So, today the price for my Xbox 360 Premium hit $930 Canadian and all I can say is Fable 2 and Gears 2 had better be worth it because although I've enjoyed a handful of games, this is getting ridiculous.

I bought my launch 360 in Canada for the princely sum of $450 dollars and I couldn't be happier. The promised of true "next gen" gaming made me salivate like Drew Carey at a pie throwing contest. And I wasn't disappointed...at first. King Kong was fantastic and looked great with my new hi-def projector and COD2 was outstanding. Then I got to Kameo and let out a slight "meh". Perfect Dark, despite it's glowing reviews also solicited the same response from me and back I went to playing my PS2 pausing only occasional to play Joust which I had downloaded from XBL for a good six months. Then Gears came and changed the landscape giving us a taste of the "next gen" games to come. And then...well...hey! Wasn't Gears of War a lot of fun! Yeah!

During this time I was happily paying $7.99 per month for X-box live after deciding I'd give it a couple of months I happily continued to pay until 2 years and $192 dollars later someone on these forums mentioned XBL was $50.00 a year and I said "Pardon?"

So that was $450 for the console, $60 for an extra controller, $60 for two charge and play kits and $192 for the privilege of playing online (I no longer bother with XBL gold. The fact that monthly payers are charged almost double the price is extortion). But wait! 2 RROD's, both requiring me to pay $170 each prompted me to consider the value of the extended warranty that Microsoft offered. $75 dollars later I was covered for an extra 2 years - and good thing too. Eventually (after hours on the phone fighting for my money) MS did refund the entire $340 I paid for repairs but my $75 extended warranty was put to good use when my 3rd 360 suffered from the terrible habit of scratching the hell out of ever disk that was put in it. Not covered under the 3 year warranty, says Microsoft. Aha, says I, but I have an extended warranty. Be that way, says Microsoft. Now I'm on unit number 4.

So how did I end up at $930? Easy. I moved. Unfortunately, my computer is nowhere near where my 360 will be in the new house and today I plunked down $100 for a wireless adapter, ½ the price of a new 360 console. $930 dollars for not even 3 years of 360 play. For those keeping score - that's the price of 4 Xbox 360 consoles now and I don't even get to play online without adding yet another $100 dollars to my running tally over the next couple of years.

I certainly hope Fable 2 and Gears 2 are worthwhile. It's been a long time since Halo 3 came out and my 360 is getting pretty dusty...

Looking at the release calendar I just realized what month it is. It's almost the end of September. Upon that realization, another reality jumped up in the back of my mind and started dancing about a bit like a child who's proven himself right and is now taunting you with that fact. I haven't purchased a single game for my 360 for over a year now and have hardly turned it on for all of 2008. Anyone who's familiar with my postings will probably instantly jump in with "Of course you haven't! You're a huge Sony Fanboy! FaaaaaaannnnBooooiiiiiiiii!" I say, not true.

A little back storey. I've had my 360 since launch and have loved it. For the first 6 months I finished King Kong and Call of Duty 2 and played Joust till something good came along. My friends mocked me for spending so much on a platform only to play Joust for months, but I knew it would pay off eventually. Such are the risks of being an early adopter. It was about 5 months in when RROD reared it's ugly head playing Joust, and given the warranty was only 3 months at the time I grudgingly forked over $170 and a month later received a different unit. It worked fine (even though it left a bitter taste in my mouth having forked out almost $700 in total) but now the games started to pick up a bit. They extended the warranty to a year, promised I would get my $170 back and life was good. Just past the one year mark after exploring the world of Oblivion for a couple of hours, RROD. I called in and that was $170 as it was past the 1 year warranty. I pointed out they hadn't sent me my last $170 back yet. Not her department, but she'd look into it. Another $170 off my credit card, $75 for a 2 year extended warranty and off my 360 went again (they didn't even send a coffin this time). I had now spent almost $1000 on my 360. The shine was starting to come off a bit.

During the month and a bit it took them to send me a check for my $170 and ship me a refurbed console I turned to my PS2, sitting in the corner forgotten like it had been banished to the isle of misfit toys. I dusted it off and shockingly discovered, "Hey! This is still a lot of fun!" I played through some great games I had missed: MGS3, DMC3, God of War. When my 360 came back again, it was with a little sadness that I turned away from my PS2...but the promise of the 360 was strong! Dead Rising, Gears of War, Bioshock, Oblivion was calling still and the monster was yet to come...Halo 3!

It was during a visit to Rapture that I suddenly received a disk read error. I'm a 34 year old guy that didn't have much growing up, so I take good care of my things. Turning over my disk I was quite shocked by the circular rings o' damage on the disk. Flipping over a few other recently played games I found the same problem...my refurbed console was scratching my disks like a cheap hooker scratches backs.

At this point the warranty had been extended to 3 years. I called in to send my 360 off for repairs again, and find out where the hell my second $170 refund was. Here things started to get nutty. First, disk scratching isn't covered under the warranty. They suggested I stop moving around my console while playing. Helpful little nugget. Second, they had already rebated my $170 months ago. She couldn't quite grasp the concept that I had paid the $170 twice (who could blame her? Why on earth would anyone go through that twice?) After days and, I kid you not, a total of over 4 hours on the phone getting bounced around from person to person, they finally admitted they still owed me $170 (after forcing me to provide proof I had paid this..you'd think they'd have that kind of thing on file). I also twisted their arm and they agreed to take back this replacement console, which I had only had for a couple of months (the one year rule for replacement consoles only covers rrod), simply because I had shelled out $75 for the extended warranty the last time I went through this.

I had bought a PS3 at launch, but the big, black, George Foreman Grill looking thing had remained unplayed after having finished Resistance Fall of Man. Afraid to play any of my 360 games for fear of them being rendered unplayable, and then due to losing my 360 console again to repairs for a month I played my PS3 and guess what? It was pretty good! Online was bare bones but serviceable and I stared to snatch up multiconsole titles, despite the moaning I read online about inferior PS3 ports. I never once noticed anything that hampered my enjoyment of the games I bought. Halo 3 launched while my 360 was away being repaired and I vowed to purchase all my future multiconsole games on my PS3.

When my 360 came back it came with a free month of XBL gold, which I had been paying for since launch. I finished Halo 3 a couple of times, played online and let racist, homophobic 12 year olds scream insults at me while they repeatedly handed my ass to me, until my free month expired then cancelled my XBL gold - traded in Halo 3 for a shiny new copy of COD4 for my PS3 and away I went.

Fast forward a year and here we are, and I'm not quite sure what the hell happened. My 360 was still my favourite console, I bought one for a friend as a wedding gift (his wife was overjoyed), I recommended it to anyone that happened past my office at work, I had many enjoyable hours spent playing on my 360. In the forums, someone pointed out that, despite professing my love for the 360, my gamerID showed I'd only played the console for 4 days this year. Certainly that couldn't be correct. But it is.

I remember the excitement of last year, the promise of Bioshock and Halo - and they didn't disappoint. This year everything I've been looking forward to have been multiconsole releases, or PS3 exclusives. I went back over 360 releases for 2008 and was surprised that no 360 exclusives interested me in the slightest, not even Ninja Gaiden (didn't care for the last one).

Gears 2 and Fable 2 are right around the corner and I have these pre-ordered, but what the hell happened to the other 9 months out of the year? Microsoft really hit their stride in 2007 and I realize now with a little sadness, appear to have rolled over and gone to sleep. While the PS3 has been expanding, upgrading and improving month over month - the 360... not so much.

My PS3 was forced on me through video game necessity. I found I couldn't rely on my 360. The realities of the 360's hardware problems I'm sure have changed many a gamers habits over the years, but this change to my gaming preferences was a gradual one and still surprise me how subtly this shift occurred. Perhaps I'll favour my 360 again for a bit when Gears and Fable hit, but after that....I don't see anything on the horizon. If my 360 rrod's again on me outside of my extended warranty - I truly believe I won't be missing out on much if I choose not to shell out another $170 to replace it.

As anyone who reads my posts will know I can be fairly critical of the missteps of all three console makers but I tend to come out on the side of Sony more often than naught, firstly as I couldn't believe the utter hatred and contempt I viewed on these forums regarding Sony's ambitious new console and felt many where missing the point. It was as if Sony execs had personally kicked every single 360 fans dog or been witnessed beating a sack of live squirrels wrapped in the American flag. Where was all this coming from suddenly? Second, because as the PS3 evolved I found that after months of sitting unused in favor of my 360 my PS3 had slowly become my console of choice.

I was surprised as anyone when I finally discontinued my subscription fees to XBL gold and left the chattering, racist, homophobic 12 year olds behind to game online exclusively on the PSN, despite having been told time and time again on this site and in these forums that the PSN was vastly inferior, that the PS3's graphics were terrible, that no one wants Blu-Ray and that the PS3 causes testicular cancer. 8 months later using PSN I still can't really figure out why that is but that's another topic. Why my shift was surprising is because I was, and still am, a huge Xbox fan. Last gen the X-box was by far my system of choice. I played Halo regularly, geeked out like everyone else when Halo 2 and 3 came out (still have a Master Chief magnet on my fridge) and recommended the 360 for 2 years to anyone who would care to listen. But I didn't dislike the PS2 or Gamecube nor do I dislike the 360 now. I never engaged in the online console debates because I had something I liked about all 3 of them and thought the mindless bashing of each system stemmed mainly from ignorance.

This gen was different. I was happy with my 360 but excited about the PS3 and Wii when they launched. I couldn't wait to see what was brought to the table and I was as excited waiting for these consoles as I was waiting for the 360 to launch. However, something was different when these consoles came out. People weren't excited about the new consoles. Far from it. They felt threatened by the new consoles; suspicious and fearful. What if these consoles catch on? Will the Japanese come and take my 360? They can't do that! They'd better not succeed! The forums were filled with misinformation, lies, and slams at the consoles, companies and anyone who committed the sin of not gaming exclusively on the X-box 360. I have heard it argued many times before that to game on anything other than the 360 is un-American. MS is a shining beacon of all that's right in good in the ole US, past business practices be damned!

The forums have calmed down a bit within the last few months as the 360 falls to 3rd place in worldwide sales and Sony and Wii fans are more able to band together and not be as bullied as they were a year ago, but the pro-MS camp is still there, still shouting the same tired opinions and gaming "truths" at the top of their lungs like it's their own personal crusade to put down gamers of other systems while the rest of the world looks on with a bemused sense of wonderment at the US gaming market and the 360's fall worldwide to the Wii, and now the PS3.

So as it becomes more apparent that the analysts predictions are correct and the PS3 will soon overtake the 360, my thoughts turn to the legions of X-box fanatics that I've had the pleasure of verbally sparring with over the last couple of years. I recently read an article on PC Advisor that asked the question "Is the PS3 finally the world's best console?" and the answer was a resounding yes! It got me thinking of the fans that troll the news forums. What will become of them? How will they deal with more and more titles like MGS4 being released, outshining anything they've seen on their consoles. What will they do when their whole believe structure is brought into question? I'm not worried about the average X-box fans. We, me included, will be just fine. The status of the 360 in terms of global sales ultimately won't stop us from enjoying the hell out of Fable 2, Gear 2, Alan Wake, etc, but the X-box fanboys will be in a tougher spot. It wasn't enough to just play the games and enjoy them; it was a cult that should be followed without question. With that taken away from them, when they can no longer argue "We've got all the games, our games our better, our online is better, no one cares about Blu-ray, etc" what will they do? Will they still clog up the forums and yell that games on all other systems suck, regardless if they've ever played them or not? Will they instead argue their console is way cheaper than the PS3 (I'm assuming another 360 price cut towards the end of the year)? Or will they quietly fade into the night and just be content to play the great games they've been blessed with?

Like fans of a defeated sports team, will they bide their time until their team rises again. And then if it doesn't? If Microsoft's Shane Kim has his way and there isn't another expensive 360 consoles but instead some sort of digital distribution hub in it's place? What then?

I wonder, what happened to all the Deadheads after the Grateful Dead called it quits? That must have been quite a hole that was left. Perhaps we should arrange counseling services in advance.

Another user on this fine site recently pointed out that in the past I've been critical of the Xbox 360 in the past. Here was my response.
"Overtly critical? I don't think anyone should have to pay extra for online play and I'm disappointed by my own rrod problems. Other than that I've had nothing but praise for the 360 console, time and time again. How is that being overtly critical?
Here's a little experiment you can try to see where I'm coming from. Try going to two separate news threads on this site, maybe regarding sales numbers. On one post "Almost 12 million PS3's sold. Nice job Sony." On the other post "Almost 18 million 360's sold. Nice job MS!" Wait a day and see which is thumbed up and thumbed down. Also, be prepared to receive hate mail in your inbox regarding the Sony post. Welcome to my world, around here. If it weren't for other gamers, emailing me encouragement, telling me they're afraid to post anything because they know they'll be harassed I would have stayed retired when I said "Nuts to this site," months ago. People go through posts from weeks and weeks ago, looking for anything where I was even slightly off topic, or could be construed as flaming to try to have me censored from this site, and all I'm trying to do is help provide balanced debate on a site I love."

This, my friends, is apparently a fine example of "trolling" and will have you suspended from the site. Trolling, which I had always assumed was living under a bridge waiting to ambush the odd Billy-goat is now a label that the majority can give to anything that makes them feel slightly uncomfortable and that leads into my current topic. What is currently wrong with the gamer community?

Anyone who surfs the internet game community sites knows that this problem is on the rise. The sheer volume of ignorance and stupidity on game sites today is truly staggering. Fans of one console or another can effectively shout over top of each other, quoting opinion as fact, twisting numbers in ways that would make statisticians blush from the shame of it all and generally making anyone that doesn't kowtow to the majority's opinion feel unwelcome as gamers. This isn't politics!

Rabid console fans have existed since the days of the Atari 2600. I remember debates in my school yard about the merits of the Nintendo over the Commodore 64 (also, there seemed to be some confusion as to Dee Snyder's gender in my schoolyard. He's very obviously an ugly dude, but that didn't change the fact that kids would argue fanatically that he was indeed an ugly woman). What linked us all together was our shared love of gaming, and we all knew the words to "We're not gonna take it." No more.

Currently if you dare question majority rule, expect to be censored. Gaming forums are no longer a center for even remotely informed or intelligent debate but have been reduced to a virtual schoolyard playground, complete with all the bulling that goes along with it. But the bullies aren't kids that are a foot higher than their peers smell bad and have a mustache in grade 4, the bullies on our forums are younger gamers who run in packs. Speak ill of Microsoft and expect to be harassed on every single post you make, whether it's talking about looking forward to a game on your Wii, whether it's on a Sony news storey talking about how you like your new dualshock 3 or whether you're vocal about your concerns with the 360's slide to 3rd place in worldwide monthly sales.

So what happened? In my view the answer is simple. Control was handed over to the 12 year old gamers who generally feel the sun rises and sets on Microsoft's Redmond HQ. I realize through my own experiences playing online and posting on games forums that the problem is with the majority of immature game fans who flood these sights. These children simply don't have the current mental wherewithal to engage in the higher level of brain function that is required for intelligent debate, and it's not their fault. We don't let children under the age of 18 vote and the reason is most of them can't grapple with the issues. The average underage gamer isn't proficient or analytical enough to weigh arguments and respond logically. That's something that can only be learned through time and the realization that the world does not revolve around just you. So why would we give these kids tools to censor a larger community? We wouldn't hand over a fueled chainsaw to Gary Busey and expect the end result to be positive.

Knowing the enemy to logical debate in the news threads on this site, what can we do? Censoring children won't teach them anything, as much as the though of smacking kids on the top of the head when they say something ignorant does bring a smile to my face (I'm allowed to think it!) the logistics of creating a system where "You must be at least this old and this smart to post," is impossible. The solution? To help foster legitimate gamer debate on these sites is to take away ridiculous community censoring controls, like the thumbs up/thumbs down mechanism that Gamespot employs. Censorship should not be as easy as a knee jerk click of a button to an article and the current community has shown itself irresponsible in the use of the tools they've been given. Little Jimmy doesn't need a tool where he can just click at anything that makes him feel bad and that bad thing will just go away. And for that matter, adults don't need that either. Sheltering yourselves from opposing viewpoints will never allow intellectual growth.

The existing method of allowing people a feedback where they can notify moderators of inappropriate postings is sufficient. Let's get back to discussing the hobby we love. And see if we can't remember the lyrics to "We're not gonna take it."