nonenone

The people in general are great, but I do have a problem with the ones who keep trying to trade for a resource that nobody has (hint: use the LB). There is also one guy in particular that kept showing up to crash the game by never placing his pieces (timing out crashes the server).

The worst problem is that ranked matches never finish. I've finished 3 and have started probably 10. It also takes awhile for a ranked match to get going.

Not that this is in any way Microsoft's reason for price-fixing, but it actually does help out smaller dealers by preventing predatory pricing.

If that tiny store down the street can sell the 360 at the same price as Walmart, then you have more incentive to go there and talk to real gamers and feel good about yourself than if Walmart were able to sell it for $50 less. Predatory pricing is how the big chains muscle out small dealers in local economies.

It also helps out the issue of local economy vs. The Internet. Why buy at Best Buy for $400 when I can get it from cheapcrap.com for $300? Buying at Best Buy means you helped support 100s of kids and parents in your own community instead of two guys in a warehouse in Southern California.

Not that I'm saying don't find the cheapest price online or at a big retailer vs small chain, but there are some benefits if one were to care.

I bought the Xbox version by THQ and couldn't play it at all. They totally screwed up the game mechanics.

I'm not talking about infinite spin (which I also hate, but grudgingly accept), but the initial orientation of the pieces. For instance: the L shaped piece has always started out (from NES to GBA-SP to PC to keychain games to java plugins) with the short side pointing down (looks like a gun), but the THQ version starts it looking like a ___| with the long side down. IIRC, they do the same with the T shaped piece (starts as a _|_ instead of a T.

This may sound like quibbling, but if you are a high level tetris player (which you probably aren't) it completely screws up your game. For 20 years now I've been hitting A to make the left gun become a tall stick, now I have to hit B. Think of it this way: if you got into a car where the brake and gas were switched, how hard would it be to drive?

The game is jacked, but due to the idiots who now own the Tetris license I'll only be able to play the broken THQ version.

And, yes, this should be on XBLA.

I'm not a fanboy of any system and just now picked up a used 360, while I had my Wii preordered for release day. I have a threshold for how much I pay for a console, and that seems to be about $300. I wouldn't buy the PS3 for more than $400, even if it had a crapton of great games (which it doesn't). I waited for a 360 till there were some games I wanted on it, while Wii had some I wanted at launch and PS3 has zero even in the future (no GT, MGS or FF for me... I'll take Forza, Splinter Cell and Zelda).

Steve2, I would think a little harder about your statement calling BS. While it is entirely obvious that a Sony person would state no price drops (why pay now when you can pay less later?), I do believe his reasoning. This is especially true when you remember what Mike says about how much they lose on every system sold. Harddrives do not drop in price, they just get bigger for the same price. And until the mass market starts to adopt BD vs HD-DVD, then the cost of producing blue lasers is going to stay high.

Even if they could drop the price, it would be a year after the 360 drop and still be $200 more expensive for essentially the same game hardware with a "free" bluray drive and extremely worthless "free" online service.

I feel like the PS3 is a good product in search of a market to actually buy it.

The screens look alright, as does the backstory, but I'm concerned about the financing of the game.

A) It is free to download and play, but there are in-game ads. It's up to you to decide whether you like ads or not.

B) They have Acclaim Coins you can buy with real money to buy stuff from their in-game vendors. From what I understand, the stuff you can use the coins for aren't game breaking for us people not willing to pay for the Coins, but still.

I'll try to download the game tonight to see what it's like. Hey, free is free.

@syco #50

"I don't know where you got your 2(!) HDTV's, but from where I'm standing they still cost nearly $1000!"

I don't know about others, but I shop online and always look for used stuff. My first HDTV was $400 that I bought used on Craigslist (32" 4:3 tube Sony WEGA, looked beautiful). I sold it a year later for $350 and bought a 46" Samsung DLP used on Craigslist for $900. Nowadays you can go online and buy NEW 32" widescreen LCDs for $600 or a 46" DLP for $950.

"Virtually nobody can afford HDTV's yet. They are way too expensive."

There are over 20 million households in the US alone with HDTVs (that is households, not total HDTVs... many of those have multiple TVs). That is almost 10% of the US population. The rate is much higher in Japan and Korea. If you think 1 in 10 is virtually nobody, you don't know marketing at all. I can think of 20 friends or family offhand that have HDTV right now.

As far as them being way too expensive, you have to learn to be fiscally responsible. $600 for a nice HDTV that you can use for many things or $600 for a PS3 that has no games? If you have to save up for 6 months to spend $300, then maybe buying new video game systems isn't a smart thing to do. You could spend $80 on a gamecube with 4 games instead, and save the extra $220 for a future purchase. If you stop smoking a pack a day or don't eat dorritos and mountain dew, you can easily save $1000 a year.

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I have the Wii on an HDTV with the Nintendo component cables. I didn't notice much difference with Zelda or WiiSports, but Super Monkeyball looked MUCH better. They are worth $30, but not the stupid ebay prices.

Noobs!

Everyone should know the best way to deal with a camper is to sneak up and knife them.

Mine isn't working properly. The wiimote loses sync whenever there is a status change on the system. I.E. when you go from home menu to game menu, wii shop to home menu, restart or power off the system, etc. I SHOULD be able to just hit power on the wiimote to start gaming, but I have to power on the wii and then manually sync the wiimote (requires opening up the battery case).

Aside from that, Wii sports is hilariously fun but will probably lose excitement quickly. Zelda is boring right now but will probably get better. Monkeyball is lame and too sensitive.

The VC games available are NOT what they listed. There are fewer games than they said.

#38 vs #34 and #10: Oh snap!

P.S.
Someone on Slashdot said it best: if you spent the $600 for a PS3 on your credit card or home mortgage instead, you could save $4800 in the end.

Many of you are misinformed and shouldn't be overreacting and posting here.

I'm pretty sure that almost any HDTV made since 2003 will support a 720p signal. Any of you claiming your CRT projection or tube TV only supports 1080i are either wrong or have an older set. Your set only DISPLAYS 1080i, but there is a very high probability that it will ACCEPT a 720p signal and scale it to either 1080i or 480p. I'm guessing the TV used in the test either scaled 720p images down to 480p (a problem with the TV) or they didn't set the PS3 to output ONLY 1080i.

If you have a DLP/Plasma/LCD panel/LCD projection/LCoS then your TV is either 720p native (or somewhere close like 1360x720) and supports 1080i signals, or 1080p native and definitely accepts 720p signals.

I'm not a fanboy for any system and won't buy a PS3 simply because of its price, but I think this is spreading a falsely bad rumor about the PS3.