I won't go so far as to say that I have no interest in MMOs. That's not precise. The truth is that I'm a guy who sunk 150+ hours into Oblivion and 100+ hours into Dragon Quest VIII in the last year alone, so I fear that something like World of Warcraft would break me. Literally, I would be pieces. So interest isn't the problem, although I feign apathy, the real issue is more of survival.

Also, I haven't had a gaming PC for several years now. WoW runs on my preferred Mac platform so that is troubling, but other titles like City of Heroes and Guild Wars are out of my reach anyway. That makes it somewhat easier to pretend they don't exist. But I do still dream sometimes about building a box that would be capable of running modern PC games; I'm usually held back by the required investment that typically dwarfs what it would cost for a new console. Well, that and the savage panthers my wife keeps behind an iron gate which bears a sign reading, "Do Not Open Unless Paul Buys a PC." They're beautiful creatures, those panthers, but their hungry growls suggest strongly that nothing good could come from the opening of that gate.

The temptation of MMO and that of PC procurement exist as separate entities which apart are not too difficult to overcome and which combined represent such a terrifying potential for disaster (also, mauling) that mostly I carry on my daily life without concern. Unfortunately, there was bound to come a juxtaposing variable that would catch me off guard like a ninja or a wolf disguised as a sheep. Or perhaps a wolf disguised as a ninja-sheep, with tufts of white wool peeking through hastily wrapped black cowls that hide vicious fangs and hidden throwing stars. The variable is Tabula Rasa, an action MMO by Richard Garriot that sounds from descriptions like a curiously compelling blend of Halo, Battlefield and WoW.

It was easier when the game was struggling in development, scrapped and approached anew every so often which gave it the air of vaporware. I suppose underestimating Garriot was foolish in hindsight, but I learned a long time ago not to dwell on the past because it's a good way to realize just how great a fool I truly am. But now the game looks like it is actually near completion and I'm scared. I won't go so far as to say I'm to the point of cowering, but I heard the panthers yowl last night and I admit, the crown of my head could not be seen outside the protective shield of the covers.

Don't believe me? Look for yourself:

I can't remember if I mentioned it before or not, but I'm quite intrigued by R-Type Tactics. So much so, in fact, that this marks the first instance of a game--or anything for that matter--that has made me wish I owned a PSP.

Which is not to say that I don't see merit in the PSP; it's a nice little platform and has some interesting features and capabilities. But ultimately I buy game consoles in order to play games and while there are several PSP exclusives that seem intriguing such as Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror and Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, none are sufficient to make me think, "If only I had a PSP so I could get in on some of that!"

This is how it always works with me: I see a console released and I examine the features and think, "Huh. Okay." Then some amount of time passes during which games are released and eventually I begin building a list of them which I want to play. Usually this applies to exclusive titles but to some extent it also simply represents games which I am currently not capable of playing with my existing hardware. Eventually the list builds a critical mass where the number of games it contains outweighs the number of games that I'm interested in for my current hardware and that's how I decide it's time to consider making an investment.

What strikes me as interesting about the PSP/R-Type Tactics thing is that it is the first game for that platform that is on my "Want to Play" list at all. Like I said, there are other games I would play if I could, but so far just this one that I truly want to play enough that it makes me regret not being able to. What's odd about this is how long it took for the PSP to come up with a game that I feel like I'm missing out on. For a system that's over two years old now, that's pretty unusual.

But then again, ever since the XBox 1's late-to-the-party arrival marked the beginning of the end for last gen hardware, I've somehow approached things a bit differently. For example, at this point in the previous round o' consoles, I already had the Dreamcast, PS2, GameCube and GBA and was only about six months from the XBox. This time I have one console and one portable... and I'm not really feeling that I'm missing much. In fact, while I hesitate to make any predictions because I'm almost always wrong about what I won't purchase, at ths point in time at least I'm feeling pretty happy with just the 360 and the DS.

I noticed the other day that part of it is my ability to explore each respective system's libraries a bit more. I've played games on both systems that definitely would have fallen through the cracks a few years ago. Games like Condemned: Criminal Origins and Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney are the kind of word-of-mouth games that aren't exactly marquee titles which means they have a kind of risk-vs.-reward element to them (especially if you're making purchases). I mean, let's face it, it's pretty safe to buy the next Halo or GTA game: If you liked the previous ones you're pretty much guaranteed to get more of the same. When you have pretty much every piece of available hardware you end up playing only the really "loud" games that have the most spotlights shining on them because with that much hardware you have so many options you can't keep up even with those sometimes.

But there is something to be said for picking a campsite and setting up a tent in it for a while so you have a chance to really sit down and soak up all the scenery, not just the biggest landmarks.

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Just a couple other notes today: First, I picked up a copy of the aforementioned Phoenix Wright from GameStop for $20 new due to their Memorial Day sale. I admit that I have less hesitation with purchases (so long as the prices are reasonable) now that I'm heavily into Goozex; purchases now just feel like deposits into a sort of General Gaming Fund whose collective value remains far more constant than it has historically been. It does decrease with time and trading activity, but on a much gentler slope.

Anyway, the game is remarkably fun for something with so little actual interaction. I think part of it is that PW is almost the ideal bathroom game. I'm not ashamed to admit that one of my principal pleasures with portable systems is the potty factor: Given the choice between reading some dumb magazine and letting the game continue, I'll take the latter any day.

Also, for whatever reason I got started down the path of examining the leaderboards on 360Voice.com. You know, I'm a bit of a gamerscore nut and I take a perverse joy in seeing it steadily rise, but I will never understand how someone could take that and extrapolate it into a state of mind where you feel happy doing whatever memory card tricks or hacks or whatever to give yourself points you didn't earn. I mean, look at this person. S/he "earned' all 1,000 points from Viva Pinata in a single day. Which is pretty funny when you realize that one of the achievements in that game is awarded for putting 50 hours into it. Hmmm.

It's not a jealousy thing or even a bitterness over his/her willingness to cheat when I am not. I honestly don't care what other people do to get their scores wherever they are, I just don't see how doing whatever this person did to acquire all those points even remotely resembled fun. And since gamerscore and achievement points are utterly valueless outside of the associated entertainment they ostensibly represent, doesn't it seem like an incredible waste of time?

There is an absolutely fascinating discussion on Newsweek's Level Up about the status of the current round in the console wars. The conversation is ignited by the recent sales data which shows some interesting things such as this comparison (omitting portables and last gen hardware for the time being):

1. Wii - 360,000 units

2. XBox 360 - 174,000 units

3. Playstation 3 - 82,000 units

It's worth noting that the Wii outsold the 360 by more than 2:1 and likewise the 360 outsold the PS3 by more than 2:1 which means the Wii is destroying the PS3 at a rate in excess of four units to one. And while it appears the 360 is killing the PS3, the conversation includes several points which highlight that if that is true, Microsoft is killing Sony softly.

By all accounts the XBox 360 ought to be annihilating the PS3 because all the reasons people point to as causes for the Playstation's lackluster sales are pretty much addressed by the current state of the 360: Lower price, wealth of AAA titles, lack of direct competition with the previous gen's console and a fairly certain short term future as far as anticipated titles go. So why the relatively lackluster system-to-system comparison? Isn't it obvious that the 360 is the way to go?

I think there are a couple of factors that N'Gai Croal and Geoff Keighley overlook regarding the 360's comparatively slow adoption rate. The first one is that the graphical difference between Xbox 1 and the 360 isn't as dramatic as the jump from Playstation 1 to PS2. Compare even a late gen title on PS1 (Parasite Eve, perhaps) with an early PS2 title (Ico) and the difference is pretty impressive. I'm a fairly early adopter when it comes to video games because I don't like getting too far behind the curve on the sweet new games since too much backlog eventually overwhelms me and I end up issing titles I really wanted to play, but I could easily have waited another six months or even until Halo 3 before upgrading my XBox 1 to a 360. It's true that once you see what next gen consoles can do the improvements are there, but outside observers may have a harder time justifying what seems like an incremental upgrade. Compare the screenshots for this 360 game with this XBox 1 title; other than some sharpness, which may be attributed to the screencap method for all we know, they look similar.

Another factor may simply be that MS has kind of a bad reputation with the kinds of people Croal and Keighley call hardcore gamers. At the very least a lot of very technically savvy people aren't the biggest MS fans and I suspect there is plenty of overlap between the groups. I've heard more than a few people say they have no interest in whatever MS is selling as far as consoles go; it's difficult to prove one way or the other but one has to at least consider what the company's reputation does for their sales--or sales potential. One could point out that Microsoft's stuff does continue to sell, but the argument could also be made that part of that is easily attributed to them riding the long waves of past successes. Since about the late 90s MS has seemed to be kind of a day late and a dollar short: Zune vs. iPod, XBox vs. Playstation, perhaps even Vista vs. OS X (although obviously not in total sales for that last example). I wouldn't go so far as to say the XBox isn't a success because it's made by Microsoft, but I might suggest that it will have a hard time getting anywhere near the mass acceptance the PS2 did because of who they are.

And finally, it could be that for as much as people pick on the PS3's price, the XBox misses the pricing sweet spot as well. I think a huge part of the problem is that the XBox that could most fit into the average gamer's budget is widely perceived as being useless or at best incomplete. I know for a fact that was my biggest stumbling block: One of my favorite features of the original XBox was the hard drive and I wasn't about to step backwards into a memory-card based system just to get a small horsepower upgrade. It wasn't until GameStop's XBox trade-in promotion basically eliminated the cost of the hard drive that I felt comfortable enough to buy a 360. I think MS is on the right track by offering a $299 system, but they need to realize that no one wants it without the hard drive, especially when a separately purchased drive pushes the total cost of the unit directly into the range of the premium bundle. Simply having a SKU at the right price isn't enough, that SKU has to represent a product people are really willing to buy. In the summer months when these things are being bought by their eventual owners (versus holiday time when the money is coming from confused folks with a loved one who happens to be a gamer), you can't count on a lot of "whoops" sales where a clueless buyer grabbed the cheaper system just because it was without really understanding why.

The other thing that stood out to me was the seemingly casual dismissal of the impact Halo 3 and GTA IV might have on hardware sales. Croal and Keighley use Gears of War as an example of how a hit title may not drive console sales significantly but I think that overlooks two things: 1) Gears was heavily hyped but ultimately it represented an unproven, brand new IP. People who already owned an XBox 360 were probably hyped about it because it was a great showpiece for their system, but I don't know that even the great reviews it got made it seem worth $460 to check out (console + game). 2) Halo 3 and GTA IV are feverishly anticipated titles following up gigantic successes on last gen consoles. As long as San Andreas and Halo 2 are still the latest and greatest for those franchises, hardcore fans of those series may not find themselves compelled to upgrade until a sequel hits stores that they have no access to. I wouldn't be so quick to assume that Halo and GTA will follow GoW into hardware sales disappointment.