[spinkle]

@lynk, i think you're right, PS3 will end up winning this generation. XBOX 360 has already crested and though its sales will likely remain relatively constant, as the price of the PS3 drops and its catalog increases, its sales will also climb drastically...I have the feeling another price cut will come by holiday time this year and that we'll be seeing huge amounts of sales to those who've been holding off getting one for some reason or another...especially gamers who bought the XBOX 360 just to kill time until they could afford the PS3 XD I agree that Microsoft's ability to keep American game studios active and in the running is a key move, and just as importantly I think they offer game studios a fair amount of middle ground in terms of development costs...Speaking in terms of studios being able to market and tailor their output, I think it's probably a good thing how "tiered" development is now--the market for games is wide open at this point, and there's a hell of a lot of improvement waiting to happen--I cite as a pleasant example how refined even NES games were by the end of its generation--and I think as a result this is going to be a nice, long generation with beautiful results. I'm opening up to the idea of getting into other consoles than Nintendo's, but I'm far too thrifty to drop three-digit numbers on anything, let alone something that will cause me to spend even more time gaming than I do now XD (for example, No More Heroes and Contact made me take days to reply to my own post )

@lynk and moel, I think you're right, Wii Sports probably does justify the Wii's existence for a lot of people and I can't deny that many families still don't own anything but that for the system and are completely satisified with their purchase. My extended family now owns three Wiis and a retarded amount of time has been spent bowling XD

@moel my DS reason was FF3DS, Pokemon was...imposed on me...by #echonet, haha. I'm glad as hell they got me playing it, though. I'm really glad I waited until Diamond to start exploring the franchise, though. (I should note that the DS is my first handheld; never had a gameboy, gba, gbc, etc)

@Eva, I've been wanting to check out the Fire Emblem games, as I've heard great things about them. Marth's inclusion in Brawl definitely stepped up the heat on it for me.

@chi I saw Okami in the game shop while hunting down a copy of Contact and almost impulse-purchased it, which is rare for me. It seems like it could be a lot of fun...as long as it doesn't turn out to be a grown-up version of Drawn To Life, haha XD Another RE4 recommendation too, I definitely have to pick that up.

On a side note, Super Mario Galaxy is probably the game that most justified the Wii for me, and the game I could most easily recommend to someone as worth the price of the Wii. I don't think I've ever had more fun that. Super Paper Mario was fun, but I think it's too much RPG for most people.