Ok .. i bought a Wii about 2 weeks ago.

So i now own a 360 and a Wii

But i'm looking at the PS3 with lustful eyes. Now I know that it's still about £50 too expesive in the UK and that Multiplatform games are generally better on the 360 and that Blu ray disks are overpriced. I know all these things.

But i'm a gamer at heart and none of that matters when i could once again have all three consoles ... that i could play any exclusive on any format that i could play multiplayer games for the first time since my Gold trial ran out ( even then i couldn't be bothered to play multiplayer ) and i could get new films on Bluray ... oh the dream.

Realistically i should wait till next year to get a PS3 , with another holiday season out of the way the price of Bluray films and Ps3 games should fall even further and with luck the new year should bring with it more favourable exchange rates and even a cheaper PS3 ... although sony has been quite happy to rip off the UK for the last few years i doubt they would change their ways.

So that's it .. i will wait ... wait ... wait .... wait ...

lets see how long i hold out

Recession is a terrible thing. with the UK economy being hit harder than most it is unfortunate that Sony's announcement of the PS3 slim and a price reduction has been used by Sony to reposition the price in the UK more inline with the current euro exchange rate.

But why would Sony do this when the UK is one of the few regions where the 360 outsells the PS3?

It's quite simple really the UK market isn't that important to Sony, although they are outsold by the 360 the numbers aren't significant. Their main concern is the US and rightly so.

If you look at the NPD data the PS3is outsold by the 360 month on month. In the US the Slim and price reduction are serious moves from Sony to take a larger chunk of the market and quite frankly it is something that should be successful.

At $300 vs. an elite at $300 the temptation to go for the fuller feature set of the PS3 would surely be a major draw for most gamers. And this is assuming that the price cut of the elite takes place.

Now let us look at the UK even before a price cut on the 360 elite

£230 vs. the new price of the PS3 £250

Now personally I don't see the price cut in the UK being substantial if it happens at all but $100 = £60 and 100euro = £85

If Microsoft do the sensible thing and lower the price of the elite 50euros and £30 to get under the £200 barrier you've still got to think that people will be looking at the PS3 as too expensive simply because there is a psychological effect of seeing a£199 figure.

Let us look at the price of the PS3 around the world

Japan = £192

US = £180

Euro zone = £258

However let us look at more natural exchange rates where the euro exchange is around 0.70 and the Yen 0.005 ( a little high actually ) the US exchange rate is sitting at a pretty normal level right now with only a minor difference between the more natural rates which would be around0.58

Japan = £150 (who wouldn't buy one at that price?)

Euro zone = £209

US = £173

Now if you want to get really boring you can talk about sales tax and VAT rates which are between 6-10% depending on what state you live in and 15% in the UK. The euro prices will include tax but I'm not sure if the Yen prices do but their sales tax is 5% so very low.

Ultimately I don't believe that Sony will readjust their prices exclusively for the UK once the recession is over. We've lived with a £300 PS3 vs. a £200 PS3 in the states when times were good it's unlikely that Sony would bother to adjust the prices unless there is a seismic shift towards the 360 in the UK.

The dream of a sub £200 PS3 seems to still be a far way off.

At E3 MS announced digital downloads of 30 older 360 games.

Now I'm not a fan of digital distribution.But even for people that are the problem facing acceptance of this service is one of storage.

MS were eager to tell us how you could download the title as often as you like and whenever you liked after purchase but that doesn't change the fact that there is no suitable storage on the 360 to accommodate full 360 titles

with even say a 20Mbit connection that's 2.5Mbytes a second if your average game is 6000mb your looking at a wait of at least 40 minutes to start playing a game. Now this is fine for your first purchase .. but seriously.. say i fancy a bit of bioshock but my HDD currently holds Mass effect that I'm half way through playing ... am i really going to delete my game and spend 40 minutes downloading just to have to download mass effect again ?

now consider you don't actually get that 20mbit connection say you get 10 or 5 mbit .. your talking 1hr 20 or even 2hr 40 minutes just to download a game ... all these figures aren't too bad but not suitable for pick up and play gaming.

But the problem really lies in the fact that there is a very easy solution. if MS would allow an external HDD to store the vast amounts of data , or to scrap the stupidly small and expensive storage units for the 360 and replace them with larger reasonably priced drives.

Don't get me wrong .. I can cope with my 20gb 360 ... it's not too much of a headache for me at the moment .. but if I could get a 320gb or 500gb drive today for the same price as other 2.5in external drives ( so that's £50 - £80 ) I wouldn't even question it. at the moment I look at the 120gb HDD selling for £100 and then see a 1,000gb 3.5in external selling for £70 .. it just makes me look at the 360 drive as hideously expensive.

Personally i think that Microsoft's plan is that when Sony announce their inevitable price drop Microsoft are going to change their HDD specs to something like 120gb for the pro and 320gb for the elite and not take part in another price war. To my mind the prices of the xbox SKU's is pretty low and it's going to be tweaking of the set ups rather than massive price cuts that MS takes advantage of from now on.

But that still doesn't help me or 28 million other 360 users who are looking at a machine that doesn't match Microsoft's vision of the 360's future.

Something has to change in Microsoft's way of thinking.

So , call me cynical if you want , but i now understand why 3D Realms were making so much noise of late about the vaporware that was Duke Nukem Forever .... they needed money !

It's pretty typical really. After years of sitting around not coming up with anything to present to people the accountants suddenly realised that the funds were drying put so the PR machine went into overdrive .. we got a teaser trailer .. a "sneek peak" on a web TV show .. and lots of stories about milestones being passed and the game being 90% complete.

But in the end what are we left with a gaming comunity and a company ( Take2 ) who just either no longer cared or simply didn't believe the hype. The fact of the matter is that untill they were able to show off a proper demo, playable or otherwise, people would still think if DNF as vaporware... and in all the desperation for funding that is still something they couldn't do.

However , there is light at the end of the tunnel ... Take2 could now farm out the Duke nukem game to another developer. One that might actually be able to finish a game.

So another 2 year wait and Duke could finally be back... Ah , something inside me just can't let the dream die !!

Right well back to playing Duke Nukem 3d with the PC HD pack .... Good times !!

since the launch of the PS3 the constant rumble from the faithful has been "next year"

ok the 360 has a better software line up .. but next year... ok the 360 is selling more units ... but next year

We've all heard them say it .. and it's almost a tiring as any rant about how one system suxks and another is a gift from god.

yawn !!

However, it is a simple fact that the PS3 is a good machine and sony spent last year putting their house in order and have, in my mind at least, finally come up trumps.

Firstly Little big planet ... easily the best game realeased on the PS3 last year, is leading the way in bonding PS3 owners in the same way the 360 has been doing since launch. Dipping into user created content , getting e-mail messages about a cool level people have found. All this is the sort of buzz, a level of cool that the PS3 was missing. With sony announcing over 650,000 user levels being created with amazingly 35,000 new levels going up each week the people that have bought into the little sackboy world are really doing their part

Secondly the new and quite frankly vastly improved exclusive content coming to PSN... Flower , noby noby boy present something different and wonderful that again adds a much needed wow factor that XBLA has had at points .. and with more to come with games like fat princess games that hark back to the golden days of gaming or present content that's not marketable for full releases.

Finally Home... yes home .. it's rubbish , absolutely terrible ! but i'm thinking this will be a slow burn , if sony get it working properly it's a great idea and will evolve over the next few years from mildly entertaining distraction to fully fledged User interface

So this "could" be the year .... But with one big factor standing in their way ... PRICE

In the UK the PS3 is still almost double the price of a 360 pro and 1/3 more expensive than an elite !

Quite simple Sony are still hanging onto the idea that people will pay the premium for the Ps3 .. and to some degree it is true, people have bought a respectable number of units. But respectable isn't what Sony expected and it's not what they were after. Unfortunately it's their legacy that Sony should be worried about now. People are now looking at MS and Sony as equals when it comes to console brands. In a way Sony have already lost the console war this generation simply because they have given up so much ground to Microsoft.

It might seem like a hollow victory to the fans who in 2005 thought the PS3 would crush it's competitors ... but here and now a marginal lead over the 360 come the end of this generation will be something sony will need to work for.

And to do that they need to hurt themselves with a substantial price cut and they need to do that sooner rather than later.