Ah...only Nintendo can take a potential fanbase of gamers, who after the GameCube have lost all interest in Nintendo products, rekindle their excitement with tantalizing announcements and a decent code name like Revolution...and completely throw their hard work out the window by naming the finished product the Nintendo Wii-Wii.

I do sort of like the idea of the Wii-mote. It's slowly growing on me. But I'm still hesitant to buy a Nintendo product that is in the wake of the GameCube. The GameCube was, possibly unintentionally, targeted toward an audience of 12 years old or younger. You had two types of games to choose from: Preschool Playhouse or Japanese Anime. The coolest game it had was Metroid Prime and the funnest game it had was Monkeyball. I probably won't even consider getting the console until it's been out for quite a while.

I'm hesitant to buy the PS3 because the stripped down version costs $499. It costs so much because Sony has attached the console to the Betamax of tomorrow...Blu-Ray. Certainly a higher-capacity (and therefore potential for higher quality) optical device. I have no doubt that they will be able to put some spectacular things on it. However, it is slated to cost twice as much as an HD-DVD and data is burned 0.1 mm deep into your disc. In other words, if you think scratches are a problem now for DVDs and CDs (which burn at a depth of 0.6 mm), imagine the problems were going to have with damaged Blu-Ray discs. Plus, Sony is keeping the format completely in house so only Sony approved movies will play on it. Also, according to an early tech review I read on it (although in fairness it may have changed since then), Blu-Ray cannot play regular DVDs and contains an anti-piracy device that renders the player useless on contact with newer media if its encryption scheme is hacked. I also read a few articles the other day on Slashdot (although, granted their source is a bit shady) talking about hardware difficulties the PS3 was having. There's apparently been problems with their GPU and with the performance of their memory. While both are supposed to be superior to all of the new consoles, they have only been able to handle half of the polygon count of the 360. The PS3 just makes me more and more nervous as November approaches. Before considering a purchase, I'll want to be able to see that the bugs have been worked out of the console first...and see how owners react.

And lastly...the XBox 360. Recalled a day of its release. What more can you say? Sure it crashes on you. Sure the power supply overheats and starts fires. But...I'll still need it if I want to play Halo 3, tentatively set to come out in Q3-Q4 2007. The Halo movie is slated to come out Summer 2007. Knowing that this won't happen, we'll look forward to seeing both of these title in 2008.

These features sound cool and all, but am I the only one who thinks it's a little silly to spend so much on a game console (not to mention the games) that will only make you waste away your time anyway? I realize I'm probably wasting my breath with this comment, as most of the people wo read this will likely be computer geeks (that's said with love), but I thought I'd put in my two cents. Go do something more productive with your time and money. ;-)

Not to mention the endless jokes such as "want to come over and play with my Wii after school?" It hasn't even been released yet, and they are already getting old.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh... Halo 3??? We've all been there twice!!! I don't know what the third is going to offer that the other 2 didn't do. I think Halo 1 and Halo 2 both had pretty boring stories. I don't think that Halo 3 is going to offer anything new except some more shine to the armour some gleam on your assault rifle and a whole lot of special effects. Graphics mean nothing if game play isn't there. I think nintendo had the right idea, keep there tech lower and focus on gameplay. How many people do you know that actually had HD TV's compared to how many people you know that don't have HD TV's. The ratio is probably about 100 times in favor of those that don't have HD. So nintendos thinking is good, why give technology people don't even have yet? Remember nintendo has opened up to the "non-gamer" crowd along with the "gamers." Look at the Xbox 360 most of the games on it suck... according to IGN.com, three games are in the 9.0/10.0 range. Three games... Anyways the good thing about the Nintendo Wii is that it will use the same programming as the Gamecube. Not that Gamecube was awesome to program for, but the programmers will have a good idea of what they are doing. The end of the Gamecubes life had really excellent graphics. Resident Evil 4 was in the top 3 games for best graphics of the Generation. And that was made for gamecube. I think we will all be extremely suprised at the Wii. If its fun its fun. As nintendos theme was at E3: "Playing is Believing!"