9.03.2005

Greetings and Salutations and the Xbox 360

Ahoy there, guys. How are you this evening? That good, huh? How's Joan looking tonight? That fine, huh? Man, what I wouldn't give to slap that around a little and...

What? Oh, right. The blog. Focus on the blog.

Well, I suppose I should tell you a little about myself before getting to the topic at hand. Well, the name's Karl Castaneda, although I've been going by the handle of Viewt for a while - that's what a certain group of people know me by, almost exclusively. But I'm trying to change that by spreading my real name around a tad more. Anyway, I'm a Staff Writer at Planet GameCube, just like Hubbs said, although I'm hoping to be known for a few more things in the coming months. For example, I'm starting up a weekly column for my local newspaper, The Miami Herald, I'm starting a webcomic with some buds of mine, and hey, I just joined up with Hubbs' blog! Things are going aces - I swarez it.

Okay, now it's time to talk Xbox. Up until recently, I was planning on buying a 360 at launch, for what I was guessing would be in the neighborhood of $350. But since Microsoft announced its price of $400 for the system, hard drive, wireless controller, etc, I've effectively been put off - to the point of my being sure that I won't be buying one come November.

Now, there are two things people bring up when I say this. One is, "But it's only $50 more." Yeah, but $350 was basically as far as I was willing to go - even that had me a bit hesitant, but this pushed me over the edge. It's too damn expensive. End of freaking story.

The second thing people bring up is the half-breed mutant $300 Xbox 360. You know - the one with just the console and a regular old wired controller. And no hard drive. And no DVD remote. Basically, it means absolutely dick to someone like me. So go piss off, discount console.

So does this mean I won't be buying a 360 ever? Hell no. Gears of War, Unreal Tournament 2007, and RE5 are mind-numbingly beautiful. I'm just gonna wait until the PS3 launches, when Microsoft will surely lower their price to compete. They probably won't react when Nintendo launches the Revolution, because everybody's discounting Nintendo (which they totally shouldn't do, but that's another story for another day).

So, in final, Microsoft wants too much of my money this year. Maybe next year, J Allard and Xtreme Xbox Xers.

Oh, and again, HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO!

-Karl "Viewt' Castaneda

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