Looks like it's not only New York -- we're getting the same treatment here in LA. Nice!

This is cute... so when do we get USA and SciFi?

"Thats priceless...by that time it might be too late and Microsoft or Nintendo will have even tighter hold on the market."

Why would Eidos care? They're in it to make money for themselves, not to enhance the fortunes of any one console. Too late for whom?

When I go into a store to purchase a bottle of Snapple, I like to shake the bottle a little. Perhaps even do the all-too-cliche palm-to-the-bottom pound a few times. But, my Snapple bottle purchase is always followed by the safety seal removal and the twisting of the cap, which is accompanied by the popping sound made when the vacuum seal is broken.

What I don't want is for the clerk to grab the empty display bottle, run to the refridgerator to fill the bottle with contents from a pitcher, and hand it to me with a "Don't worry. It's fresh -- we just needed the bottle."

Ridiculous example? Sure, but that's essentially what you're paying for when you accept an opened game as "new". Once it's opened, it's lost any value it may have as a "new" game. More importantly, though, you're putting your game-purchasing fortunes in the hands of minimum wage-earning store clerks. Hey, maybe it's unplayed... and maybe it isn't. A lot of you that say "so what?" are far too trusting, since you honestly have no idea what goes on after the case is opened. I feel far safer purchasing a game with the factory seal and wrapping than I do watching a clerk take various parts from God-only-knows-where, assemble a game package, and attempt to pass it off as new, which is why I stopped buying new games from Gamestop long ago.

Four games in my collection that I've not touched:
Resident Evil 4 (I'm kind of a pussy)
FF7
Halo 2
Psychonauts

Microsoft eventually admitted to erring on their controller design by making the Controller-S the default, so it isn't exactly unheard of.

The VC prices are a bit of a bummer -- hopefully, we'll get a situation where the prices will decrease over time. The list isn't bad, though. It's not enough to make me jump at launch, but it increases the likelihood that the Wii will be my first jump into the "next gen".

I understand having a launch coincide with the Christmas season... of course, this would only be relevant if it was feasible (with a little effort) for people to be able to pick one up. That isn't the case anymore, and it really doesn't make any sense anymore to even pretend that this could even be classified as a launch. A piddly 400k units are only likely to be "available" (if that's what you want to call it), and Sony, in their haste to rush this thing out, has lost sight of what to do with this thing. Why even bother launching at this point -- they might as well just delay it again until they get their production problems worked out and are able to release more units to the public.