Yesterday, thoughtful blokes at 1UP showed gamers what they have to pay in order to have next-gen fun, acquiring ether of the two best consoles today: Sony's PS3 or Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 360 Elite. Comparisons between the two machines' accessories, title lists and the consoles themselves showed that including everything a gamer would need to have basic fun, the price is the same for acquiring either of the two systems, with accessories and all.

Today, I stumbled upon a "calculator" posted on NextGenFight, where soon-to-be console owners, will input data according to what they want with a gaming system. Sections that need to be completed in order for the site to calculate how much your system will cost, are shown in the following manner:

Step one. Choose your SKU (console) - and you've got all Xbox 360 systems including the Elite, on the left, and the PS3 20GB and 60GB systems on the right. Step two asks gamers to mention the features that they want, or the ones that they already have. Eg.: "Do you own an HDTV?" or "Do you want a High Definition Movie disc player?" Step three is all about accessories: hard drive, rechargeable controllers, wired headset or wireless headset, you have to mark whether you want them or whether you don't care.

Step four doesn't require any more filling up columns, as there's only one, big CALCULATE button, which once clicked will show you the exact amount of money needed to be spent for what you've chosen. However, what's quite interesting is that, although Sony's system is more expensive than even the Elite, getting all your basic accessories for both systems will make an Xbox 360 choice more pricey. So you pay more for accessories with ab Xbox 360 SKU, but you pay quite a bit as well with just purchasing the console itself from Sony. So, again it's all up to what the customer needs. That's why they set up this calculator in the first place.