The Great Console Debate Post
At the start of the year, I jumped into this generation of game consoles and picked up a PS3, an Xbox 360 and a Wii. I had no emotional investment with any of them beforehand, and I frankly don't care who "wins" the console war.
With that said, it became clear in a short time that each of the 3 consoles are headed in entirely separate directions. Of the 3, I believe the Xbox 360 is the overall best choice for this generation. This post will likely get long-winded, so click on for the meat. The bulk of the conversation is between the PS3 and the Xbox 360, as the Wii is both in a different world in terms of sales (astronomically so) and hardware and feature-wise (to the Wii's great detriment).
First, the Wii. It's got a great pack-in game in Wii Sports, and the motion controllers are a ton of fun. But the fun nearly stops there: very few other games exist for the Wii that are compelling. Cross-platform titles like Rock Band are extremely gimped compared to other consoles because the Wii is technologically still a generation behind. It's not much more than a tweaked GameCube with motion controllers. Video output is capped at 480p, so high-def gaming is out of the question.
It is tiny and runs very cool and quiet, but it lacks any serious storage for downloadable content, so you have limited options there. It also cannot play DVDs despite having a real DVD drive in it. It's sold a bajillion units, so it is clearly the runaway winner this generation with the general public and a strong demonstration that casual gaming appeals to the masses. The PS3 and Xbox 360 aren't even close to having sold as many units as the Wii.
Next up, the Playstation 3. I'm not sure how Sony managed to blow the lead they had with the Playstation 2, but they have. They introduced a console that costs far more than the competition and had far fewer features in software. It does feature a Blu-Ray player, which is a fantastic bonus, but the price delta between the Xbox and the PS3 is now $200, and Blu-Ray players now go for slightly less than that. Games typically come to the PS3 at the same time as the Xbox 360, but some titles arrive later and tend to underperform relative to the 360. Bioshock is an example of the former, having arrived on the PS3 a year after the 360. Sony does offer free online gaming compared to Microsoft, who charges $50 for the privilege. I don't play online, so I don't care about this. I suspect if you play a lot online, maybe the PS3 becomes more attractive.
Finally, the Xbox 360. In many ways, the 360 is similar to the PS3. The technology levels are roughly equivalent. Sony picked Blu-Ray, Microsoft picked (and lost) with HD-DVD. The biggest downer has been hardware reliability. The "Red Ring of Death" is now infamous. That said, every system made in the past year has reportedly had the defect fixed in new units, and I've so far avoided the issue so it's a total non-factor for me.
I did pick up an HD-DVD drive add-on for cheap ($30 locally) and the HD-DVDs have been blown out at $5-10, which makes them an extreme value given that the quality is roughly the same as Blu-Ray -- if you don't mind that they have no future. They will (presumably) still play years from now so long as the HD-DVD drive continues to work, so I'm not really worried about this. Fry's has a ton of HD-DVD add-on drives in stock for the 360, so I'm tempted to pick up a second for another $30 to cover myself.
What has surprised me as a gamer are a new feature this generation: achievements (on the 360) and their equivalent on the PS3, trophies. Here Sony completely missed the boat: it's only been since the middle of this year that games on the PS3 offer trophies, and even then they're not mandatory as they are in 360 games. The whole concept behind them is fairly pointless - they don't give you anything other than a sense of accomplishment - but I find myself compelled to go for them and I buy the 360 version of a game simply because I know they are there. I get an indescribable little thrill each time I unlock an achievement on the 360 and pad my pointless Gamerscore further.
I prefer the feel of the X360 controller to the PS3. The latter fits my slightly-smaller-than-average hands just fine while the PS3 controller feels like a tiny, fragile toy. Here's another Sony blooper: it's only been since the middle of this year that they've offered controllers with force-feedback, compared to 2005 (the launch date) for the 360 and of course the dawn of time on the PS2.
Both the PS3 and the 360 make a play for streaming video content. Both are capable of streaming movies and videos from my Mac, and both offer online stores in which you can buy movies directly from the console. The 360 has the additional feature of letting you stream movies from Netflix if you fork over $50 annually for Microsoft's online service, Xbox Live Gold. As a result of this, I hardly ever use my Apple TV and I suspect the Apple TV will fade into obscurity before too long. (As a side note, Tivo just added Netflix streaming - for free - last week so the competition in this space is fierce.)
But when it comes to streaming movies, I've found that again the 360 does a more capable job than the PS3. I can play the same video on both consoles and will occasionally see stuttering and pauses while the stream catches up on the PS3 and never have an issue on the 360. The PS3 is similarly limited in what h.264 video profiles it will work with: it must be profile 4.1 or lower or you get a mysterious error message. The 360 has no such problems.
On the issue of profiles, each of the 3 consoles allows you to create an avatar. The Miis found on the Wii were first and are a lot of fun to create. Microsoft just added Avatars to the 360 in the free "New Xbox Experience" update that went live in November. They are clearly derivative of Miis, but are also well-done. Sony's closest offering here is their new "Home" social service (also free) that went into open beta last week. Whereas Miis and Avatars on the other platforms are whimsical, Home takes a serious approach and lets you create avatars intended to be life-like. As it stands, you pretty much end up looking like zombie versions of K-Fed, 50-Cent, Britney Spears or Salma Hayek. Clearly Sony has more work to do here. Sony's approach is to offer something akin to the social experience you get in Second Life, whereas the other consoles intend to integrate your avatars into whimsical/casual games. In execution, I find the latter approach to be the winner.
All 3 consoles have some level of backwards compatibility with prior generations. The Wii can play pretty much all GameCube games and even has slots to plug in old GameCube controllers. This isn't surprising since it is essentially a turbo-charged GameCube. The Xbox 360 can play most popular Xbox games, although it relies more heavily on software emulation. It works well enough if your game is one of the 400 or so on their "compatible" list. If your game is not on that list, it will simply refuse to play. The PS3 is a mixed bag. All PS3s will play Playstation 1 games fine, although they look like ass nowadays. The first releases of the PS3 also played PS2 games, but as of today, no shipping PS3s can deal with PS2 games -- Sony has removed backwards compatibility in an attempt to cut costs on the PS3. This frustrates me as I have a number of PS2 games and it would be extremely convenient to stick with the PS3. As a result, I've been picking up older Xbox games and forgoing older PS2 games entirely.
I suppose there's always plenty more to compare and contrast, but the last point is price. The Wii retails for $249 (when you can find it) and comes with 512MB flash storage. The Xbox 360 comes in at $199 with 256MB flash storage and no hard drive (can be added on later) and $299 with a 60GB drive. The PS3 starts at $399 with a 60GB drive and goes up from there.
I think the takeaway point is this: Blu-Ray and free online play are not worth the extra $200 to me. Backwards compatibility with the Xbox (albeit limited), more thorough achievement support, an (arguably) better game library and cheaper price make the 360 a much better deal to me. Frankly, it's tempting to pick up a second 360 for $199 for the bedroom to stream movies and play games from bed, but Beth would gut me if I even tried.