Gdiguy

Definitely a little flood... I need to be alive afterwards to gloat

I don't understand this reporting at all...

All I learned from those numbers is that Casino Royale sold extremely well on Blu-ray, which is possibly the most non-shocking thing ever (what, people that would put down $600 on a PS3 would want to own a Bond movie? Color me shocked), and that most other HD movies are selling like crap. I mean, look at the numbers - the #8 movie on the list was under 1000 units for the week, which is sub 50k for a year... that's horrendous for a top-shelf movie.

In the competition, Superman is the only one on the total amounts sold list sold in both formats, and it's about ~2200 different on BR vs HDDvD, out of 30k (near a 5% difference)... so basically, the units sold is going with whichever side releases movies that early adopters want to buy (again shockingly, Bond, Superman, and Batman), and most of them are selling poorly regardless of format.

@45, that's the entire point - for $150, I could probably buy a N64 and 15 games, or for $0, I could go online and download most of the same emulated games (in pretty much the same state as sold on the VC)

Ultimately, there's two different services competing here - I think everyone can easily agree that the VC has a far better set of old, classic games, and that XBLive has a far better set of new and/or updated for online multiplayer games. It's just a question of whether you want to be able to buy old classics, or new (cheapish) arcade-style games.

360 fans believe that the reason 360 will win is because Microsoft can drop the price to $299 and win with low prices. Unfortunately for them, this will solidify the already widespread perception that the 360 is an inferior console compared to the PS3. And it's true.

This is already pretty much true; between Microcenter's $100 rebate (which arrived yesterday, fwiw), and the other various deals that were available over the past month, if you paid more than ~350 for the console part of a premium 360 bundle you got ripped off.

In my mind, it really just comes down to the rate of adoption for HDTVs and HD/Blueray... if both of those get high enough, and people really do seem interested in buying movies on blueray, then yeah, the PS3 cost suddenly becomes much closer to the 360, and is very competitive. For people that don't have an HDTV, though, there is zero reason to get a blueray player, and then you're back to talking about a $600 gaming console.

If you are absolutely certain you want a BR/HD-DVD player right now (or in the very near future), then yeah, it's a much closer (basically equal) price comparison... from a strictly gaming perspective, the HD-DVD drive is useless and shouldn't be considered at all, and then you're basically back to the $100-200 differential (on a random side note, who would want to use wifi for gaming? I've never had anything but horrible experiences trying to do gaming over a wireless connection).

As an fwi, some 360 games allow more than 1 player joining a Live multiplayer game per 360 if one of them has a gold account.. I know either GRAW or R6Vegas is like this, and there might be others