Edge of Blade

Most people I talk to enjoy unranked games more than ranked. Ranked draws jackasses...like the people who would throw a game to boost.

Well, if you feel like a cloud of bad karma follows you, give 20% of your profit to a charity.

At first glance, I would give that controller a chance. It IS a better design. The Start and Back buttons are positioned in a much more logical place to avoid some of the accidental "press-age" they seem to get on the original design.

Semantics. It's all semantics.

Xbox 360 has no "back up plan", they just have a "what's best plan". They aren't abandoning HD-DVD, they are just keeping an alternative in the wings.

This does not clearly say that there will be no Blu-Ray drive. It is just a press release to indicate to partners that HD-DVD is still their primary plan and they will not split on HD-DVD so early.

The final paragraph correctly analyses the situation from the other end as well.

I actually don't like "Trojan Horses" that I don't want...surprize. I'm not buying an HD-DVD because I don't want to be forced into the market. This is exactly what Sony is doing. Putting Blu-Ray in everyone's homes. And if you have Blu-Ray, you have to use it. Don't draft me into a format war...I'm a conciencious objector.

Now, one could argue that Xbox 360 is an HD Trojan Horse since it looks less than spectacular on a SD TV. Wrong. I have a first party VGA cable to play my 360 on. The absense of such a first party cable would make the arguemnt 100% valid. If it was a true Trojan Horse, I wouldn't have a choice in the matter. Which is why I choose Xbox over Playstation.

I actually look forward to strapping two Nintendo controllers to my palms and boxing online, ducking and weaving all the way.

Ya, make sure you realize this is just turning an hard drive into a memory-stick-like device. It's so easy, you don't need this tutorial on how to do it if you are good with peripherals.

To return to my previous comments...Modding your Xbox into a PC will KILL the platform. You are cutting MS out of the money it has invested for. Remember that this system is sold at a lost. Thats why everyone wants to mod it...cheap computer. Think about that for a second. If you are not buying the licenced software for the system, you are sticking it to MS (I guess thats what the juvenile Linux users want). MS sees the loss and stops (or gives less effort) supporting the platform. Every Xbox that gets modded is a cut into MS. You make sure that MS investment in you stays merely an outflow and they never make that cash back. Do you want MS to keep putting out great game systems like this?

Fully take advantage? Of course this starts with "unlocking potential" and ends with "h2cheats@microsoft.com". Why can't people not mod a system? Are you looking for a way to kill the Xbox because it is clear thats what ends up happening. You know where it leads, yet you are bound and determined to rush there as soon as possible. Get a life outside of your basement and away from the soldering fumes...please.