And finally I got one

[Harrison]

Very true. Also the 360 has been for sale now for at least a year longer than both the Wii and PS3 so it shouldn't still be failing at such high percentages.

From what I've read it is a lack of space in the 360 case not allowing enough airflow to cool it effectively that is causing the majority of failures. In which case why haven't they redesigned it? Sony did with the PS2 as already mentioned. After the initial 30003 model was found to be unreliable they quickly redesigned the motherboard and updated the components and completely fixed the issues. (although I actually do still have an original 30003 model and it still works perfectly).

[Buleste]

And with all the money that M$ have and the fact that it's been out for longer you would have thought thay'd have come up with a redesign especially if it's just a overheat problem. Problem is M$ know they have a market of loyal fans who will buy the product no matter what. Sony thought the same with the PS2 and now look whats happening to PS3 sales. Nintendo had the SNES, Sega the megadrive and look how sales plummited after due to poor hardware design on the follow up machine. Will m£ learn? No, they have too much money and have become complaisent.

[Harrison]

The PS3 is only suffering until now due to initial high hardware cost and a lack of AAA software, which always happens with most new hardware. The 360 didn't exactly fly off the shelves in launch either, which many seem to have forgotten.

But once the AAA titles start to release for the PS3, and now that the hardware coat has dropped to an affordable price point (sub £300) I fully expect sales to rise for Christmas, and once titles like the next Final Fantasy are released it will shoot up, especially in Japan.

[J T]

I've been considering getting a 360 for a while now. Do post back and let us all know how you are getting on with it

[Harrison]

Why a 360 and not a PS3 JT?

[J T]

I'm really just totally not bothered about the PS3 right now, there's not a lot on it that I'm really that keen on for now or in the forseeable. I'll quite likely get one a few years down the line but for now it's leaving me cold.

Plus a lot of friends have 360s so online gaming is a pull ('virtual' friends like people on forums, and actual real people I've physically met).

Although I have to say that I'm tempted to put the (gift) money to use elsewhere like activities for us on holiday, or pay off some credit card bills. We'll see.

[Sharingan]

The things that have so far stopped me from getting a 360 also are:

- Piss-poor reliability

- Noise production

- Having to shell out money for things that come as standard on the PS3 (HD video, having to pay extra for proprietory harddisk replacement)

- Paying for Online Play - WTF. At 60 bucks a year, assuming a console lifespan of 5 years, that's 300 bucks, enough to buy another Xbox 360!

- Hardware isn't as future proof (DVD storage constraints)

- Microsoft's track record of abandoning the previous generation's hardware as soon as a new model is out

- Most of the 'AAA' titles on the 360 are either first person shooters or crappy Electronic Arts sports games; neither belongs to my favourite genre, although an occasional fragfest is nice for unwinding after a day's work!

The biggest thing is the hardware reliability, of course. Unless a revised model comes out that has a confirmed <3% failure rate, I'm not even going to bother. When I buy an expensive piece of hardware, I expect it to last at least 4-5 years, not 6 months.

[Ghost]

Hey Harrison,

With which Phantasy Star game did you start?

A couple of years ago they made remakes of parts 1, 2 and 4 (many fans consider 3 not really part of it) for the PS2 and the Xbox I think, but apparently the Japanese think Western gamers weren't interested enough so they never translated it.

From what I heard they really had updated the games, adding more character interaction and optional quests.

Well that's Japan for you.

* * * *

This year the Wii is the major seller but I expect that that will soon change and that the PS3 will be the biggest seller during Christmas next year.

I like some of Nintendo's franchises like the Metroid games but these last years they really are always on third place when it comes to consoles, both the machines themselves and the game selection.

[Submeg]

Seriously, 33% is so bad...if this were an engineering company, they would have filed for bankruptcy! I didnt even know it was that bad....how can you buy such a console? Mind you, Im waiting for MGS and FF to come out, currently no games taking my liking on the PS3 right now...apart from that flying game, should look into it...

[Harrison]

Hey Harrison,

With which Phantasy Star game did you start?

I originally discovered the series with Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast and then upgraded to PSO v2, also on the Dreamcast. I played that online a lot and must have played through the complete game world story hundreds of times, killing all the bosses etc... with loads of real players online collecting all the items, weapons, and upgrading mags.

I later went back and played through some of the original Megadrive Phantasy Star games via emulation but haven't completed any of those yet as I have many other games to play first.

I also played Blue Burst on the PC for some time via a private pirate server (i.e. I didn't have to pay a monthly fee to play it).

And I've been playing the offline single player story in Phantasy Star Universe on the PS2 at the moment.