"...people who don't want new ways to play, or lack creativity and imagination enough to envision new ways to play" Lets see you pull something out of your rear end to make controlling mobile games better.

Cell phones are improving all the time. Each new phone has a bigger brighter screen, and a faster processor. Some have keyboards, some don't. They're leapfrogging each other with so many improvements that it's impossible to optimize a game for all available phones. Apple included. If you look at the system requirements on the iTunes store, you need to own a system in a specific band of devices in order for it to work properly. With the new ipad3 coming out soon, how long do you think it will take for ipad2 owners (like me) to get left out of the newest line of ipad games? Dedicated devices provide a set piece of hardware to play games on. Someone who owns an original launch psp can play any available psp game they can find. That means an initial investment made in 2004 could have lasted someone 8 years to this week when the Vita launched. That's impressive, considering that (taking a shot in the dark and barring losing or breaking our phones) on average we get a new phone every two years or so. Try playing Infinity Blade on an 8 year old phone. So yeah, phones are great and they're getting better all the time. You'll keep having to get a new one to stay on top. Which means during the life of a handheld gaming device like the Vita or 3DS, you could spend three to four times (maybe more?) the cost of said devices on new phones. If you switch carriers or brands, you're probably going to have to repurchase your apps on top of that.

It sounds like the majority of these issues can be fixed with a firmware update. I've spent a little time with a display model and I'm not thrilled with the ui either. I'm not willing to write the system off for something so small.

@hogstomp 20 hours of overtime is not something you just throw away. Working for free is tantamount to indentured servitude. Your statement "I work about 60 hours per week and get paid the same if I work 40 or 80.... Life sucks people.... It is how it is" is complete bull. Being made to work that many hours for free is criminal, and you wouldn't be so nonchalant about it if you were. I just got my paycheck for last week. It shows I worked 83 hours over six days. That pretty much left me with enough personal time everyday to sleep, shower and do it over again. I am exhausted, and I'm not doing such a great job of understanding things right now. So if you don't mind, you're going to have to clarify some part of your story. You're either working multiple jobs, a slave, or completely full of it.

Second hand stores are basically pawn shops. A pawn shop won't give you the worth of whatever it is you're selling them. They have to make a profit, and theres no profit in paying what somethings worth and then selling it at cost. Take a nice $1000 watch to a pawn shop, you might walk away with $100 - if you're lucky. Then they might sell it for around $500. Pawn shops exist to give the customer quick cash for old and unwanted items without the hassle of trying to find a proper buyer. Gamestop works in exactly the same way. If a new game is $60, they'll give you $25 and resell the game for $55. You walk in, get the money/credit for your games, and leave with very little hassle. The idea is quick in-quick out. If you don't like Gamestop's prices, there's nothing stopping anyone from going on Craigslist and undercutting them. All you need is patience, and the will to pack and ship the items yourself. Perhaps you could start taking things in your own hands and stop pissing and moaning that others won't don't things for you the way you want them done.

You call them "heinous", I call them douche bags. Regardless of what you call the big corporations, I'd love to see Kotick out on the street. However, lowering the cost of games (while a welcome idea) wouldn't stop piracy; piracy was rampant when console games were $50. Most PC games are still $50, and more games are pirated for the PC than any other console. You could argue that raising the price of games has increased piracy, and you'd probably be right. However, if a pirate is going to steal a game anyway, the only people the price hikes affect are the paying customers. Budge may have given us a nifty pinball game that inspired a generation of developers in ways that we can't possibly measure. Unfortunately we can already measure the impact Hotz has had on the game industry. He's escalated the pirate/publisher war and Sony has slammed up tight. Hotz spit in Sony's face, and we're going to catch the brunt of the backlash.

@Blacksnake123: Yes, most DLC is a ripoff. Yes, megapublishers like Activision are sucking the blood from their customers. But you can't have it both ways. You can't say "fight them with piracy" and then defend piracy with "it doesn't affect sales". Which is it? Does piracy hurt them or not?

What someone does to their own hardware in the privacy of their own home isn't any of my business. However, Hotz posted his work on the internet allowing anyone to copy it. If you want to save the games you own to your hard drive, fine. On the other hand, you know pirates are using Hotz's work to copy games they don't own. Before someone else spouts about how pirates don't affect sales, let me stop you by saying it's an idea that I don't understand. Yeah, I get pirates aren't walking into Gamestops and stealing physical copies of games. However, they are playing/using software they didn't pay for. Saying "I would have never bought it anyway so it doesn't count as a lost sale" doesn't change the fact that pirates are enjoying the entertainment the game provides without paying for the game. @BlackSnake123: What "heinous acts" are you talking about? Last I checked video games were a hobby. Games are a pastime. Games a luxury that no one needs for sustenance or to cure a disease. These corporations aren't making food or medicine so expensive that only the super rich can afford them.

Personally, I think the only reason Nintendo would launch the 3ds with such a weak lineup is to give the third party game developers a little breathing room. I know that doesn't seem likely, but the wii had very strong title support from Nintendo and a pretty weak showing from everyone else. Nintendo knew the 3ds would sell very well, so they didn't have anything to lose by sitting back and letting Ubisoft and Capcom steal the spotlight. This way other developers can see how well a non Nintendo game can do and be encouraged to give the unit more support. Or, Nintendo just made a bad call and released it early for no specific reason whatsoever.

What Hotz did wasn't isolated to himself and a handful of his friends. He didn't have any goal to create new programs or products that would move the industry forward as a whole. He cracked the ps3 master code for no other reason than to be the first one to do it. Then to brag about it, he posted his work online so anyone willing could crack their own systems. What Budge and Hotz did, they did for their own benefit. The only difference is how far their work was able to travel. Budge shared with his friends and maybe some students from school. Hotz shared with the world. Whatever benevolent reasoning you might use to defend game hackers, most of them do it to play free games. All Hotz did was open up the ps3 to pirates.