Has anyone else noticed that despite the huge environments and detailed models in DOA2 Ultimate, there isn’t a single “Now Loading” screen? I haven’t looked into this, but I’m betting it’s due to caching on the hard drive. I think a hard drive is among my requirements for my next console; no way I’m going bad to optical-only media.

Oh, and here’s a few more: HDTV output standard on all games. Ethernet out of the box. Support for wireless. A cheap/free online play service like Live.

Nice-to-haves: Play MP3s, view movies and photos over the network. Online tracking of game stats a la Halo 2. Ability to trade/download save games online.

Wish list: No in-game configuration of online options/friends list/banned people. I want one standard interface handled by the console, because I don’t trust game makers to do it right.

I’ll pay whatever I have to in order to get these things, but if I don’t, I don’t think we’ll upgrade (at least not until two price drops into the product cycle). I’m quite satisfied with the XBox, thanks.