Platform of Choice: As I said earlier Im aiming more towards the 360. Shortly after MS conference I was a lil let down but thats been changed as I read more and more about each console. The 360 so far seems more appealing to me (the big peice being Xbox Live). However, I' m still on a thin line of decision and probably wont be 100% until the final bits of info hit the streets. So basically I' ll be wating til after the holidays before I decide on a console.

Moderators:Wasnt Adam talkign about getting some or did he say somthign that he wanted to completly avoid them...might have been another forum. Mods would be handy at this point in time cuz Im starting to see alot of new ppl and as that number rises Kikizo is gonna be hit with an entirely new enviroment.

Xbox Live:Is it really that bad to pay $50 for one full year of very smooth online gaming? Its not like they charging per game they just charging a one time only fee that allows you to play every single Xbox Live game there is.

Another addition to Live is the downloadable content. Sure some companies charge but the majority throw out a good amount of free things and the stuff that cost money usually becomes free over time anyways.

I dunno this opinion is based on the fact that when I played the PS2s free service all I got was lag lag and more lag.

Then when I pop in a game like Ghost Recon 2 I have a very smooth 8 on 8 battle with full voice support and a very easy to use friends list. The only exception to this is the occasional bad server on Rainbow Six 3 but even then its quite rare.

Yeah, they say pretty much the same thing in this article. It' s interesting you know, you' ve really got to have faith in an industry to be willing to take a 5 billion buck loss and possibly not recoup your investment for 10-15 years. I mean, I doubt the 360 will lose 4-5 billion bucks this generation, but I also doubt it will earn 4-5 billion simply to break even in total. You have to be willing to stick around till a 3rd generation right from the start if you want to start seeing some major profits from your original investment. That' s a 15 year plan on an industry that has been fickle with hardware developers in the past. If they succeed and do this, I think in 15 years the Microsoft name will simply be another NIntendo or Sony, and when people hear it they think videogames and can' t remember when they weren' t around. If they fail, oh well, bill' s got lot' s of money.

MS is already just another name in the Videogame world and is just as respected as Sony and Nintendo now. they stepped in and came out number 2 this generation.

About the Live thing, you don' t pay extra for friends to play with you when they are right next to you obviously, but the same goes for the Xbox. If you have friends over they can play right on your Xbox. Live is an extension where people can lay from anywhere. Voice chat is standard. You can track all your friends no matter what game they are on. There' s a built in messaging system. It' s an extension of the games you buy. you don' t have to use it if you just want to invite friends over and play. I play with people from all over the country though.

Live is amazing, and well worth the $50 a year.

Live may be amazing, but you' re being fooled if you think you shuld be having to pay 50 dollars a year for it. That' s a service that should be free. Big companies seem to making us all feel that we are the lucky ones that they are taking all the time to provide us with service, when it should be the exact opposite. They should be thankful that we are buying their product and provide us with said service to ensure our future business. That' s my opinion anyways.

They are providing extra content and offering there own servers for use. It takes money to do that. The next version of Xbox Live for the 360 will be packed full of even more stuff and I' m still surprised the mount of stuff they are going to offer for that free version. $50 bucks isn' t bad for the quality that comes with Live.

I TOTALLY avoided online gaming this generation but so far it looks as if I' ll finally be taking the plunge online at the get-go with all three upcoming next-gen consoles.

ORIGINAL: mxpx182

Live may be amazing, but you' re being fooled if you think you shuld be having to pay 50 dollars a year for it. That' s a service that should be free.

The $50 a year I pay for Xbox Live is WELL worth the money in my opinion. The fact of the matter is that I don' t HAVE to pay for it. I could just not use it. You are saying that it should be free, but the bottom line is whether the service is worth it to you, as an individual. It' s like premium channels on cable tv (or satellite). Should they be free? How about car floormats when you buy a new auto? Window sills on a home you' re buying? Man, people would charge you for the air you breath, if they could (and probably will, one day). I' ll be damned if I' m missing my Xbox Live payment, or my O2 payment. My credits bad though, so I' ll just put it in my Mama' s name.

It' s totally a decision that' s up to the person to decide if it' s worth it to them. Premium cable channels are a little different though. You don' t pay for it, and then only get some of it. YOu pay for it and get it. I' d bitch if I then had to go and pay extra to have subtitles. But like I said earlier, It' s my opinion that it should be free, and I thinki the industry is just fooling us all into thinking we should be paying for these " extra features" when they used to be free. I' m not saying dump your live service, it sounds like you and a pile of peole here really like it, i just think we' re being tested by the industry to see what we' ll pay for. Just like " special edition" games like halo 2 and madden. for an extra 10 bucks get a shiny case and a making of DVD. If those special editions are successful, the industry knows that gamers are willing to pay more for games, and it won' t be long till we see the rise in price of all games.

Xbox 360 all the way. First of all, let me assure you that I am not a fanboy in any way, shape, or form. I' ve been a Sony fan for too long, and I think change IS good. Which is why im jumping ships. Im sick of sony praising its premier franchises like MGS, Socom, and DMC, when they could be making newer more original titles like Microsoft have been. Microsoft is releasing so much new and exciting stuff. Full Auto, for example, is one of the most original racing games ive heard of thus far. What will sony be offering... GT5? NEED FOR SPEED?! Yea, i thought so. Like you get a sense of " Who cares anymore" . Im waiting to tryout the new stuff like Full Auto, Gears of War, and others. I also love the fact that Xbox 360 is resurrecting the spouse of the father of FPS games, PDZ. Its been nearly 10 years, and it should be an exciting twist. Also, the new XBL Marketplace that they' ve been talking about sounds neat. 50 cents for tattoos on fable? im all for it. And if developers actually make it so that you can make your own little store and sell your good for XBL money, I' d literally eat my hat. Online play is the standard for gaming these days. Its not just the HD era anymore, its the Online era. And, from past experiences, Sony seems to be sloppy with their online services. Im sorry, its just gonna have to be Xbox360...

Besides, we all know Sony' s " Curse of the Faulty First Hardware Shipments" . Lol, Dreaded DREs, anyone?

Are people still talking about the $50 a year for XBox Live? That is $4.17 a month - drink one less coffee at Starbucks a month and it is paid for.

It is well worth it. Compare what XBox offers to what you get on the PS2 and you will gladly pay that amount.

good point about the star bucks Beef Shala. Although I don' t drink Coffee. But my point isn' t the ammount of money, simply the leeching of the companies.

I see your point. But the $50 Live adds value to your system.

MS maintains servers for everyone and allows developers to leverage it. If it wasn' t for them providing it, only the big developers would support live with their own servers - see the PS2 situation.

Also, look at PC gamers. They have to pay monthly for each MMO game. So if you like Warcraft, Anarchy Online, and EverQuest 2, you are ponying up a lot more than $4.17 a month. With Live, you pay that once and you play as many games as you want.

I ahve no problem with pay for fees for MMORPG' s simply because that' s the only arena you play that game. those games are designed specifically for online play and a lot of extra work goes into making them play that way online. Whether it' s live, or individual company fees for MMORPGs, I have no problem with that.

For the most part, the 50 bucks is all you have to pay. I assume you were referring to the downloadable content as the " extra" other than the price. Most downloadable content is free and M$ is finally letting the users start creating their own maps as seen in Timesplitters and Pariah, which are both free methinks to create. There are a few games out there that require you to throw down an extra 5 bucks or so for a few new maps, but most of the time if you want a month or so you' ll eventually get them for free. A good example is the new Halo 2 maps that were going for $5.99, but if you wait until July or so you will get them for free. Being the gamer I am, I went ahead and bought them early and regret it a little. In the end though, I wasn' t forced to buy them...just did for the helluva it and for my clan.

" I believe that many people, even when looking at specs, don' t understand the differences." Kutaragi

I just read this article on ps3.ign.com http://ps3.ign.com/articles/623/623546p1.aspx?fromint=1

Kutaragi tries to explain how the PS3 is better than Xbox 360. He basically just dodges around telling us anything factual.

I just think that quote further backs up that sony things you area fool. They put out irrelevant specs for their PS3 to try to make people think it is better than the xbox 360. Not only do they put out specs that aren' t even game related, but they also inflate the numbers.

I think he tries to explain in the article that the PS3 with have most character movements using realy physics instead of just animation. Well this is cool, but I highly doubt this will even happen. It is easier just to do animations that include everything moving in the animation, instead of for example using physics for arm movement and animation for leg movement. That would just be a waste of processing power and would have many graphical glitches and such. It is better just to animate everything. It really only works out for some clothing and like in Dead or Alive, breasts. And with the given PS3 specs the PS3 will actually be weaker in this area than the XBox 360. The CELL processor has very limmited functions so it has to combine many functions to do what would take the xbox chip one function.

I really enjoyed the new kikizo xbox 360 interview thing. Showing the Capcom girl or whatever that was supposed to be playable graphics on the PS2. It is hard to believe how much sony straight up lies to the consumer' s face.

Not only do they put out specs that aren' t even game related, but they also inflate the numbers.

They all do that. That' s their job, they ahve to make you think their system is the one for you when in the end they' ll all be good, no matter how much we all wish " our favorite" is the best. Reggie does it for the Revolution constantly by always giving numbers of past performance, and talking about how revolutionary it' s going to be. Kenny boy does it with the specs for the PS3 about how many poly' s it can push, and how many steaks it can grill to medium rare in 1 gaming session, and totally x-box j-allard does it with hyping up the " experience" you are going to have on the 360 and how if you play long enough the damn machine will start massaging your groin just to increase your gaming pleasure. Until it' s in your hands take every developers comments with a whole bag of salt.

I don' t really think Sony flat out lies about their specs, I just think they sometimes conveniently fail to clarify/specify in what types of situations their consoles can achieve the high performance of their lofty specs...

For example they touted that the PS2 could push 66 million polygons - which would have been incredible!! BUT what they failed to clarify originally was that it can only push that max amount in a flatshaded graphics, non-gaming environment. Basically without any of the elements that make up games today. So basically while the PS2 supposedly CAN push 66 million polys, everything would be a similar shade, there' d be no textures, lighting effects, AI, physics, etc... Apply any of those things and the 66 million polygons figure PLUMMETS and continues downward as more game elements are added..

I liked how Nintendo remained conversavative and understated the GameCube' s specs when it first came out. They said it could only push around 6-12 million polygons. Meanwhile Factor 5 proved them wrong with Rogue Squadron II, an impressive LAUNCH title that they claimed was pushing 14-16 million polygons.

this is just me or this forum getting way to 360 basied?

It' s not just you. It' s Fathoms as well. Personally I don' t see how anyone could be biased without playing games on all of the new consoles yet. I am personally not paying much attention to the specs this time around, except those directly concerning HDTV and multi-channel sound.