Gears of War has always been plagued with a hindered online compenent. Online was a last minute decision for Gears 1, and almost didn't make the final product, and Gears 2 online never quite fixed the host issues of the first game. However with Host Migration, an extra year in development, and even a public beta to increase hype and test the product, this could be the biggest Gears to date.

Yea i think it will be.... Haha i still have my gears of war 2 bottle opener haha i just found it the other day.... on topic though i really liked gears 1 online...... but it seems that epic listened to there fans on the third game, which i like.... cause alot of people had complaints with 2nd ones online.... I want it to sell more than halo honestly, gears is the reason i have an 360

Same here! Mad World is the reason I got into gaming this generation. Before that commercial and the reviews for this game came out I was perfectly happy with my PS2/GCN combo.

However to be honest, when I first got my 360 I strongly prefered Lost Planet online over Gears of War 1 online. Gears of War 1 was probably the best game I played for 2006/2007, but I found Gears 1 online very difficult to get into. One day I gave it a second chance as I had gotten very high in rank in Lost Planet, and wow I loved it.

Still online was never the focus of Gears 1, and the structure of online was significantly improved in Gears 2. However it was still buggy, and they introduced that level system very late after the release of the game. I hope the beta solidifies the Gears 3 online experience. I wonder what the seriously achievement will be this time round.

I noticed that Gears 2 largly immitated Halo 3's game system. I really hope Gears 3 mimicks Halo's Reaches experience system. It's not much, but being able to customize your appearance, and unlock new armour makes a big difference. Also daily challenges keep me coming back.

haha you sound like me, my last gen was a ps2/gcn too.... but i leaned toward gcn alil more than ps2 for some reason..... then i dont know why i got a 360 but i did alil after launch, which honestly i hated MS after that cause my first 360 crashed 4 times in the first two months hahaaha... i got so mad i sold it and got a wii a week later, 4 months after i had the wii i got bored with it, and i turned to the ps3, uncharted 1 is the reason for me buying a ps3.... i kept my wii too.... then got a psp and then i got a 360 again with forza 3 and fell in love with xbox again... I am glad MS fixed there problems with the system cause it was frustrating for a while, but i still love em, i love hookin my zune up to it... I loved the first lost planet, the 2nd one was such a huge dissapointment to me, i hated it.... halo online is one of the best if not the best online, so i hope gears 3 takes notes from them..... but gears of war 3 wont disaapoint.... theres no way.... I really want to play it.... Halo did set the tone for alot of good stuff with customization.... I think gears 3 will follow suite 

HAHAHA I prefered GCN over PS2 as well!

My situation this gen was a little different. Got a 360 in 2007 because after 2 months of Repeat Mad World comercials, I just had to get it. Got an extended warrenty expecting repair issues, and of boy did I have them. However in the end, after my 3rd replacement I got an HDMI Arcade model with my warrenty in early 2010 and haven't had problems with it since. Had the 360 independently until 2009, but at that point 360 repair's were annoying me so I got a second hand 20GB PS3 for Uncharted 2/Killzone 2. However I've always wanted a Wii, and all 2010 I was waiting on a price cut. It never came, but a month ago I got the Red limited edition Wii anyway, and traded in NSMB Wii as I didn't like it too much. I got the Wii because my PS3 was starting to freeze on me, so I gave it to a friend knowing it would break on me soon. He is still using it, but I plan to get a new PS3 this fall (maybe refurbished again, but not a first gen model). The Last Guardian is just too cool.

BTW, I got my DS in 2005, and no problems with it mechanically at all. I don't own a PSP, but a close friend does and we trade handhelds now and then. Since he fills in my PSP void, I actually have every console up to Sega Saturn, but then again I could always emulate stuff that old.

As for Gears 3, I can only hope they make some sort of experience perk system. CoD and Halo both have something in place, it's very likely Gears follows suit.

Lost Planet 2 was my biggest dissapointment in all of gaming.. I couldn't even bring myself to finishing the game. Going to trade it in, as a pre-order down payment for Gears 3.

haaha lost planet 2, we must think alike.... i only got to chapter 3 and i kept falling asleep, it was boring..... and for 360 now i respect them alot more, cause the new slim is much more realiable.... but ps3 cant sneak through either cause the early ps3s had problems too.... ive had my ps3 since 2008 (cause like hell im paying them 600 dollars) and to this day i havnt had one issue with mine yet.... but mine was an 80.... my friends 20 gb crashed 2 weeks ago... Im gonna go with him later today to get a new one.... i think hes gonna get the killzone 3 bundle one... or the mlb 2011 the show.... I had a ds too but gave it to my mom cause she loves mario games.... il never get rid of my ps3.... the last guardian looks awesome.... i want to play resistance 3 cause the storyline is amazing.... killzone 3 was amazing, def with move.... uncharted 3, most anticipated ps3 game for me, socom 4, i mean my list goes on.... im sure 360 will announce some at e3, wii need something cause zelda is all alone..... 

I also only made it to Chapter 3 in LP2......creepy. However I beat chapter 1, 3 times because I found it soo cool how in co-op, my friend and I had two completly different prologue chapters. So twice co-op, once single player.

I only gave my PS3 to my friend because in the past he lent me a lot of new 360 titles to play. Because of him I never had to buy ANY Assassin Creed title, and he did sell me Dead Space 2 for $25. It's also going to die on me soon, it freeses about as often as my first gen X-Box did 2-3 months before it RRoD'd me.

I think the same way as you, $600 for a new console is ridiculous. $400 for my 360 was enough in 2007. That's why I'm looking at getting a refurbished 80GB, 120GB or 160GB model. They all cost about the same, the question is, do I want backward compatibility, or higher reliability? I'm waiting until this fall because I have a few 360 RPG's that need to be beaten, and there is a chance the PS3 will come on price drop. Also until August, the only new PS3 game I want to play are GT5, and Killzone 3. KZ3 I'll beat co-op with a friend, and GT5 is nothing without a steering wheel. I can live off playing it occasionally.

Funny thing is, I respect MS a lot less after owning a 360 so long. It's not so much that it broke on me so many times, it's the poor customer service they provide. When they first replaced my 360, they replaced it with a defective model, and at first wouldn't acknowledge that it was defective (it would not play any games with DLC downloaded, or online, but it still worked so according to them it wasn't defective). Also because MS did a recall on all RRoD 360's I couldn't immediatly replace it with an HDMI model using my extended warrenty like I planned. Even at the end, it was Best Buy who gave me the HDMI model 360, not MS. No matter what I told MS, they said they couldn't replace my 360 with the much more reliable HDMI model, so that bugged me.

Also little gimmicks, like paying to change your name on XBL, bug me. The most annoying one is not offering monthly gold cards (only 1 year, and 3 months are offered, and 3 months cost the same as half a year). I don't mind paying for online gaming, but if I'm paying, I don't want XBL to piggyback my internet plan, and I want to be able to buy monthly pre-paid cards like on a phone. I feel cheated out when I don't play online.

However, had I bought a PS3 first, a $200 arcade 360 would be very appealing to me as a secondary console. On boxing day (Sales day after christmas in Canada), I saw multiple different retailers sell one new for $130.

EDIT: Also, I hate how people say Zelda is all alone on the Wii. Nintendo did confirm Pikmin 3, and XenoBlade, and Dragon Quest X are comming.

For upcoming games, PS3 has more, but my most anticipated are 360 or multiplatform. Gears 3, Forza 4, Mass Effect 3, and if a Halo remake is confirmed, that would rank above Uncharted 3 for me.

I had alot of respect for microsoft too.... Cause i have their zune which i love (until lately the software went corrupt and now wont download) but i love it.... but yea there customer service sucks.... il tell you something funny after i had 4 crashes i called the support up and i screamed at them..... the guy ( who didnt know english that well) was trying to say they couldnt do anything and i was like NO, SHUT UP, I WANT YOUR MANAGER, and they send me to this lady who gave me my full price i spent for an xbox 1 year ago back hahaaha.... and i turned around and asked, should i get a wii or ps3 next and she hung up hahahaha..... but i ended up buying it again and only had 1 crash that happened last month, cause i was trashing xbox on here and people got pissed hahaha but when i got it back i was happy again.... but yea i have an 80 gb ps3.... if you get a ps3 get one that was manufactured 2008 or better.... cause the earlier ones seem to have overheating issues.... I dont mind paying online, cause live is better than playstation network for that reason but i know what your talking about.... i used to work retail..... I remember the xbox, sony and nintendo reps coming in all the time..... The nintendo and sony ladies were our favorites, they gave us free keychains and demo disc.... the microsoft kid was awesome but he stopped showing up..... the one day he came in and the xbox was frozen, so he pulled it outta out case and started slamming it off the ground and then he hooked it back up and it worked, haha i looked at my friend and i was like thats the secret to fixing your xbox hahaha....

and yea i bought a ps3 when they were 400 dollars too..... if the next generation is 600 dollars forget it... i prob wont be buying a new gen console for at least a year after launch

interesting chart.

I can only buy 1 game every 2 weeks and play them around 2-4 times an week for around 1-4 hours at an time. 

Yea I talked to the manager at MS too, couldn't get anything. Best Buy man, customer service is awesome there. They gave me my 360 Arcade HDMI 1 month after my warrenty expired, for free. I had to push a little, but not much. Talked to the floor representative to see if they could offer me a discount, and I was surprised when he gave me a free console. I also forgot to bring a controller that day so, I got an extra one free! Also the Arcade HDMI console came in with built in memory. Only 200MB, but for all my non DLC game saves, it fits.

Oldest PS3 I'll get is the 4USB 80GB. Those were being phased out during the start of 2008, so they aren't that old. I really want a backward compatible one cause my PS2 broke, and one of my friends got ICO. I never played ICO, but loved shadow of the Colossus. I also want to play PS1's Chrono Cross, as Chrono Trigger for SNES is my favorite game ever.

lol about the X-Box, i wish I worked retail at a game store, you get such a discount on games, and you know exactly when sales are.

One reason why I'm certain about re-purchasing a PS3 is because I know PS4 won't arrive until 2013 at earliest, it may not be backward compatible, it's likely to cost $400 or greater, and every god damn first gen playstation or x-box I've ever bought has broken on me. Nintendo is the only company that I would ever get a first gen console from. The only Nintendo product I had break on me was an N64 controller, and that was due to Mario Party 1. If you ever played Mario Party 1, you'll understand that I was physically grinding down the analog stick before it broke. The was plastic dust clogging my analog stick, and it still works, just very very poorly.

Next gen, I'm waiting a good solid 2 years. This gen, each console had basically nothing good for at least a year, and even then it wasn't much. Not until 2008 did the Wii and PS3 really start to built a library, but the 360 had a pretty sweet library by 2007.

Also I'm done with handhelds. $250 for a 3DS, I'd rather get a used PS3 now, and I barely played my DS. I'd rather catch up with all the great DS games, then invest in new ones. Also I have my friends PSP, and game prices are crashing for that handheld.