[rant]

You have been warned.

I haven' t had a really decent gaming-related rant in a while, maybe because nothing in the industry is freshly-annoying to me. This however, does.

PS3 - 20GB HDD - No Bluetooth - No Card Readers
PS3 - 60GB HDD - Bluetooth - Card Readers
PS3 - 80GB HDD - Bluetooth - Card Readers
PS3 - 80GB HDD Bundle Pack - Bluetooth - Card Readers (Unconfirmed longevity)

Xbox 360 Core - No HDD - No HDMI
Xbox 360 Core - No HDD - Unconfirmed HDMI support
Xbox 360 Premium - 20GB HDD - No HDMI
Xbox 360 Premium - 20GB HDD - HDMI - No HDMI cable
Xbox 360 Elite - Black - 120GB HDD - HDMI - HDMI cable
Xbox 360 Halo 3 LE - 20GB HDD- Unconfirmed (likely) HDMI support - No HDMI cable

Now, just look at the list. Let' s look back at where we were last generation at this point.

PS2
PS2 - PSO Online Adapter
Xbox

You could buy these same SKUs from the time they were released to the time they were discontinued. And if there was a revision to be made in internal hardware, it was made. If there was a revision they wanted in terms of ports, storage or color, it was put on the list for the next console, or released as a perhipheral.

It seems like every 3 months or so, we' re getting a new package, a new designation of what your " ultimate" gaming experience should be. For christ' s sake, we have 4 separate groups of people suffering from early-adoption blues in the SAME GENERATION!

A)Those who couldn' t get a Premium Xbox 360 at launch, and settled for a Core.
B)Those who bought a 60GB PS3 in Europe, only to find out that there was an 80.
C)Those who bought a 20GB PS3... nuff freaking said.
D)Those who got " the best" with an Xbox 360 Premium, only to find out there was still a " bestest" version in the works from all of those complaints at Xbox HQ

I' m getting really sick of Sony and Microsoft changing around their ideas of what their ultimate gaming machine should be. Game consoles aren' t like PCs, they' re nigh impossible to update on a year to year basis. Those who didn' t get HDMI in 2005 and 2006 can' t just head up to Best-Buy and pick up a new HDMI ready card.

Not only is this irritating to me, but it' s a real hinderance to the industry. A developer wants to specifically implement the HDD for something. Guess what? Too bad. One out of 6 models of the Xbox 360 doesn' t have it. Let' s just blow out a cool feature because Microsoft wasn' t bright enough to give us all HDDs in the first place.

I use Microsoft as a primary example, because while the PS3' s SKUs are irritating, they' re nowhere near as problematic as the 360' s. I mean, really, how many developers are going to want to use memory sticks as an integral part of their game?

I' m just amazed at how nearsighted both companies were this generation. I' m sure most of you will agree with me that we all thought the Core 360 wasn' t the brightest idea to come out of Redmond.

There' s more to this, but I should probably get ready for work now.

[/rant]