Now, I know this has been done a few times before in the past, but there hasn't been one very recently. I've read the thread about the Xbox in the General section and things are getting pretty heated. So let's debate it.

What's better: The Xbox 360, The PlayStation 3, or the Nintendo Wii?

What's best for us, the 13-25 year olds? This is a debate y'all can join in with. All the time at school everyone's debating the whole time and every teenage boy has an opinion on the subject. Keep in mind the price and capabilities of the console, as well as its games. This way the debate can stay in the Debate Section and not end up in the inevitable flame war in the General Section's thread.

I've had all three. I got the Nintendo Wii for Christmas one year and many teenagers over-look the thing, branding it as a kiddies' toy. The games can be childish, but there's some fantastic Nintendo games like Twilight Princess, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart etc. There's also a nice Nintendo Shop and other goodies there to keep you entertained for a long time. The motion-sensing was fun when I first got the Wii but now I just see it as a little novelty gimmick. Waving your wrist around can get really boring after a while so now I try to avoid it as much as possible and use my GameCube controller whenever I can. The price is also very low, one of the reasons why it has sold so many. The graphics aren't perfect but they are still pretty good, games such as Super Mario Galaxy really show them off.

Then, I got the X360. I can't complain, it was great. The graphics were good, the price was very reasonable (which is one of the reasons I put it above the PS3). At the time, X360 games and PS3 games were pretty much identicle. The online requires a cheap subsription, which isn't much hastle. It came with decent memory and I was living the good life. That is until one day when I turned it on to play a bit of Mirror's Edge. My greatest fears were realised. The red ring of death. I thought it could never happen to me, I thought that this only happened to other people, like being shot or chlamydia. So I looked for like a week where I put the damn receipt. Then I rang up my local video game store, where I bought it and they said that I could drop it off at their store and they just gave me a brand new one.

Also I have a PS3 but I can't be bothered to type right now, but I'll end with this: One of the main reasons many people are against the PS3 is its high price tag. Will the dawn of the new, cheaper PS3 Slim put these claims to rest?

Debate!

As an impartial outsider (I have a gamecube) I think the PS3 is probably the best, although, like you say, it's value for money might not be so good. The best way to see Victoria Falls is from a helicopter but it's $180 to $10 ground entry and it isn't 18 times better than seeing it from the ground so I still wouldn't bother.

The Wii has little going for it beyond the fact that people still make games for the Wii, wheras the older gamecube was at least as much fun (I'm less interested in graphics than gameplay). The motion sensitiveness is a good marketing point, but from a consumer's point of view you just get tired or wrist strain and you need more space to play in. My bedroom's tiny. If I reach out my arms I can touch both walls at once - there's no way I can play wii games in there.

I can't add much more to X360 or PS£ than you have - they're very similar but the Xbox suffers from reliability issues.

How about this: They are all good at different things and in the end it comes down to personal preference and there is no "best."

That said, I prefer the 360.

Can I bin this? Because I don't think anything good can come out of a "debate" about which console is best. It's too much of a childish concept to be taken seriously. Plus, 360 fanboys and PS3 fanboys are too stubborn to accept either's claims, so it's just going to be back to back arguing over the same thing (much like the creation of this thread).

I prefer Ps3 although I wish PSN could be more like XBL except still free.

If you want a debate, you have to set some grounds to debate from. For example, if we were debating from the technology perspective, we could have a good debate, though the Wii would be left out.

I've always been a Nintendo guy, up until the latest consoles.
When I had the opportunity to choose between those three: the wii, xbox360 and PS3, I really put a lot of thought on it and I still think I made the right choice.

Xbox360 - My whole family has this gaming system, so I had always played on their console. When I finally thought to myself and decided to buy one, this one was top of the list.
Luckily i wasn't that naive. I waited, since I had to earn the money for it, and at the same time I decided to do a little research. I mean everyone said the Xbox was the biggest and best thing since sliced bread so I just went along and believed it.
But then problems started to appear. All of my cousins got the rrod and like 50% of the websites i got whenever I searched "Xbox360" on the internet, where about that single problem and how to fix it (all of them bogus).
So i turned my eyes to the other way.

PS3 - I had completely ignored this gaming system, but one day I played a bunch of games in one of my best friends house and he explained me a bunch of stuff you could do with it.
Sure it hasn't the prettiest of desktops, but it's very organized and you can always customize it to your pleasure, unlike the Xbox360.
And in terms of exterior design, I admit that the xbox is very good looking.
Anyway. I was astonished with that. You could use motion sensors like in the wii. You had free access to the internet, without any further fees other than the monthly pay of the actual internet, you had a sweet ingame menu that didn't try too hard like the Xbox360 did. The PSN is truly amazing, you have the "Playstation Home" society, PSstore, neat updates.
Also you have the ability to watch DVDs in Blu-Ray, improving the quality of both game and video visualization. Easy HDMI connection up to 1080dpi.
And the only thing that separated this from the other console were like 200€.
I mean, if you are working hard to have something worth while, why not wait to get the best you can find?
It's 200€, you can earn that in like 3 months if are willing to work a bit more.
And what they say about the lack of games is bullshit. PS3 has very cool exclusives.

Not trying to sound bad but I think the only thing that keeps fanboys from saying that the Xbox360 is better than the PS3 is because they messed up and can't turn back on their decision.
Don't get me wrong. Microsoft is a great company, but even the greatest have to loose some battles.



tl;dr - Get a Ps3

The Playstation 3 gives you free internet?!? Wow, what have I been doing paying my shitty-ass cable company all these years? Free internet! What an idea!

I've got a 360, and it's served me well. I'm a bit interested in getting a PS3 though now that the price has dropped. There are several games I've been dying to try out on the console, and if I were ever in the market for a bluray player it would probably be at the top of my list since I could get two things for one, basically

not as big a fan of the wii, but there are obviously some positive aspects that can't be denied. So many of it's games are great in that you can just pick them up and play, and as far as local multiplayer goes, it's pretty fantastic. I just enjoy shooting people too much to buy one though, I'm afraid

Quote from Wtf

I've always been a Nintendo guy, up until the latest consoles.
When I had the opportunity to choose between those three: the wii, xbox360 and PS3, I really put a lot of thought on it and I still think I made the right choice.

Xbox360 - My whole family has this gaming system, so I had always played on their console. When I finally thought to myself and decided to buy one, this one was top of the list.
Luckily i wasn't that naive. I waited, since I had to earn the money for it, and at the same time I decided to do a little research. I mean everyone said the Xbox was the biggest and best thing since sliced bread so I just went along and believed it.
But then problems started to appear. All of my cousins got the rrod and like 50% of the websites i got whenever I searched "Xbox360" on the internet, where about that single problem and how to fix it (all of them bogus).
So i turned my eyes to the other way.

PS3 - I had completely ignored this gaming system, but one day I played a bunch of games in one of my best friends house and he explained me a bunch of stuff you could do with it.
Sure it hasn't the prettiest of desktops, but it's very organized and you can always customize it to your pleasure, unlike the Xbox360.
And in terms of exterior design, I admit that the xbox is very good looking.
Anyway. I was astonished with that. You could use motion sensors like in the wii. You had free access to the internet, without any further fees other than the monthly pay of the actual internet, you had a sweet ingame menu that didn't try too hard like the Xbox360 did. The PSN is truly amazing, you have the "Playstation Home" society, PSstore, neat updates.
Also you have the ability to watch DVDs in Blu-Ray, improving the quality of both game and video visualization. Easy HDMI connection up to 1080dpi.
And the only thing that separated this from the other console were like 200€.
I mean, if you are working hard to have something worth while, why not wait to get the best you can find?
It's 200€, you can earn that in like 3 months if are willing to work a bit more.
And what they say about the lack of games is bullshit. PS3 has very cool exclusives.

Not trying to sound bad but I think the only thing that keeps fanboys from saying that the Xbox360 is better than the PS3 is because they messed up and can't turn back on their decision.
Don't get me wrong. Microsoft is a great company, but even the greatest have to loose some battles.



tl;dr - Get a Ps3

I don't know if it's my inner programmer, but my main complaint about the PS3 is that it's too ****ing difficult to work with. The development tools are shitty, the architecture is asymmetrical, and the firmware's interface is hard to integrate well with games, causing a lot of bugs in games close to launch. Pretty much the same reasons Valve and id don't want to deal with it.

Quote from Dragon⁰⁷⁷

The Playstation 3 gives you free internet?!? Wow, what have I been doing paying my shitty-ass cable company all these years? Free internet! What an idea!

I did say you had free internet connection to the psn, although you do have to pay for the cable internet you use everyday. Read it out.

Quote from Ash

I don't know if it's my inner programmer, but my main complaint about the PS3 is that it's too ****ing difficult to work with. The development tools are shitty, the architecture is asymmetrical, and the firmware's interface is hard to integrate well with games, causing a lot of bugs in games close to launch. Pretty much the same reasons Valve and id don't want to deal with it.

Also if you notice developing trends, they usually go like this:

PC + 360 : because Microsoft owns windows and xbox, it's fairly easy to port to the 360. It's also very cost effective.

360 + PS3 : developers who are used to developing for consoles will usually end up porting to one of the other. Usually from the ps3 to the 360 because it's harder to fix a messed up port then to develop for it in the first place.

PC + 360 + PC : EA and activision pretty much

Basically: you're ending up with lots of games on the 360. Factor in exclusives and XBL and you've got quite the selection.

Quote from Wtf

I did say you had free internet connection to the psn, although you do have to pay for the cable internet you use everyday. Read it out.

Or, you know, I could use my computer for my internet browsing, as it is no doubt immensely superior and anyone with a high speed internet connection to connect their PS3 to is bound to have one.

You can't browse the net in the Xbox360. It's a matter of all-in-one.
PSN is as good as XBL, XBL looks more fancy, but you can do exactly the same thing on both Networks.

What an idiot excuse to start a fanboy war.

Also, you can connect both with an Ethernet cable and get the same speed you get in your PC.

Quote from Wtf

You can't browse the net in the Xbox360. It's a matter of all-in-one.
PSN is as good as XBL, XBL looks more fancy, but you can do exactly the same thing on both Networks.

What an idiot excuse to start a fanboy war.

Also, you can connect both with an Ethernet cable and get the same speed you get in your PC.

I am saying that your point of being able to surf the internet on the PS3 is a non-point. It's useless. I'm not trying to start a fanboy war.