What bothers me about your comment (and the ones after) is that it sounds like you are upset about this in some way? It doesn't come out more expensive than the PS3. And I'm sure MS does know what they're doing. In fact, they are trying to gain the Wii's market share. You can always buy wired controllers if you want to drop down the cost or use rechargeable batteries for the controllers. As for the HD, you can easily get a 20GB HD for $40-$60 on eBay with shipping. I doubt most people need more than that. The only other thing may be a wireless network adapter, which can also be purchased for around $50-$70. At the same time, you can always use a wired connection or a cheap LinkSys gaming wireless router (costs around $20-$40). So in the end, it's still cheaper than the PS3, by at least $70-$100. Thank you for putting it into a better persepctive, GC. Couldn't say it any better. And a lot of the options above are optional. Wireless Network adapter is useless unless your router is too far from the TV (which i have make sure it is not so that i can have wired connection). Wired connection will definitely beat wireless anytime, anydays. 20GB HD is not big though with the upcoming Fall Update where you can install your game into HDD for faster loading.