Xbox 360

Core $300.  Premium $400.

Sony proponents argue that if you were to add up all the stuff you would 
need to make a 360 match what's in the PS3, you'd actually end up paying 
a bit more.  However, you don't need a wireless adapter and you don't 
need a HD-DVD drive, so all you'd really need is an Xbox Live account.

Xbox Live service costs $50/yr, but you do get a lot for it.

Give a one-year review of the 360


Wii
No HD support at all.  Uses flash cards for storage.  Has neato-keen 
motion-sensing controller.  Least expensive at $250.  Online service
allegedly free.

No advance reviews have said that playing Wii games is any better than 
better than playing games for other consoles, though reviewers have 
definitely said that it's a lot of fun.  No review has said that this is a 
defining moment in video games, that every console in the future will use 
Wii-style controllers instead of normal controllers.

The lineup of games doesn't appear to be any more exciting than what was 
offered on the GameCube.  The hottest title appears to be The Legend of 
Zelda: Twilight Princess, but after that it's pretty lackluster.


PS3
Most expensive at $600.  Graphics appear to be no better than that of the 
360, though the PS3's graphics should surpass the 360's in about two 
years, as programmers learn the PS3.  Using the PS3 to fight its format 
war by being a Blu-Ray player.

The lineup of launch window games (20 total) is pretty solid, except that 
only 5 are PS3 exclusives (Resistance: Fall of Man, Genji: Days of the 
Blade, Ridge Racer 7, Gundam, and Untold Legends Dark Kingdom), and 5 have 
already been available 
for the 360 (Fight Night Round 3, Oblivion, F.E.A.R., Madden 07, NHL 2K7).

The killer titles for the PS3, namely Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy 
XIII, won't appear until 

Sony claims that the online service for the PS3 is free, and while that's 
technically true, there's more to the story.  The big problem is that it's 
entirely up to the game companies to provide servers for their games, and 
since Sony isn't offering any financial help for doing so, it's likely 
that some games will have an extra fee (charged by the game companies 
themselves) to play on their servers in order to cover the cost of 
operating them.  Otherwise, games will be run on the players' PS3s, and 
we'll undoubtedly see rampant modded clients and standby antics, much as 
we've seen on Halo 2 and PC games.  The one big thing that Sony can offer 
in its online service that Nintendo and Microsoft can't is the vast amount 
of movies and music property that it owns.

$2 demos?
Europe launch is March
Lik-Sang closing


General Notes
Expect more cross-platform, due to high cost of development
Speculation that we won't see as much innovation, due to the high cost of 
development and game companies wanting to guarantee a return on their 
investment.
As such, will we see a rise in downloadable "arcade" games?  XBox Live 
Arcade, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, return to shareware days

format war:
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9002952