Saw the line last night around Best Buy when I was driving past there at 11pm. The Xbox 360 has obviously generated a lot of buzz, but $400?! Ouch! You can buy the core system for $300, but it comes with no hard drive, no HD connections, AND it cannot play any of the original Xbox games. I own a PS2 and have no plans to switch over to the Xbox platform. For several reasons, waiting for the PS3 is a far more attractive option IMO.

From what I've read about the Xbox 360, it seems like a cool and powerful gaming system, but in true Microsoft fashion, it has some bewilderingly idiotic glitches that just make you scratch your head. For example, a lot of the features require an internet connection, but the Xbox will only accept broadband connections. Also, in order to play games written for the original Xbox on a Xbox 360 console, you have to buy the $400 version and download an emulation profile for each original Xbox game you want to play on a Xbox 360. Problem here? Yup, you need a broadband connection in order to download that profile! Plus, only 200 of those emulation profiles are currently available, which leaves 2/3 of the games written for the Xbox unplayable on any Xbox 360. And for all of the emphasis that Microsoft has put into the HD resolution, the Xbox 360 doesn't even include any digital video outputs.

Excuse my conspiratorial tone, but it seems like the Xbox 360 is pretty much Microsoft trying to extend its monopoly into the living room by throwing a bunch of half-baked networking and media center features into the box. They've already included "media extensions" on the Xbox 360 that allow you to tap into a PC running Windows Media Center, and you can organize digital media onto the console hard drive. It can do all that, yet if you don't have a broadband connection at home (or can only afford the $300 core system), you can't play any of the old Xbox games! Seems that Microsoft's priority has nothing to do with creating the most seamless gaming experience possible, and more to do with interjecting themselves into all of your other home entertainment using the Xbox 360 as the battering ram -- just as they have used their Windows monopoly to muscle in on every major aspect of the PC world.

For all of the flak that Sony gets on this board, at least they've consistently gotten things right with the Playstation. From what I've been reading, the Playstation 3 will be backwards compatible with all previous PSX and PS2 games OUT OF THE BOX, plus it will play Blu-ray discs, have built-in SACD playback, output games in 1080p resolution, and include HDMI outputs. Disregarding the computing power advantage that the PS3 will supposedly have, it just seems like the PS3 is designed to be a well thought out gaming console with some media center features, whereas the Xbox 360 has a broader agenda in mind that compromises some of the basic functionality of the unit. We'll see how this all plays out when the PS3 comes out in the spring.