It would have been nice if abstaining from shooting civilians in MW2 had an effect, but unfortunately it makes no difference to the story at the end of the mission :-( The problem with having too many moral choices in games is that they have the potential to persuade gamers that something is moral or not because of how it is presented. The consequences of those choices are also the opinions of the author, rather than the real consequences. As long as morality is put in place in a responsible way, there's not much of a problem, but it could be misused to fulfil a political agenda.

I don't think there's a lot wrong with the games' industry. Xbox and PS3 have healthy competition between gamers, movie watchers, and people who want to do both. They both have big releases, most of which are mulit-format, with the occasional exclusive for one console or the other. There are loads of rubbish games being released too, but there always have been, you just have to pick carefully what you are going to play, which is why gamers read reviews. Nintendo have the casual gamer market, which is probably also the most volatile, as they are the people that will wonder in a little while why they even like games, then go back to doing other activities. They are also the most likely to buy anything off the shelf because it looks fun, rather than making a choice based on reviews. That's good because it keeps games being sold, but also bad because it doesn't encourage quality titles. The only big problem I can see is that the publishers actually make the consoles (i.e. MS and Sony). What I would like is a single platform, but it will never happen unless one of them stops making consoles, and that's unlikely to happen as they both make so much money from software licensing on their platforms. At least with a single platform, nobody would have to own a 360 and a PS3, because all the previously exclusive titles would be in one place.

I agree with Sato2099. Both machines are capable of creating worlds that look realistic. What we need is comparisons of the other features of the consoles. Decisions should be made about buying a console based on the quality of the games rather than graphics power. But PS3 buyers tend to be swayed by spec sheets that show better graphics even if it doesn't matter. We know from the success of the PS1 that this is the case, as the Saturn had better games, but sales people would always suggest that people buy the playstation because of its transparency effects, which wasn't exactly a big deal. The xbox 360 gets almost every game on the PS3 plus a lot of other quality titles, so there's little point in owning a PS3 unless you want a blu-ray player.