TIME Magazine, which creamed all over the Wii earlier in the week, says waiting in line for the coveted PS3 is a waste of time.

Look at what you get. The Playstation 3 is expensive: $500 or $600 bucks, depending on which version you buy, plus $60 for each game. (An Xbox 360 only costs $400 max, and Nintendo’s Wii — yep, that name, still funny — is only $250.) For that kind of scratch you want the deluxe treatment, and the PS3 simply doesn’t deliver it. It’s got some good-looking games, but unless you have a top-notch TV, the difference isn’t mind-blowing. (And even if you do have a fancy TV, Sony makes you supply your own HDMI cable. Stingy.) And Sony’s launch line-up just isn’t that interesting. Almost all the PS3’s outstanding games — F.E.A.R., Madden NFL ‘07, Need for Speed: Carbon, Call of Duty 3 — are available on the Xbox 360, and most (all except F.E.A.R.) are out for the Wii, too. There just isn’t the leverage there to make buying a PS3 de rigeur.

They’re right. Most of the time it’s not worth getting any new console system for a good year or so. That said, all this PS3 mania is kind of fun.

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