[Fallenswordsman]

Okay, first and foremost, I love video gaming - I've been playing video games for almost all of my life and have survived the horror stories that I'd become a homicidal maniac by playing too much doom or suffering from epileptic seizures from playing Nintendo games.

Thing is, we're now going into a new generation of consoles and console games and am I the only one who finds the prices of these things prohibitively expensive? I'm looking at the prices of hardware and your Playstation 3 is going to be around GBP 550 with games coming in at a whopping GBP 50 a shot! I'm sorry but I just cannot justify shelling out that amount of money on a game. But don't worry, I could just settle for an XBox 360 at GBP 270 with games only being a snip at GBP 40 a shot. The games industry has said "We need to price up games because they cost a lot more to produce now on the newer hardware". To be honest, I think that's absolute piffle. I was in Japan over Christmas and the 360 games were selling at under GBP 30 a shot and still are. That I can afford, but 40-50 quid a pop is just too much for me. I think I'm going to stick with PC gaming for now and throw in the towel on console games. Hmm, I wonder why this is called Rip-off Britain?

It is a shame though - I wanted to get a PS3 as it stands as a legacy for a friend of mine who worked on the console itself during its build, but sadly passed away before its completion.

[DigiMatt]

I totally agree with you.. video games used to be kids toys but what kid can spend that amount of money?? Its a shame though cause its great fun and the ps3 is most likely going to be a real killer.

sorry to hear about your friend

//Matt

[Mark]

Stick with a PC mate. A reasonable gaming rig can be had now for around £500 (and let's face it - playing around with LW means you probably already have a reasonable machine), can be kept up to date with the latest hardware for a reasonable length of time, the games are generally cheaper, and in my mind much better quality than the generic garbage that generally gets churned out on most consoles...

I currently have an XBox, PS2, PSP and GB-Advance kicking around at home, along with the PC, and the consoles have been mothballed now for over two years (with the exception of the PSP which still gets used whenever I'm travelling)...

[mtmckinley]

my thoughts regarding the game industry is it's on shaky ground. With such massive budgets and the publisher's insistance on having just a small handful of games to bank their yearly profits on, it's just a matter of time before one or two big budget games flop and drives even the largest of companies into the red.

Not to drop names, but I interviewed with Warren Spector, probably one of the biggest figures in games. During the interview, our conversation flowed to this topic and much to my delight, he agreed with me!

I didn't get the job though.