Welcome to our latest edition of Fact or Faction. Today we have five more topics that Charlie Sinhanseni, Charles Husemann, and John Yan discuss. And let`s get started with...

1) On Halo 2’s release, we’ll see a good increase in Xbox sales.

Charlie Sinhaseni: Fiction. If anything will increase the Xbox sales this holiday season, it’s the new bundle deal that Microsoft is offering. Everyone who bought the system to play HALO 2 has probably already owned the system for quite some time now. Fanboys are adamant about their systems and there’s a good chance that the PS2 fanboys are waiting for Kill Zone as opposed to jumping on the HALO 2 bandwagon.

Charles Husemann: Fiction. There will be a modest bump in sales but most people who are already hyped about the game probably own an Xbox. I do think there will probably be a big spike in Xbox Live subscriptions so people can take advantage of all of the cool Xbox Live 3.0 features.

John Yan: Fiction. I`m going to say fiction on this one just because of the age of the Xbox. I think that games that sell consoles usually happen in the beginning of the console`s life cycle. If there`s anything that will increase sales is a price decrease or some sort of great bundle.


2) Sony’s release of the slim down PS2 is too little too late.

Charlie Sinhaseni: Fiction. Sony released the PSOne around the time that the PS2 was released. This is a preemptive strike of some sorts in which Sony wants to corner the market before it becomes viable for its contenders. I still haven’t had enough hands-on time with the unit to see how viable it is as a portable console; we’ll have to wait and see how long it takes for 3rd party manufacturers to produce portable screens.

Charles Husemann: Fiction. It`s not too little too late, it`s a new form factor for Sony Fanboys to pickup as well as a something to keep the PS2 in the news and on the store shelves. The questionable move is why they developed something that`s incompatible with a lot of the existing accessories (double-tap and the hard drive).

John Yan: Fact Again, the age of the console just seems to put the slimmed down PS2 as being a year or two too late for me. I can see some people perhaps trading their older models for the slimmed down one because it fits a lot nicer in entertainment centers and also just going for the cool factor. Although the PSOne did survive a while with the PS2 out. The same might happen when the PS3 is finally released....