by Anthony Chatfield

Created on: February 14, 2007   Last Updated: April 12, 2007

Ah, sweet November descended upon us like a sugary sweet shot to the gut. Everyone can feel it. The colder weather, glutinous feasts and the wondrous promise of all that shiny new stuff'. I'm giddy just remembering it. The video gaming megasphere (as I like to call it) was the megasphere to be in this year as the release of the two premier names in gaming released their newest next gen' models Sony's Playstation 3 on the 17th, and Nintendo's giggle inducing Wii on the 19th.

For months it was the gaming elite who sat awake at night reading the forum posts and E3 playtest reports in anticipation of whatever tidbit of information either corporate giant felt inclined to release.

And the lines. Oh the lines. If you haven't eaten a deli sub and a bag of cheetohs with fifty strangers in a line for at least 10 hours waiting for

A) a preorder
B) a raffle ticket
or sweet jesus let it be so C) a shiny new console

you're just not that hardcore. This gamer did just that not but three months ago, and for his tireless dedication to the big N and their faithful allocation of enough units for people to actually own (and not sell on ebay), he now has a shiny new Wii sitting in his entertainment system, lit up most ever morning, day, and night of the week.

That isn't to say I wouldn't have been there with the rest of the mob for the PS3 launch. But of course, there's a line I like to draw. It's somewhere around the six bill mark, when I spend more on a gaming console than rent, or when the lines start outside the store almost three days before it's released, by entrepreneurs hoping to sell theirs on ebay.

Before I hit the line outside of Fred Meyer on that Saturday night, I spent a couple hours playing the Ridge Racer on the giant new beast Sony's thrown at us. It's mighty impressive. It's yet to be seen if it's $600 impressive, but then again, how many things are $600 impressive. I imagine in a few months time a price cut and a blow to Sony's bottom line but at least more of us will be able to afford their new machine.

But then again, some things come out of the gate swinging. And Nintendo's Wii might have done just that. Less than half the price, easy to use, and as fun as anything I've ever played, the Wii sold out just as quickly, but of course had many more units shipping by the end of year (something to the tune of 4 million worldwide) to satiate Nintendo's rabid fans.

And it's been a few very interesting months now of lackluster software releases and the Nintendo Wii decimating

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