Good, Bad, and Ugly news for Console Gamers

[Acehigh]

I couldn't agree more.  Was thinking along similar lines when I read that article.  There's no way highschool/college students can shell out over $300 for a system.  Let alone how little value you get when you buy the hardware these days.  The NES, Genesis, and even Atari systems felt like you got the most out of that $200.  You got two controllers, the console itself, and at least one game so you knew if it worked or not.  When I got my xbox I spent darn near $400 because I had to by the extra controller so I would have 2 ($30), I had to buy a game ($50), bought the console itself ($300), and I got a two year warranty from best buy ($40).  That basically took my whole paycheck for that half of the month lol.  I'm a sub teacher right now so believe me I know what you mean about fasting to get a console.  Honestly I wasn't very impressed with what the gamecube had to offer, but if those price quotes turn out to be accurate I might be a big N fan again.  Two things that have me worried about the xenon are 1) rumor has it microsoft doesn't want to include the hard drive(huge selling point of the first xbox), and 2)they don't think they can make their hardware backplay compatible (a feat sony already has promised forever). 

I'm also worried about the future of the software for all the hardware that comes out.  To me it seems companies are focusing to much on multiplayer modes and half arsing the single player component of their games.  For a poor man like me that can't afford high speed internet and an online account for my console, this really shortens the replay value of anything I can afford to buy.