The Problem: At first it was understandable; the Xbox 360 was a place for action fans to go when they needed a break. But these days there is an overwhelming sense that the Xbox 360 is only catering to those hardcore gamers who want fast, violent video games. It's not just the third parties; Microsoft's first party support has been non-stop shooters, from Gears of War to Crackdown to Perfect Dark Zero to Halo 3. Isn't it about time for Microsoft to start working on some more diverse offerings? Are there entirely too many shooters on the Xbox 360?

The Situation: Anybody who owned an original Xbox already knows that if there's one thing that Microsoft is good at it's delivering solid first-person shooters. When you launch your system with Halo it's easy to get typecast as the console that plays first-person shooters, especially if your biggest competition isn't taking them seriously. For four solid years Microsoft managed to get the biggest names in shooters to develop these kinds of games on their system, and millions of aggressive gamers flocked to the Xbox to play these action games online and off.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem like things have changed much since Halo was first introduced, Microsoft still seems to want to court the first-person shooter fans that made the original Xbox so successful. At the Xbox 360's launch there was an over abundance of action games, from Perfect Dark Zero to Quake IV to Call of Duty 2. And that's just the beginning; throughout 2006 we saw one violent shooter after another, generating a cacophony of gunshots, explosions and people dying ... ultimately peaking at the end of the year with Gears of War and Rainbow Six Vegas.

And if you think 2006 was just a fluke then you apparently haven't paid attention to the 2007 line-up. Even though we don't know every single game that will be released this year, we do know that we can expect Bio-Shock, Darkness, Heist, Jericho, Army of Two, and a little game you probably haven't heard of called Halo 3. And let's not forget about Shadowrun, Left 4 Dead, Crackdown and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2. While not all of these are being published by Microsoft, it is worth mentioning that a majority of Microsoft's first party efforts are action/shooters, something that you don't see from other first party companies.

The problem with all of these action games is that they don't do well outside of English speaking countries. This is especially true when it comes to Japan, first-person shooters have largely been ignored by that market. Nobody is going to fault you for having a few action games in your repertoire, but when every other game is either a first-person shooter or an action game you have to wonder what's going on. Microsoft does have other games coming out, but so far the only notable non-FPS games are Forza 2 and Fable 2, one that is coming out this year and one that isn't expected any time soon. Microsoft has every right to make the kind of games they want, but it's disappointing to see such an emphasis placed on M-rated action games.

The Solution: If Microsoft was smart they would take some of their talent and start developing a few family friendly games. While Viva Pi?ata didn't set the world on fire that's hardly a reason to only focus on ultra-violent M-rated games. If Microsoft had a more diverse line-up of games they would find that more people would be willing to buy their console. To Microsoft's credit they have released a lot of good action games recently, but I feel that it's time they start to broaden the Xbox 360's base.

The Problem: With its high price point ($600), lack of high quality games and disjointed online service, the PlayStation 3 is having some major problems. The system isn't selling as well as Sony would have liked and most of the major third party games are headed to the Xbox 360. Does this spell trouble for the PlayStation 3 or can Sony turn this ship around? More specifically, is the PlayStation 3 doomed?

The Situation: It's been a long time since Sony has had to worry about their place in the video games industry, yet here we are only six months after the launch of the PlayStation 3 and things aren't looking too good for the company. After the overwhelming success of both the PlayStation and PlayStation 2, Sony seemed ready to just call itself the winning of this next generation battle. But apparently customers had a different point of view, because right out of the gate Sony discovered that the $600 beast wasn't selling as well as they would have hoped and the software attach rate was pretty poor.

In the beginning things look promising; on the launch day nearly every store in the nation had some sort of line just waiting to get their hands on the PlayStation 3. Unfortunately if you were to dig deeper you would have found that half of those people in line were going to push the system on eBay, something that happened with the Xbox 360 one year earlier. These days you can walk into just about any game retailer and find at least one or two systems for sale, the complete opposite of what is happening with the Nintendo Wii.

To make matters worse a lot of the big PlayStation 2 exclusives are starting to jump ship and go multi-platform. Games like Virtua Fighter 5, Mercenaries 2, and Devil May Cry 4 were all supposed to be only available for Sony's next gen system, yet all three decided to go multi-platform in order to recoup the development cost. And if sales continue to lag it stands to reason that other major titles (such as Metal Gear Solid 4) will also hit the Xbox 360, effectively giving people no reason to purchase this $600 system over its $400 counterpart. No matter how you look at it things look bad for Sony and their PlayStation 3.

But is the PlayStation 3 doomed? I don't care how bleak things look for Sony's console; it's just too early to write them off. When it comes right down to it the PlayStation 3 still has a lot of fight in it. In fact, it's not the only Sony console that appears to have some fight left in it. At $130 the PlayStation 2 continues to outsell the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii each and every month. Better yet, the PS2 still has some solid games coming out for it, which is more than can be said about the GameCube or original Xbox. It stands to reason that Sony could keep the PlayStation alive for at least another year or two, until those average gamers are ready to upgrade to the PlayStation 3 ... which will no doubt be less expensive and have a lot of solid software support.

I would also argue that Sony has a lot of first party franchises that will help sell consoles. And I'm not talking about games that sell units in the U.S., I'm talking about games that appeal to a worldwide audience ... something that Microsoft is currently having problems with. Another factor may come down to the Blu Ray player, which could make the purchase a lot more attractive as the system dips down into the $400 range. There may not be enough reasons to spend $600 on the system now, but that doesn't mean it won't be a good purchase six months from now. Regardless of how it looks now, it's just entirely too early to suggest that the system is doomed ... even when so much is going wrong for Sony.

The Solution: If Sony wants to start selling some of these consoles they are going to need to drop that price by at least $100. Now that there is no 20 gb PS3 model it seems like the perfect time to drop the price, but I suspect Sony feels like that would give off the impression of weakness. Even if they are not interested in a price cut they should announce some new games, something more than Killzone and Warhawk. With all of these exclusives going multi-platform it's time to turn the ship around and try to convince people that there are a lot of exclusive games coming to the PlayStation 3. One thing they can do is pay Konami whatever they want to make sure that Metal Gear Solid 4 stays on the PlayStation 3 ... but I have a hunch that ship has sailed.