what do you mean about the console having two memory slots on it? the controller has 1, is that what you mean? they had to do that to allow people to save games to take with friends.

I understand the need for them. My point is why are they on every controller, just adding to the bulk when it could have easially had them on the console it's self. Who here owns an XBox and actually needs the convience of 8 possible memory slots?

The statement about 90% of the owners playing on line couldn't be more wrong. There are already tons of people playing with the gamespy tunnel software. Let alon when the network launches. I think that is a typical response from a gamecube owner.. honestly.. i have seen that arguement a lot, and well it isn't true.

No, it's the truth. Not many homes have broadband, thus no way to play online with the XBox. Sure many people are playing Halo online now, but most of the initial owners are tech people like ourselves who have the knowhow to have broadband and be able to install software onto a computer. And so I still stnad by the fact that I see no reason to include ethernet in the box. Let the few people buy an adaptor and lower the console price.

As far as the intel being inefficient.. well... i don't totally disagree, but the gamcube with the modified g3 certainly isn't any faster. I workd for abpple for 2 years, so it isn't an anti apple technology statement, it is however true that too many people buy into the hype that the g series processors are that much faster then say an athlon or pentium... they are faster, but not double, and not on very much.

Again this type of thing dosen't matter. When was the last time you compaired tech specs down to processor and memory of a satelite reciever? People simply expect a console to work and look good. The 4 next gen consoles all do this well when factoring in when they were released. Who cares if one has a better processor then the other one. Tech wars have never worked in the console market, so don't point me to the specs as a selling point of the XBox.

PC port issue is not really a problem.. i think ms realizes that they must have quality control, they are not just allowing every crap pc game to be ported, if they were, you would see a lot more games out now, and on launch.

We shall see. I just see way too many game houses saying they plan on porting PC stuff over.

Halo is a great game.. it took me a long time to get used to the controller... but i DID get used to it.. yes i would probably still be faster with a keyboard and mouse.. but i also like getting away from my pc to play games.

Any control mechinism you use that constantly reminds you it's there is a bad one. I can play Halo decently on the controller, but I am constantly reminded it's there. I played Half Life and got so involved it made me jump at certain times. The controls simply melted away.

The gamecube is OK, but it has done nothing to amaze me , at all, talk about weak release titles, gamecube takes the cake imho. I don't think you can broadly assume that any next gen console will not have some killer games for it.. but to me the future of the xbox is brighter.

The popular Gamecube titles outsell the Xbox titles. Both had weak launches in the software department, but not as bad as the PS2. I see the PS2 and GC excelling in games this uear due to licenses like Zelda, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, etc... Microsoft has no past games to pull new ones from, thus they have to do better then the competition now to get their names out. So far they are not doing this well. (Unless you count the huge number of crappy Bloodwake commercials I have seen recently). Also keep in mind the number of games dosen't equate to quality. The PS2 only has a handful of really successful games. Thats all Nintendo needs, and so far they are doing well with Smash Brothers, Star Wars, and Pikmin. XBox can really only count Halo. (I haven't seen Oddworld on the top 10 XBox games recently, suprising as it was being marked as a system seller.)

The above comment is based off both top 10 sales figures for all 3 systems, and the top 20 when it's combined.

I have a friend who really likes the XBox. But nothing on it has impressed me much yet. Nothing that says to me that it will be better then the PS2 or Game Cube. He's probably even logged more hours on his Game Cube