@danabo Okay, timed demos sound wack, but we never let them explain that before we shot the idea down. Gamers went nuts when the idea of daily check-ins and restricted game transfers came up.

And again, I'll point out that this is still better than what Steam allows, and gamers (including me) love Steam.

I was excited about the prospect of having my discless game library follow me to any console. That's one of the things I love about Steam. When I have to dig through boxes of discs to find the game I want to play, it's probably not going to get played. Being able to switch games and never leave the sofa...I'm willing to hear the case for that.

But this is my opinion based on how I play my games...I understand that its not for everyone.

@indiansepoy The exclusives are the only games I care to play on the PlayStation 3. That's just my preference though, and I don't fault anyone who plays primarily or exclusively on a PS3.

But it's not like the XBOX vs PS2 days when Sony had tons and tons of good games that developers never even considered porting to the XBOX. Back then it was clear which system you wanted to have. In this gen, the exclusives wouldn't fill a shelf, so they're kind of an afterthought for me.

Then again, I guess the only exclusives that matter are the ones that you want to play.

@Shielder7 The comment didn't say that specs are meaningless. It said that comparing specs between the XBOX One and PlayStation 4 "is in some ways meaningless." Those aren't the same ideas at all.

@indiansepoy I completely agree with you that those are beautiful games. Even though good looks are subjective, you'll get no argument from me that the Uncharted games look great.

But my point isn't that the games don't look great, it's the idea that Naughty Dog couldn't have accomplished such great-looking games on any other platform than the PlayStation 3. I think many people assume that since the Uncharted games were PlayStation exclusive that it was technically impossible for them to be done anywhere else. I'm saying that it was a business decision, not a technical one.

Cheap digital games on the X360 might have some value to me if they could also be played on the XBOX One. For example, I like buying cheap PSP games because that's the only way to play them on the PS Vita. By the same token, I'm hoping my digital PS3 library will eventually be playable on the PS4.

I never buy digital from Nintendo because they won't even let you transfer games to another console (which is ridiculous). So unless the digital XBOX 360 games are significantly cheaper than the same games on disc, I'll probably pass.

@RighteousWoman I agree completely about the games. Movies and TV shows are less of a problem because I only watch them once. But I don't want to have to plan an hour ahead before I can play a game because I had to delete something else and then re-download it.

@devild0ogwhite Agreed. The X360 and PS3 will become the low-end option for gamers looking to get games on the cheap. I don't trade my systems because (a) I've built up a good library that I want to continue to enjoy, (b) there will be great deals on lots of older games in the coming months, and (c) there may still be new releases for the older systems for about another year.

@VarietyMage Price is a huge differentiator, and maybe the only single differentiator that matters. But as we now know, Sony's decision not to include the PS Eye camera with their console makes the $500 > $400 an apples to oranges comparison.

I'm sure that his point is that the specs here are either too close to matter or actually in Microsoft's favor. But regardless, most of the people on these comment threads aren't qualified to make that determination based on a 12-line comparison chart they saw on a website somehwere.

And if you have to pull out a 30-year-old system in order to make a point about specs, then you've probably overreached. :-)

First off, checkmate on that final paragraph. I hate seeing gamers argue about system engineering concepts that they barely understand. Saying that eight cores is always better than four is like saying that more horsepower will always mean a faster car.

But most importantly, gaming is a business, and in a cross-platform games often get pulled toward the lowest common denominator. For years PlayStation 3 fans told everyone that their consoles hardware was better, but that never really did show up in terms of the games, which mostly looked and played the same across platforms. I always heard of Uncharted as a game that could only work on the PlayStation, but I never believed that and I doubt that they did either.

When developers make cross-platform games, they don't say "Well, we've got everything working and it looks good, but let's spend another three months trying to squeeze a few bits more performance out of this platform here, y'know, for the fanboys." Once they hit their threshold, they move on. For them, it's about maximum coverage, not maximum performance.

For the most part, I agree with Nintendo here. They have innovated in some important ways in their key franchises over the years. Compare the variations across the Mario series (like the innovations in Super Mario Galaxy) or Zelda series with the amount of variation in, say, Call of Duty or even Uncharted. Despite having the same characters, those franchises offer radically different gameplay across the series.

Where their argument falls short, however, is that there are several games in those series that offer only incremental changes in the gameplay. The updated Mario 2D side-scrollers are a case in point where each new game seems to offer a new power-up suit or more coins. Thanks to airtight control and some excellent level design, they get away with it, but we all know that it's the same game with a tanooki suit.

The real indication for me that it was getting long in the tooth is that I've forgotten what order the new Mario games came in or which consoles they work on. It's like they have a meeting at Nintendo to see which combination of New + Super + Mario + Bros. + 3D + World have they not used yet for the title of their next game.