Things appear to be changing in the next-gen who's-bought-and-plays-what arena. First off, take a look at these polls from Joystiq, as they appear to indicate what we'd expect over here: most people play/own a 360, but those who have a Wii play it as much as the 360'ers, and not too many people either own or play a PS3 (ouch).

But wait! What's this over here? PS3 is suddenly leapfrogging up the charts? Could it be due to a slightly surprising early victory in the format war? But that's just Japan, so what about the US?

Well, as the stat-crunchers over at 1up have discovered, the PS3 is actually on par with where the 360 was back in a similar point on its respective timeline. Given the heavy financial damage that a PS3 will do to your wallet, this is a pretty good stat, but also remember that while PS3's are (intentionally? yeah right...) in ample supply, it was gonzo-tough to get a 360 this close to launch (similar to Wii availability now). So perhaps it's not that good news...

And just when Sony though it was beginning to gain ground, take a look at what's coming screaming around the corner:

The brand new, one-uppified Xbox "Elite!"

This is what I was waiting for before buying my 360 - a workable hard drive size (120 gigs!), better HD out, and most importantly, a 65 nanometer CPU chip, which will help this red-ring-of-death prone console run quieter, cooler, and hopefully for longer.

And it's in black. Neato.

So the toss up continues: Wii is in self-imposed games-famine mode, PS3 is starting to gain momentum, the Xbox 360 is performing as solidly as ever, but will soon see a hardware boost that will put it technically within striking range of the PS3's storage and media handling capabilities (now it just needs WiFi and a Blu-Ray...).