After a year of waiting, Nintendo fans are finally getting everything they ever wanted. Rick explores why this may not necessarily be a good thing …

2002 looks to be a gamer’s dream. Two Mario games, two Zelda games, two Metroid games. Phantasy Star Online, Star Fox Adventures, Wave Bird, Eternal Darkness … finally the game drought is over. In fact, Nintendo made perfectly clear that their purpose behind this E3 was to emphasize all the great titles coming out this year. No matter what a fan might want from Nintendo, they’re going to get it this year. But what about the die-hard fans, the fans that love everything Nintendo? The fans that love Metroid, and Zelda, and Mario … as well as games like Animal Crossing, Eternal Darkness. The ones that want multi-player fun like Mario Party 4 and PSO? All these great games aren’t free, you know …

Take a look at what you’ll really pay to play your console games online.

Now that all three console makers have announced their online plans, you may be wondering how they stack up against each other in terms of features and cost. It turns out that playing online games on your console for a year can be pretty expensive... but that depends heavily on your current situation. Here is a quick estimate of the first year’s cost on each system (and keep in mind that some of these expenses are one-time, so the following years would be much less expensive):

GameCube