Here's the apparent rundown: the XBox 360 is not backwards compatible, the Wii has a name that a dolphin might utter if it were capable of masturbation, and now the new Playstation is going to cost as much as I could get for my car if I didn't need it to drive to work and earn enough money to buy game systems.  I have a terrible feeling that we're not going to be asking ourselves which one is the best, but rather, which one sucks the least?

At different points in my unpaid career as a gamer, I was the owner of the Gamecube, the PS2 and the XBox, and rather than tell a long complicated story about when and why I discarded one in favor of another, let's just abridge the tale by saying that I still have my XBox, and I know what I'm talking about when I say it's the system to have right now.  Custom soundtracks, a hard drive, graphical superiority...the game delays can be a bit of a pain (especially the GTA's...ouch!), but then again, I'm the kind of guy to wait until a movie comes out on DVD to save myself the headache of having some proud parent's newly-hatched offspring puke buttery popcorn-chunk-laden sputum all over my damn nachos at the theater.  I'm cool with the delays because the game you wind up with is typically the best version graphically, and having played some of the more popular multiple-port titles on my brother's PS2 (which, by the way, has the same scratch on it that my old one had, by some strange accident of fate), I can say that I didn't notice a whole lot of control issues between the two versions.  Yes, drive bys on the XBox version of San Andreas take some degree of adaptation; you have to take your foot (or thumb, really, unless you're a contortionist) off of the gas to shoot, but that's what they do in real drive-bys, isn't it?  "Hey Milton, let's see if you can hit that guy who tried to cap the Don at 75 miles per hour.  If you fail, we'll drive the other way at 65mph, and we'll keep doing this, each time decreasing our speed exponentially until you manage to whack the hapless individual in question.  Wait, dammit, I spent so much time explaining it that we drove right by him.  Let's turn around and...what?  This is a one-way street?  Well-played, Canelli.  We'll get you next time..."

Believe it or not, this does have a point.  When I say the XBox is the system to have right now, I'm not only comparing it to the current generation alternatives, but also the 360.  Sure, it has better graphics, but better games?  I played a few games on it, and though Fight Night Round 3 almost looks like two real people are duking it out in the ring, especially with no heads-up display, it didn't quite convince me that I should shell out the 400 smackers for the whole system.  The sad part is, the "better games" issue wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the compatibility problem.  So Microsoft, hurry up and resolve it, and for goodness' sake, stop competing with YOURSELF!  You're going to have plenty of competition come the end of the year; granted, the PlayStation 3's price tag might deter a few potential buyers, but knowing Sony I'll bet they have something up their sleeve to back it up with.