[:plant:] Begun the next-gen wars have...

So I visited a Toys R Us today, followed by a Gamestop, looking to buy a Wii with Zelda (what's the difference between the Wii and Gamecube versions?). I stopped after this cause I wanted to get home, as the next closest game store was about a 20 minute drive away. Unfortunately for me, they didn't have any available, and didn't know when the next shipment would be arriving.

Interestingly enough however, they had PS3's available (only like 2 or 3 though). But the fact that they even had them made me wonder, "Did Sony correctly guess that people would shell out $600 for their next gen system?"

Which brings me to the point of this topic. Are there many next-gen systems available where you live? How many are there per store? Just call a local Gamestop or Toys R Us, Best Buy, Circuit City, or even Walmart, and ask them, or ask them next time you're in the store.

I'm just curious because I thought the PS3 would be out of stock (along with the Wii and even the Xbox 360), but I guess $600 is more than what many people are willing to fork over (at least until they have some really "must-have" games on their system, like a new Final Fantasy or something similar). I know the Xbox 360 wasn't available on a wider scale in my area until around summer of last year, so I'm wondering if a lot of PS3's will collect dust until a killer game comes out for it, or they cut the price on it (I'll admit, I was really tempted to buy one, but again, both the high price tag and lack of good games made me reconsider. If one of them was there, meaning a lower price, or a really good game, I probably would've bought one).

So is this a major setback for Sony? They're already a year behind Xbox 360, and not only that, it costs a lot more too, and although the Wii isn't as powerful as the other two systems, Nintendo is trying a different strategy this time (mainly that controller, but also the fact that you can legally own older games when you buy them online on the Wii), and so far from the looks of it, it's working well for them (if you try to have the mindset of a parent, $250 for family friendly games seems much more of a logical choice than $600 for a PS3 which doesn't seem to have any real family-friendly games).

And while we're on this topic, another "war" is also being waged; that is, the war between HD-DVD and Bluray. In this field, Sony has a slight advantage, because the PS3 is a Bluray player straight out of the box, while you have to pay another $200 for an HD-DVD player for the Xbox 360. Both options are currently cheaper than a standalone HD-DVD or Bluray player right now, but as the price of the players drop, it should be interesting to see what happens (I remember the PS2 did well early on partly because it was a "cheap" DVD player, which no doubt helped DVD's to thrive). The Wii is sitting out this "war", since it can't even play DVD movies (which would've been nice). Which format do you think will win out this generation, HD-DVD or Bluray, and why?

Jam it back in, in the dark.