It has been gnawing at me for months. Yes, I know that this could be the new betamax but I don't care. It was so cheap and Circuit City had the 2 free movies deal (up to $60 value). I went ahead and bought the Matrix Trilogy (yes, I know, but I like the original and the action of Reloaded) for $20 after the $60 off. It came with King Kong and I also bought Blazing Saddles, Batman Begins and Apollo 13.

So I get home and I hook it up. I put in The Matrix HD and the Matrix DVD. I start watching 1 minute at a time from both and it really is a difference. Now, the DVD looks fuzzy. Especially around edges or outlines of objects or people. The HD is crystal clear and the surround sound has never sounded better.

I highly recommend the player. Only one negative: No HDMI for premium 360s.

It won't be like betamax. Porn has adopted HD-DVD so the battle is over. You have chosen WISELY my friend.

Well, I absolutely wasn't going to spend $700+ for a blu-ray player so it was going to be HD or nothing. Not sure how much I want to see porn in 1080p

I would and I have. There's no going back, my friend.

God damnit, I was doing okay with 'not buying new shit just yet'. And you had to go and mention the porn. Does it play games?

Like you said before Troy, porn is only good in small increments. If you buy a HD DVD for porn, you aren't going to be watching 2 hours of it. Internet is made for porn. Gaming? The regular 360 is pretty awesome with games like Gears of War, Crackdown, Halo 3 and GTAIV (both later this year).

Oh, and Batman Begins is the best looking movie I've watched so far. Beautiful.

Porn is not a deciding factor in this war. It was for BetaMax vs. VHS since there was no medium on which people could watch porn in their own homes without 8mm projectors. Porn is now everywhere, so it is much less of an issue. If I recall an article from TheDigitalBits correctly a little while ago, there were only a handful of porn releases on HD-DVD thus far.

Xbox 360 Elite does have HDMI output.

I can't wait to get my system and HD-DVD player when i get a few more checks in from LucasArts, however I want to wait a bit on the HD-DVD to see if they come out with a black one to match the Elite.

PS3 just dropped by $100, and after they sell the remaining supply of 60 GB drives, they're shipping 80GB to replace them. Maybe you chose poorly afterall. $500 isn't bad for a blueray playing game machine.

Regardless of the $100 price drop, the PS3 is still way overpriced with a shitty list of games. If I want Blu-ray, I won't be getting it from a PS3. Sony fucked their own golden ticket after the PS2.

agreed, Microsoft has proved that the dvd was plenty of storage for the average game. Just update the graphics engine and add some killer online support and call it next-gen! Sony thought lightning would strike twice and added the kitchen sink in it's system and is now in a distant third place. Wii is kicking everyones ass right now, which no one suspected would happen.

Well, I'll say this. I like my Wii alot. Hell I waited 8 hours in line until midnight of launch day to get mine. But I still like my 360 better. If only I didn't get the hardware failure and have to send it to M$.

You know the only "console" that I own is the original 80's Nintendo. I haven't been compelled to spend $300+ for a new game console. Even though I do not play the Nintendo any more my point is I'm mostly a computer guy for games. That's just me though.

Exactly same here. But I must admit I really wanted a new console when I was a kid, a Game Boy at least, but noone ever bought me one. But now I can play all the old school games I missed in my youth on console emulators and don't really care about the new stuff.

I started with the Atari 2600 in the early 80's. Big lull there until about 93-ish, when I got a Sega Genesis. Then a few years later I bought a Sega Saturn, and got rid of it the same week and bought a PS1. Played that for what seems like eternity. Then the PS2 for 2 eternities, and a few years ago, the Mrs wanted a Gamecube. She allready had SNES and N64, but what the hell, I needed to buy her a Christmas present. I actually prefer the Gamecube's operation to the PS2 (which is currently half-dead-ish anyway), but I hate the controller and they don't make any new games for it anymore. I'll probably get a PS3. But, I'm kind of budgeted out my eyeballs at the moment, so new video games have slid down the list of priorities.

I don't think I'll be able to help myself once GTA4 comes out, though.

1986: NES
1991: SNES
1996: N64
2000: Dreamcast
2001: PS2
2006: Wii
2007: XBox 360

What can I say, I love video games. There is no telling how much money I have spent on hardware/software related to videogames. But hey, if I don't spend it, my 2 year old will. And what do we need more? Call of Duty 3 or Diapers?

I will say that my friend Joe gave me his Sega Dreamcast but I gave it to my friend Erik before I moved to Utah in 2004. Part of me wished I didn't... I loved playing Madden on that thing. I didn't mention it before because I didn't buy it... but I guess I should have mentioned it.

I have a C64 somewhere in the basement.