I play on Xbox Live a fair bit, what, with the marathon Call of Duty 4 sessions as well as the occasional bout of something more varied, and from my experience, the extreme problems the service has (in terms of racial, sexual or some other form of abuse from other XBL users), it somewhat unique to the North American (or more specifically US) market.

I normally play Call of Duty 4 (or other multiplayer games, take your pick) after I get home from work, have some dinner and lurk some forums and news sites for a while. Why not play as soon as I get in the door? Easy: I have to play with the Yanks. I leave all my playing til after 10 or so local time (10pm local time being 4am PST), just to avoid being matched up with people from across the Pacific. Now, granted some of that is due to with the lag involved, but mostly it's to do with the stereotypical 13-year-old "badass" who comes online solely to practice swearing and delivering racial slurs just right.

You see, when I play at 11 or 12 o'clock, with other Australians and Kiwis (people from New Zealand for those who are not "Up on the lingo"), although there is plenty of swearing and such which still goes on, it is rarely if ever directed towards other players, and I don't think I've ever heard a racial insult given to a stranger. Now, I may just be sheltered, but it seems that this plague of epic proportions may not be an XBL specific problem, but an American cultural one.

Before you slag me off and insinuate that I hate Americans and am in league with terrorism ("You're either with us or against us!!"), I lived in the states for 6 years, and still have many American friends. I really enjoyed living there. But the stark contrast between playing with Kiwis and Aussies and playing with the Yanks, cannot be understated. I have been told to "STFU you *racial slur here*" by kids who sounded 13 when I was simply talking to my friend in the lobby about the Cricket score. If I had to put up with that kind of thing day in, day out, I would probably just give up and go back to admining servers on Counter Strike.

So, if you live outside the States, do you find that this trend holds true?

Seriously, what the hell?

Let me start off by saying that out of the Sixth Generation of consoles, the only one I owned was the PS2, and as such I consider myself (for the moment at least) a 'Sony first' video game player. I do not own a 360 or a Wii and plan to buy a PS3 when it launches here in March. So by anyone's measure, I would be more inclined to be biased towards the PlayStation brand.

But the more and more I read posts and comments about how the 'Editors of Gamespot hate the PlayStation 3' or how 'They are so biased that they only post bad Sony news and review PS3 games lower' I get more pissed off. Let me make this perfectly clear: Gamespot is not against the PlayStation.

Want to know why only bad Sony news is being posted? Perhaps because all news about Sony has been bad for the last 6 months. How about why PS3 games are being reviewed lower? Because Gundam, Genji and NBA 07 are awful games.

Tony Hawk's Project 8 was reviewed lower on the PS3 because it had no online play and every other version did. Look at the wider picture, Sony had a bad launch, there is one game worth playing on the PlayStation 3, and Sony has been messing up in a major way since E3.

How about why 360 games are being reviewed higher? They are better, that is why. That is by no means whatsoever saying that the 360 is a better console, but it has been out for a year already, and collected some real gems in its catalog in that time. Gears of War, Viva Pinata, Dead Rising and Rainbow Six Vegas all look phenomenal and a console which has been out for a month cannot really compete game quailty wise with a console which has been out for 13 months. By this time next year, the PS3 will have a fantastic collection of games and will be rivaling, if not already surpassing the 360 in terms of quality.

The games which are out now on the PS3 have, for the most part, been rushed out the door to make it to launch. They cannot compare to the 360's current lineup as much as you would want them to.

So in the meantime, quit posting ridiculous accusations towards the Gamespot Editorial Staff and look at the wider picture. The PlayStation 3 will be a great console, it just needs some time.

So...

On Wednesday this week I pre-ordered a PS3 from the EB in the city. The good EB in the city. Not the one in the Myer Center. It only cost me $50 to pre-order but I will most likely put the other $950 in before the launch so on launch day I can just pick one up.

I also heard that less that 10,000 units are coming to Australia for launch, that is not a very happy number. I don't know the sales figures for the 360 though, so I am not sure how many people are going to want the $1000 PS3 at launch.

Oh well, I pre-ordered over 3 months in advance but saying that, I have been meaning too for about 6 months now. The only problem was that stores would not commit to a midnight launch, which I really need as I cant really pick one up at 9am on the Friday morning.

However after talking to the guy at EB who said that although he couldn't confirm a midnight launch (While his creepy manager watched him over her shoulder), they had opened for every hardware launch in the past including the Gamecube and that they would open for PS3 if the interest was high enough. When I asked him if they seriously thought that it wouldn't be, he said under his breath that it was pretty stupid (while his manager eyed him closely). Anyway, with any luck I will have my new supercomputer on November the 17th.

In the wait for the PS3, which seems like it will never get here, I have decided to replay all the games which I can find. I intended to play some of my Master System games again, but sadly, I cannot find an RF-AV converter for it and as such cannot connect it to my TV.

So, I have to be content with my old PC games as well as my PS1 and 64. So far I have replayed Final Fantasy VII, Spyro 3 (the best of the Spyro games) and 1080 Snowboarding from start to finish and have started FFIX again and am at the end of the 1st disc.

I also pulled Mario Kart 64 and Perfect Dark out today, I must say that Perfect Dark has aged noticeably, but Mario Kart is as fun as it ever was.

Also, I am very surprised that Castlevania: Symphony of the Night is making its way over to Xbox Live Arcade. That game remains on my list of top ten greatest single-player games ever and it just seems a bit strange that one of the Playstation's best games is being ported to the platform of a competitor two generations later.