I agree with Wilder; I’m a fan of good games, not any particular brand. When LBP comes out on PS3, I’ll probably buy the console. If anything that I really like comes out on XB, I’ll do the same (maybe, the RRoD bothers me).

But, to me, Nintendo have really progressed video games and brought them to a lot of people who normally wouldn’t bother with such things.

And that’s why I think Sony and MS are playing catchup.

The expectation that MS (or Sony) are going to carry on regardless and put out another wallet-hammering machine in the light of the pain they’ve faced this generation (and the phenomenal success of the Wii) is also a bit peculiar.

Also… profitable? Wha..?

2 & 3 The Only reason Microsoft is currently dropping the price of the Pro model is to clear stock so the rumored 60GB Pro model can take it’s place. That is why we haven’t heard of any price drops for the Arcade or Elite models yet. As for bigger HD maybe in the 720 or whatever it will be called. As for this gen though I don’t think it will go to much higher with the Astronomically high rates they charge for their Hardrives it’s rediculous.

4. As for this rumor it could or could not be true they currently denied it but it would be a good idea to debut a good game with the motion controller that would use it in many ways. I wouldn’t doubt they use Rare as they are a very talented and creative developer.

5. I am sure they will come up with something like this if not for this generation the next since both Nintendo & Sony both have these Avatars available they don’t want to be left out.

Naturally MS and Sony are going to try to emulate the success of the Nintendo Wii and take bits and pieces and rework them for their own business model and visa versa. This is to be expected. New ideas and success breed competition, and that is a good thing.

I look forward to all the innovations coming down the pipeline in software and hardware. If even one of these rumors turns out to be true that will be good in my book.

Hmm Xbox 4I.

It will be interesting to see the price this christmas, MS has plenty of breathing space.

As usual MS has focused on the underlying technical aspects of the interface technology, but I feel they need to focus more on informational speed. For example why aren’t images cached? and Marketing should only be found at top level and lowest level elements of the interface the rest should be pure information.

I have heard of social networking, its what people do when I’m not around. A social page around XBox live accounts would be good.

My xbox’s work just fine btw.

This is not a company playing catch up, sony has AND STILL IS playing catch up. Want to talk about catch up? how about ‘fall back’ thats wht the ps3 is doing.

Their implementation of the XMB is terrible (I do own a ps3 btw) they have implemented a music feature that is EXACTLY the same as the xbox-1 – custom music only available in games IF the developer supports and codes for it.

That my friend is a step back, not forward.

Their entire XMB is limited no matter where your at. Different pieces of the XMB are available depending on what your doing.

The xbox ‘xmb’ if you will has all features available EVERYWHERE accept video chat which to me is understandable and if sony implement in-game video chat then what do you think thats going to do to the game, yup lag it out like crazy. Bad idea.

Microsoft are changing, as is sony and nintendo, to the demand of the industry and consumer and by making these changes they are seeing whats working, what is asked for and are adapting for it.

Enough said.

P.S “at the moment it is looking a bit clunky compare with Home or Second Life. Microsoft aim to leapfrog these other environments with something that will really be state of the art.”

That is an unfair statement. You cannot compair what xbox live has to a product that Sony keeps delaying and still has not gotten to market. If I recall, even at the end of this year home wont be ‘live’ but will still be beta so again, it’s unfair to compare whats real to somthing that so far is not close to being what was promised, nor available to every PS3 owner.