Ed

Actually, according to MS there ARE 10 million Gold Subscribers. http://kotaku.com/341399/xbox-live-10-million-gold-subscribers That IS 1/2 billion dollars.

Portal is "interesting," but the #1 game of the year? Hmmm...I don't get it. What this does tell me is that apparently I'm going to the wrong site for gaming news. Y'all get paid off by the devs or what?

Yeah...the service hasn't been totally down my ASS. Sure, I can get my background photo to appear when I fire up my 360, but it hasn't been able to much of anything else for more than a week. I can get a game or two in here or there, but man, it's been absolutely horrendous.

I can't believe Joystiq believes that this is caused by the influx of new gamers. If indeed that's true, then MS really should start doing some apologizing and refunding. They are in a perfect position to estimate the number of consoles sold, and what they needed to do to beef up their infrastructure to meet the new demands.

I would not be pissed if this service were free, but I'm paying for a product I rarely get to use because of my work, and now it's even more rare 'cause LIVE seems to never be available when I am.

Oh, and as of 1:12 CST...LIVE is down again. Yippeee!!

Hmmm...Quite frankly, I think IW could use a helping hand right about now. (!!) If it was meant to be funny, I ain't laughing. Seems COD4 is proving to be trickier to keep online than they thought. I know the PS3 version has had its share of problems, but it would seem to have also single handedly taken away many a 360 gamer's ability to play on XBOX live. Perhaps the key reason why Live is going down for "maintenance" early in the AM.

Give me, me, me the stuff.

Funny breed, the SONY fanboy. A couple of days ago, when this story broke, I remember reading the comments then: "SONY wouldn't do that.", "The source of this story isn't reliable.", and so on. The fact is that this event did indeed happen, and SONY is solely responsible. Unfortunately, SONY's entire marketing team must have received their degrees from Cracker Jack boxes, because their PS3 North American marketing campaign, their PS3 European Marketing campaign, and now THIS shows they have little experience and apparently no class whatsoever. It is absolutely stunning to see a company like SONY fall so fast and furiously. Exploding battteries, computer viruses, a mediocre console, and incredibly bad marketing for the previously mentioned mediocre console. Now, they've managed to take one of their premo franchises, and taint it as well. Amazing.

I'd say this bodes HORRIBLY for SONY. The way I look at, the 20 GB model was made more for the folks "on the fence" about the purchase, and perhaps not as rabid a gamer as many of us are. For SONY to admit that the 60 GB model is favored by a "10 to 1" margin is essentially admitting that the only folks interested in buying their console are the hardcore, diehard SONY gamer. This would seem to say that they've already conceded this gen's war...and have moved on to the next...hopefully.

I don't know what to say about all of these failures, other than that, when I visit friends, I often see them putting their 360's in stupid places, ie on carpet, or in other poorly ventilated areas. I'm sure that doesn't explain them all, but I just cannot fathom one person getting seven bad boxes. "Something" they were doing led to the failures. Even the friends I've seen abusing their boxes have yet to see the Red Ring...I dunno.

I dunno, maybe it's just me...but I don't recall the PS2 launch being nearly this bad. I had one within a month of launch, fairly easily at Walmart. I also had some decent games to go with it. If I recall, I was playing classics like Madden, Time Splitters, Midnight Club, EA's NHL...With the PS3, we have Resistance, Fight Night, and "perhaps" a couple of other decent titles that truly live up to Next Gen expectations. Games have been blah...

I don't like the controller. I don't like how it feels. It feels like a cheap toy. I don't like the Sixaxis at all compared to the Dual Shock. Now that Immersion and SONY have settled their differences, we NEED, or we MUST have the return of DUAL SHOCK. I cannot imagine playing a game of SOCOM 4 without it. Plain and simple.

The console IS too expensive. BluRay players have already come down dramatically in cost. The bargain, or "trojan", depending on how you look at it, is now overpriced. Cut the price NOW.

Online, online, online. When will SONY ever learn? Online gaming is where it's at...right NOW. Not years down the road, which is the position they always seem to take. Online gamers will indeed, shape the future of gaming. This is a bandwagon which has already passed SONY by, and they need to catch up and hop on. Quickly.

I own many consoles, and without going into specifics, I hardly touch my PS3. At this point, it was truly a waste for me to grab it when I did...but honestly, time is running out for these guys. I love me some video games, I love me some SONY video games, but until they produce something truly magical for this thing...I'm gonna remain skeptical. The clock is ticking.

While $179.99 does "seem" a little steep...I'd argue that it's not that outrageous, considering MS doesn't make its own drives...putting a man in the middle that usually isn't there in the HD sales industry. If you compare this drive, with something comparable, like an external, self powered, USB 120 GB hard drive, the desparity of the price becomes less. Am I going to run out of the house and buy one...probably not. I don't need it. I delete stuff after I watch it. Simple. Perhaps when I see a fiber internet connection anywhere close to my house, I'd consider the 120 Gigger for IPTV...but at this point, I see no reason at all to one of these. My 2 coppers.