April11
Not too long ago, the only current generation console in the house was a Wii. It rarely got touched until I gave it some extra life by hacking it to play homebrew and game backups. Still, the experience wasn’t as enjoyable as playing the PS1 and PS2 years ago. I had some money in my pocket and decided one Friday night to look into what console to buy to fill that empty space in my life and under the television.
After about 30 minutes, I was over the fence in the Xbox 360 camp. It was cheap, $300 for an arcade system with a couple of games. Another $100 for a game that I sorta wanted to play brings it up to half the price of its competitor, a PS3. This was going to be a “get something until the PS3 gets cheaper and I can actually justify getting one for the price.” When looking at the list of 360 exclusives, there was really nothing on the list that appealed to me that much. Nothing out that I MUST HAVE and nothing coming out in the future either. Still, $400 is pocket change so why not?
It wasn’t till half way through the night till I woke up all of a sudden and realized that getting a 360 would have been a big regret for my later on. Why wouldn’t I get a PS3. It’s only twice the price, there are well over a dozen games I was excited for. I looked up to see I could get a PS3 console and 3 games for just under $800. The initial investment is higher than the others but I felt that I would get so much more out of it and paying $800 for a console you really want is nothing against a $400 console that you couldn’t care less about.
If you want a “full Xbox 360 experience,” the price difference between the two becomes lesser and lesser. Xbox Live subscription for online play, hard drive attachment for storage of downloadable content and wifi adapter for that cable free connectivity, after all that, the choice is pretty clear. To be honest, price isn’t a main factor when deciding what console to get, the thing that sells the console is the exclusive game titles. Anything else such as price, features etc. become secondary and may help persuade a fence sitter into what one to get.
For me, it was the exclusive titles that are out, and the ones coming in the next 12 month, that made me decide to go with the PS3. I didn’t buy the console because if all the features it had in the box although they were good bonuses, and I didn’t not buy the other console because of what it was lacking. For most people, it’s software that sells a system, things like price point (one of the PS3′s biggest downfalls according to most people) just delay a future PS3 owner from getting one now. Maybe if I was into Halo and Gears of War, I would have went with the 360 instead. Saying that, I can always make room for a third console under the television, maybe in a year or two… 
When I got my MacBook, one thing that got thrown in the package was a Apple Airport Express. At first I didn’t know what I was going to do with it so I had a quick play around with it and then put it back. It wasn’t till the family decided to put the printer (also included with the Mac) upstairs. I decided that I could utilize both products and setting up wireless printing on the network.