50% of 360 Owners New to Xbox

"Online gaming is, and always will be except for geeks who think their lives are best spent in made-up worlds, a sideshow"

It's narrow minded people like urself that unfortunaly keeps gaming & the gaming culture in the place it always seem to be. Regarded as some childish nerdy, geeky past time for spotty sad low lifes.

You obviously never play games online...... that hasn't stopped you being a geek who plays in made-up worlds!

But what you'd personally do isn't the answer, so let's see how it plays out with the masses over the next few years.

No, the people who turn up at HMV at midnight to get an expansion pack dressed up in elf costumes who give gaming a bad name.

I come home and play a bit of Pro Evo against my mates or something like Zelda if it's a rainy day and I fancy the odd marathon gaming session.

Alternatively, if you are spending an even vaguely large amount of time online playing against people the majority of which you don't know, you are escaping from reality into a world which isn't so harsh to you and lets you waste your life for cash.

Online gaming will always be a minority income paid for by people in that last paragraph.

Look if online gaming aint for you then fine, but dont sit there & look down your f**king nose @ me for enjoying it.

The average consumer will probably buy a Wii, if they can find one because:

The X360 and PS3 are still too highly priced as gaming machines (what the average consumer still sees them, not multi-media systems) and HD-DVD is still to uncertain as is Blu-Ray and also too overpriced.

When the X360, PS3, HD-DVD and Blu-ray are below the 300 mark, then we can start talking about the potential choice of the average consumer.

And online gaming is a blast, from a social stanpoint, action standpoint, thrill standpoint and so on. only problem is that recent online games involve too much grinding and/or are to slow making them boring and/or too easy, for me personally then.

But that's me, raised with the doctrine of speed, skill and action of TFC. Damn you brain with your ability to cement raised-with values into my behavorial structure!

Just read this thread and here's my input:

Personally I have had no reason to play games online at the moment. I don't like shoot-em-ups or MMORPGs and these seem to be the main domain of online play. The only games I would consider playing online would be Mario Kart, Smash Bros, maybe some sports games - very casual games. I don't like the idea of the friend code system on the DS, so haven't actually played MK online (I don't have one at the moment).

I certainly will never, ever pay for online play.

At the moment the players for Blu ray and HD-DVD are too expensive, and people like me who aren't really into HD have no reason to upgrade from DVD. I wouldn't buy a stand-alone box for more than £50. I can't see that being reached any time soon. If I bought a PS3 and it comes with a Blu ray player then I might as well use it - so, yes, I do think the PS3 gives Blu ray some kind of advantage. However, a PS3 is a massive investment, and I wouldn't consider spending that much money on any kind of entertainment system - it's just not worth it. Therefore, I could potentially be in the camp of not having any HD player until you can no longer buy DVDs.

I agree with OptimusP that most people will not pay over £300 for any gaming system, in fact my threshold would be £200 - anything beyond that just doesn't justify the investment. That puts PS3 out and leaves the Wii and Xbox360. I personally won't buy anything non-OS from Microsoft, thus I will not get an Xbox360, however I think a 360 would be an attractive purchase for an average consumer, and much more attractive to gamers because it's so established and has a "gamer image".

As for Wii, well, it's all unproven as to if we'll see any quantity of good games on it, however it could be attractive if Nintendo and third parties deliver a stream of high-quality titles. I get the feeling it's a nice idea that will never actually be used the full by anyone. I'm also not sure the controls will work so well in practice, especially after playing Sports (although was impressed with the use of the controls in Zelda, which is a slight improvement over the GC controls, although not enought to be in any way revolutionary).