as games. I've also got to admit that if the PS3 still had the backward compatability i would be 100% sure that it would be my purchase ... however as it stands the decision is very cloudy.. 360 certainly has more of the games i want to play .. but realistically i'm not desperate to play any of them and can wait another yr till i get myself a 360 too .... but then do i really want to buy a PS3 and have it as simply a movie player with a side note of games ?

It all comes down to how the market looks on the 12th June ... the date i will finally join the current generation ... only 2 1/2 yrs late !!

Ps .... feel free to rip the proverbial when i turn round in april and buy a 360 with a copy of GTA4

Am i down to 5 games to complete before i buy a PS360 ?

I've been playing Dead rising non stop for the last couple of weeks as i've found it to be a very enjoyable game

I've basically borrowed a 360 from a friend with 8 games .. however ... i've not touched the likes of assassin's creed , Halo 3, FIFA or any of the others .. instead i've been completely hooked on dead rising .. a deeply flawed game with one redeaming feature .. IT'S SOOO MUCH FUN !!!

But it's taken me away from my pile of PS2/xbox games to complete before i take the step into the current gen ... so i have to decide if it count towards my total .. i've either still got 6 games to finish or 5 .... what to do what to do !!

I'm thinking that i still keep that number at 6

I'm halfway through Xmen legends 2 and i have a whole load more games that i want to play in my collection .. including two games that i'm itching to play Black and Okami ( how's that for breadth in games ! )

yes .. i think i'm going to be sensible and say that i've still got too many games to justify buying another console and starting again !!

Why is the mention of a system's sales strategy cl@ssed as System wars?

I recently started a thread in the Xbox forum asking Xbox owners if they thought Microsoft were doing enough to push the 360 to mass market ownership or if they thought Microsoft were happy to sit back and take a smaller share of the market. Basically i was after the opinions of Xbox owners and those who want to make the purchase.

According to gamespot mediation this is off the topic of the Xbox and actually a system wars debate.

Now i do see their point, it's not specifically about xbox games or the systems capabilities.

But ...

it is a problem that if you want to start a reasoned debate about one particular system you need to post it in a forum that is dedicated to fanboys posting, mostly half truths, about why your system if a complete waste of money and theirs is great.

I think there are very few people that go into the system wars forum to take part in anything more than a futile exercise in oneupmanship.

You know , i learnt long ago that every system on the market is a worthwhile purchase, you can't name a single system ever released where there aren't some good quality games available for it.*

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People are protective over their investments , they aren't mature enough to see that there is no righteous path to Games Heaven ... all paths lead there in their own way.

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*(Except maybe the Virtua boy , but to be fair if it had been out for more than 5 minutes i'm sure someone would have made a great game for it. )

Yesterday i completed 24:the game

it's a shame that in some ways they spent so much time trying to make an interesting , good looking and varied game .. but unfortunately came up short in so many areas.

But at the end of the day it wasn't too painful to play through so i've had an ok time with it.

So now i'm down to 6 games .. and i have to decide what i'm going to play next

Okami , Black , X-men Legends 2, Mercenaries, Freedom fighters, Spider-man 3, Hulk: UD, WWF07, God of War 1/2, GTA:VCS .. hmmm , i'm sure there are loads more !

But i'm still sticking to my guns at the moment and i'm happy that by the time i finish 6 of those games i'll be swept up in the hype of the end of year games coming out on PS360 for 08

but whatever happens i'm sure i'll be here is 2012 with the Xbox 3 / PS4 and thinking .. look at all those games i've not played .. right .. no more console till i've finished 10 more games