Yeah, we’re back to non-contrversial issues this week. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (on inside your house with no television, internet and friends), you’ve heard of the new gen systems that are out. There’s Microsoft’s XBOX360, Sony’s PlayStation3, and Nintendo’s Wii. All three seem to have their strengths and weaknesses, but we’re not going to cover those in this post; instead, we’re going to cover the systems as one and look at their collective strengths and weaknesses.

First off, there’s some ratios that need to be equalled out for me to buy a game or a system. There’s the Hour/dollar ratio (I’ve talked about this one before), the difficulty/fun ration (challenging is nice, but only to a certain point), and the length/story ratio (a good length for most games is 20-25 hours, RPGs maybe 40-50 hours, as long as the story holds out for that length). These ratios are important to me, and are the first things I research about a game before purchasing it.

So… What the heck does this have to do with newgen gaming? Well, most games on the new systems don’t cover the first ratio (dollar to hour) as most games are expensive, and not really very long. That’s a big downer for me. However, there’s one final ratio that needs to be considered when buying a system: the system cost/overall game cost.

I would like to at least spend the same amount of money on games that I would on the system. I don’t want to pay $500-600 on a system and only 1-200 on games. For example, I paid $90 for my GameCube, and I’ve probably spent double that number on games. Worth it? Oh yeah.

So here’s the deal: do the new gen systems fit into my ratio system? Not yet. If any of the three do, it’s the Wii. But, for the most part, there’s not enough games that I would buy, and the prices are too high. I’d actually get a PSP (I’ve wanted one for so long now) before I got a new gen system. So, in my opinion, no ratio systems get a whopping Nay. And, if you’re wondering, I’m one of those “gameplay over graphics” guys.