There has been a lot of coverage regarding the Xbox 360 in the past couple of months. Now that the hype has died down a little. Some shoppers, especially the ones who haven’t been able to find an Xbox 360 on store shelves, have to be asking themselves whether it has been worth the wait.

Well, the simple truth is that it’s just a video game system. There will be another and another and another. The next one will be a little better, and so on, and so on.

A couple things bother me about the PlayStation 3. The price is first and foremost. Some rumors have that sucker upwards of $500. That’s just not accessible to the masses. Parents aren’t willing to pony up that type of dough. With 360’s launch, it’s clear that the magic number is right around $400.

Second is the lack of a central Internet multiplayer setup like Microsoft’s Xbox Live. Sony is going to rely on the publishers to run their own servers, meaning you’ll have a different profile and password for every game. That’s just not the best way to do it in this era of broadband.

But it’s not like PlayStation 3s will be gathering dust on shelves next year. If you are smart and you want one, you’ll go out yesterday and put down a preorder.