You can now Digg the Player One Podcast (that is, if you use Digg and dig our podcast). Just go here. We thank you in advance for your vote.

We're also up on the front page of the iTunes Store's Podcast page this week...well, three tabs into the "Video Games" section in the center there. Welcome to any of you who're visiting this page for the first time because you saw us there.

Unlike some podcasts, we will be posting a new episode early next week. In fact, we've already recorded it. Previous special guests Phil Theobald and Dan Dormer join Greg and myself and we go over the big news of '06, list out our favorite games of the year, and then come up with a gift we'd like to give one of the industry luminaries this year. Something they could use. It might be a long episode this week...jeez we talked forever.

Anyway, thanks again for listening and Happy Holidays all --

- CJ

At this time last year, if you were looking to buy an Xbox 360 as a holiday gift, you'd be looking at paying at least double the system's $400 price for a Premium Pack. The things were in hot demand. Yet this year, with the PS3 launch...the successor to the #1 game brand for the last 10 years, systems are...well, very easy to find. A quick look at the Craigslist listings in the Houston area and you see systems going for very little if ANY mark-up. One post reads that if no one calls to buy his 20GB at $550 (at cost, more or less) it's going back to the store. There are several 60GB systems going for as little as $650 -- again, at cost.

So, what the hell happened? For all intents and purposes the PS3 should still be in hot demand. It's only four days before Christmas, you'd figure that people would certainly pay $25-50 above cost for the machine... no?

Why I bring all this up is that a friend of mine bought a 60GB PS3 about three weeks ago at a Best Buy here in Houston, thinking he'd resell it on eBay and at least get enough profit out of it to buy a Wii. Fair enough. So tonight I asked him how it went, since I hadn't heard yet. He laughed and told me he still had the system. He put it up on eBay, the winning bid was $715 (barely above the $650 cost to him and not enough to get a Wii from the profit). The winner decided not to pay. Afterwards my friend listed it on Craigslist for $750 -- got NO e-mails. Instead he's just going to return the system to Best Buy and get his money back. I did consider buying it off of him, but then I thought...I really don't need a PS3 right now. As I've said before, Resistance is the only game I'm even halfway interested in (because it's Insomniac), and that alone is just not that compelling a reason to get one. Plus I'm still not done with Zelda, Gears of War, Rainbow Six Vegas or Phantasy Star Universe for the two new-gen consoles I already own.

I wonder what this means for PS3. Clearly, if demand for it has died this quickly it can't be a good sign--can it? Granted I still haven't seen any PS3s in stores, but I haven't been looking all that hard either. Another slightly bad sign--in the latest EGM they've put together something very similar to the Xbox vs. GameCube feature Greg and I have been talking about on the podcast. Except it's PS3 vs. Wii. And the unanimous winner is the Wii.

How are the PS3s selling near you?

- CJ