What I did in order to purchase Kinect day one

Now that I have your attention I'll start by saying that I own all three major consoles and I usually own all the consoles each generation. I consider myself a gamer first and foremost. I do however consider myself to be a competitive gamer. So of course when it comes to playing games online, I play the 360 pretty exclusively. I also am up front that most PS3 titles aren't worth actually buying. I have a Gamefly account and while I enjoyed games like God OF War 3 and Uncharted 2, there was no reason to buy them, once you beat them, that's about the extent of what you can do with them.

I prefer games with massive online communities, Halo, Gears, COD, Left 4 Dead. Hardcore gamer like these have thousands and hundreds of thousands of people on them. I don't want to grow bonds with people on an online game because I've been matched up with them often. On the 360, I've never been matched up twice against the same person on any of the games I listed.

Now where am I going with this? Just follow along please.
Anyway, when I watched this past years E3, I wasn't enraged at Microsoft, just the opposite. I remember thinking how Microsoft probably just sold Kinect to millions of casual gamers. I wasn't disappointed with the Microsoft lineup of games either. As a core gamer and I know it's hard for some Sony fans to understand this, but when you get a hardcore game like Halo, that's the game for YEARS to come. It's not like how Killzone 2 was, where there was hype and 2 months later nobody was playing it and there weren't even any Gamebattles teams on it. Halo games have staying power.

So the fact that Microsoft has not one but two of these games with staying power coming out over the next year means I'll be a very, very happy gamer. I get my Halo fix and Fable fix, then early next year I'll get my Gears fix and probably my Mass Effect fix as well.

How can anyone be down on the Microsoft conference? We have gotten steady streams of games all year, Mass Effect 2 (My GOTY), Splinter Cell Conviction, Crackdown 2, Alan Wake, Ninety Nine Nights 2,Metro 2033, Fable 3, Halo Reach and we get this amazing new technology in Kinect. What is there to complain about?

To top off all of these great titles and announcements, we also get a fully redesigned Xbox 360, sleeker, quieter, larger HDD and Wireless N, which is the best wireless on the market. Now in a survey, Microsoft polled a lot of people and asked them what they wanted to see most of all in a Xbox 360, the number 1 answer probably wasn't what the average Sony fanboy would think or expect, it wasn't Blu Ray, it was wireless internet built in. So we get an actual upgrade, More HDD, Wireless N, Quieter machine, sturdier, touch sensitive buttons, smaller, uses less electricity, more USB ports. Now this is an actual upgraded system, but instead of charging more, it's actually the same price. See when Sony did the PS3 slim, they took out features.

People tend to knock Microsoft for charging for everything, but Sony does the same things, I mean they are wanting people to pay to play online. Any fool can see they are setting themselves up to charge fully by the next console cycle. Also the lack of backwards compatibility, originally set in because more PS3 owners were buying PS2 games and playing them on the PS3 then actual PS3 games, early on who could blame them right?

Now they start to sell "PS2 collections" and people are all excited, "I get to play PS2 games in hd!" Guess what folks? people with original PS3's could already play PS2 games in HD, they took out the function and then charge you for each old game they release.

Anyway, back on to topic. As a gamer, I was blown away by Kinect. I went down to the local Gamestop where a friend of mine works, a real friend, not the proverbial friend and I was asking what was going on and he told me the pre-orders on Kinect were crazy huge and they didn't even have a price or solid info on the thing. Now that's marketing.

As a person in my 20's with responsibilities, a business, house, car etc.. I have to set aside money each year for my gaming hobby, more then some can spend in a year, less then others, but $1000 is my limit a year for gaming, keep in mind I have all the consoles and so that goes really fast. I had already bought Mass Effect 2, Alan Wake, Metro 2033, Splinter Cell Conviction and I had already prepaid for Halo Reach the Legendary edition and I pre-ordered for Gears 3, COD Black Ops as well. I also bought Super Mario Galaxy 2 and some other Wii titles. More and more like I said I just rent PS3 titles, beat them and send them back to gamefly, but I hadn't even done that much this year, I was just using my PS3 to stream media and save movies to because my PS3 hard drive was larger then my 360 Hard drive.

So after Microsoft's E3, I decide I want both Kinect and a new Xbox 360s. However this goes well beyond my budget, so what is a person to do? Well after some thought, I decided to sell off my PS3. I hadn't gamed online with it in over a year, the lag and voice chat were so bad I couldn't stand it.

I was using it to stream movies but only because the HDD, with the new 360 I could easily have even more HDD then I had with the PS3. I really, REALLY wanted Kinect as well. So up for sale I put it, only...there were already a plethora of PS3's and older model 360's up for sale..EVERYWHERE! Look's like I wasn't the only one who had this idea.

This is where having a PS3 "Fat" came in handy, Backwards compatibility with the PS2, which is the largest gaming library ever is more in demand then the average Sony fanboy ever admits. So my MGS4 bundle with 10 PS3 games and 45 PS2 games sold for well over $600 and what did I get with that money? Well remember my "Friend at Gamestop"? He managed to get me a new 360s ahead of anyone else, so a day after E3, I had mine. Haven't looked back since. It's amazing and I use it for streaming, gaming and it's just a wonderful thing. I also put $150 on Kinect, pre-ordered a couple of those launch titles, paid for Gears 3 and Black Ops outright, also went ahead and bought Crackdown 2, put money on Ninety Nine Nights 2 and finished paying for Fable 3.

So what did I think of E3? I think Microsoft is too busy counting their money from 360s models and Kinect Pre-orders to worry what Johnny PS3 fanboy had to say about "Hardcore" games. Judging from the amount of PS3's that went up for sale after the Microsoft Conference, I'd say Microsoft had to be happy with what happened.

Former owner of all the consoles here signing off, and never happier.

Peace and love to my fellow gamers!