Gaming is a pricy hobby. Think we can all agree there. Now, being a gamer in Europe, that's just silly...

Here in Denmark, I pay roughly 40-50% tax of all income. I dont mind that, I get free college and health care, it rocks. On top of this, every product sold in Denmark gets a 25% price increase that goes to the state. Fair enough, most countries have that, although usually a lot less.

What's the result? Very pricy consoles. Oddly enough, the consoles seem to be hit harder by this than e.g. PC parts.

A new Xbox 360 premium. No games, one controller. 550$

A new PS3. No games, one controller. Roughly 900$.

A Wii, the CHEAP one. 450$. That's with Wii Sports! Yay! A bundle!

Its being estimated by retailers here, that if the Xbox 360 Elite is released, it'll cost at LEAST 725$.

As a little perspective, a PS2 is now down to the insanely low price of 250$. :(

So hug those consoles, my american brothers in arms! You never know when the prices over there will follow ours :D

Not really meant as a flame thread, but I know it'll turn into one. Do you guys seriously believe any game on the horizon right now will score a 9.5, or maybe a 10?

First of all, a big majority of the hyped games atm are FPS games, and I cant really see any of them scoring that big. It'd need a revolution of the genre, and fancy graphics and being able to blow up more stuff isnt revolution nor innovation.

Mass Effect looks great and all, and I want to play it badly, but I dont see that one scoring that high either. GTAIV will be fun, but I dont see much new there either.

I do believe the overall quality of the hyped games is on the rise, and we'll see alot of solid 8.5-9.0 games, but above that... nah... Unless of course Gamespot has made it so every game that would've gotten over 9.2 on the old scale becomes a 9.5, then it'll be different.

As someone already stated, there's no comparison. I liked Oblivion, but the story wasnt anything to get excited about, a place where the FF series has their strongest side. Bigger maps and all that doesnt really matter. I dare say that if you want to find everything in FFX and FFXII, you can easily spend 100 hours on it. Possibly more. You can complete an FF game in roughly 45-50 hours (still a helluva value), but if you want it all, all weapons, all bosses, its gonna take you so much longer.

Also, about customizing character. Sure, thats great. But your character in Oblivion is nobody, you have no connection with him/her at all. While a character like Cloud in FF7, I dare say, still sticks with people today that ever played through FF7 back in the day.

Figured it'd be a little fun. This is not a thread to bash mentioned titles, cause lets be fair, none of us played 'em yet. Basically, this is how we do. I mention some hyped and very anticipated games for different platforms. To enter the fun, you reply with the mentioned games, and the overall rating you expect Gamespot to give them. New rating system. Then as the games come out, we'll see if anyone got it right :P

The list:

Halo 3, Killzone 2, Assassins Creed, Mass Effect, Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda: Phantom Hourglass and Crysis

To start it off, these are my personal guesses:

Halo 3 - 9.0

Killzone 2 - 8.0

Assassins Creed - 8.5

Mass Effect - 9.0

Super Mario Galaxy - 9.0

Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - 9.5