Wii, 360, or PS3

[Ballistic]

I have the Ps3 and the wii,

The wii is great when people are around a fee beers and a laugh but thats about it for me..

PS3 for proper games and Blue ray films.

I dont know a lot about the xbox except they do have more games...

Sept 1st and the new slimline Ps3 comes out so if you can wait you may pick up a bargain older one...

B

[-Hox-]

...xboxes are cool plus flash the drive and all games become free

I'm such a fan of that!

Ok, who wants to sell me an xbox for next to nothing then?! Haha!! I'm guessing ebay would be an ok place to start my search... unless someone knows of a cheap retailer?!

[micky06]

have a search on hotukdeals

HotUKDeals - Deals

[micky06]

Xbox 360 Arcade come with no hard drive

[ITXBiX]

I have all 3.....Wii is for "cute" games with an added bonus of motion....games are a bit weak and not propa HD but great for mates and families. 360 and PS3 have the same Chart busting HD games bar a few. 360 has brilliant online gaming...PS3 has Blu ray. ok I forgot you can chip all of them so U can ahem! ahem! pirate em. Wii - If you mainly play with others and like N64 type games. XBOX360 - For Hardcore titles and good online 1080p Gaming No videos unless U buy the HDDVD add or download off MS live. PS3 for casual harcoreHD 1080p gaming plays bluray and looks the biz next too your display panel. Hope that clears things up for ya!....I doubt it!...its a tough choice. ur on ur own kid.

[chroma]

Depends what your wanting to do really.

WII
Top of the class in terms of party play, if you regularly have a room full of buddies and copious ammounts of beer you really cant beat a WII to add another dimension to spice up the night and make everyone look like an idiot.

Looks ok, sounds nice and quiet and its generaly a fun system.

Graphicly it tops out at 480i and looks completely shit on a big HDTV, it lags behind every other system. more than makes up for this with the sheer ammount of fun it provides to a house full of guests.
Net play is ok, its free although some games can be awkward to network with others.
Nothing really worth mentioning in terms of Media and its fairly useless for solo play (its really geared as a party machine)
Cheapest of the lot and excelent value for money.

ECKS BAWKS TREESIXY
Designed from the ground up with gamers in mind, Seriously fun to play either on your lonesome or online with others.
Massive back catalogue of games and original Xbox games will more often than not run on it, ive got 1 game thats not supported, the rest seem to play fine.

I use mine to play with people online and also watch movies streamed from my pc

Online content is via Pay Per Month subscription but to be honest this keeps everyone friendly and weeds out a lot of "wee dicks" that i seem to run into on any other online environment. You also get aditional features for subscribing.

Upscales DVD's to 1080p and will play anything in high def content (720p native although it will upscale) graphicly impressive and seriously good fun.

Tier wise just relates to hard drive space and accessories.
Arcade is fine (60gb with a wired headset that jacks into your controller) Elite is just a bigger drive and a wireless earpiece. everything uses a stock unit regardless.

All of them are fairly loud, look ok and i use mine a whole lot.
Ive also noticed that the controllers are really efficient in terms of watts used, i use rechargable AA batteries and need to swap them out for a charge maybe once a month. the wii and ps3 seem to eat way more power and require more frequent charges, so if your not using some kind of rechargable soloution your going to throw down a lot on keeping the controllers fed.

In terms of reliability, i have mine well ventilated, situated upright and i spray it out once a month with an aircan to get rid of any dust from the vents, ive never had a problem.

PEE ESTREE
Geared more towards Blu-ray media,(purpose built to win the format war) so if watching hi def movies is your thing this is the system for you (although it comes without the ability to connect to a high def out of the box?) Costs a fortune and lags behind the 360 in terms of being geared towards your hardcore gamer.
Not as graphicaly impressive as a 360, still plays in native 720p upscaled like the 360 although it doesnt use antialiasing so things tend to look seriously jaggy around the edges, every game ive played a comparison on seems to use much lower textures so things seem flatter and less realistic (if this matters to you) im basing this on experience with Fallout3 and Ghostbusters.
Developers hate it as the dev kit is a nightmare to work with.

Online content is fun for a few minuites, home is good till you wander around putside and stumble upon every paedophile and prepubescent idiot in the planet. just make sure not to make a female avatar or you will recieve no end of grief from sex starved morons.

Connecting gamers together is a little hit and miss, some games are fine others you will have a nightmare of a time with.

Sony ditched the Emotion Engine, so if you have stacks of ps2 games your pissing up a rope if you think they'll run.
Blu-Ray disks are also painfully slow in terms of reading speeds so loading times are sometimes an issue.

Ive found that this is a great system if you want to watch hi def content and game occasionaly by yourself, entirely overpriced for what its worth.
My 1st unit arrived doa, so it gives me a laugh when fanboys go on about how its more reliable than a 360 (which ive never had problems with to be fair)

Looks fine, sits gathering dust most of the time in my living room and isnt as loud as a 360.

Synopsis
Beer and friends and would like to spend more on beer than on a console: Wii

if you would rather be playing "SHOOTAN GAEMZ OVAR TEH INTERWEBZ" and watching some movies when your not killing your friends then: 360

If your all set up with a sweet high def system and have more money than sense at this point and would like to play the odd game when your not watching crystal clear ocean documentaries then its: PS3

[Raven]

What's the general feeling then?

The last system I owned was an N64 which I was given; prior to that it was a SNES... which I was also given! I'm thinking of actually buying my first console soon, and wondered what peoples thoughts are.

I'd like something reliable, that has the ability to do more than just play games... and it's gotta look good. What can I say, I'm a sucker for looks!

Get the just announced PS3 Slim at the start of September for ?250 mate - sort you out a treat that will, nuff said!

Ive found that this is a great system if you want to watch hi def content and game occasionaly by yourself, entirely overpriced for what its worth.
My 1st unit arrived doa, so it gives me a laugh when fanboys go on about how its more reliable than a 360 (which ive never had problems with to be fair)

Not that I wish to derail this thread, but I have to say that, no disrespect, but personally I disagree totally with this statement to be fair in all honesty.

[-Hox-]

Chroma, thanks man! I think that's the most in depth review of anything I've ever read! And... it basically answers my question... 360.

You should write for a magazine, unless you already do of course, in which case you should write for two magazines!

Cheers to everyone for your input, it's much appreciated. I hope others will find this thread useful, I certainly did.

[cunny]

this is what i did recently, bought an arcade system ?125, got an hdd off of ebay for 20, Can mod myself so all games now free.
For any advice on flashing drives and stuff browse the 360 section.

I saw a comparason of pc, 360 an the ps3 graphically, the ps3 finished last, then 360 the pc finished top. I have to say tho that the ps3 is still newer technology so will be a while before the programmers make the most of its power.

[dik]

Xbox 360 failiure rate reaches 54%

New survey says Microsoft's Red Ring of Death contines to rise.
by Jim Reilly
US, August 17, 2009
If your Xbox 360 hasn't broken down yet or suffered from the dreaded red ring of death, then consider yourself pretty lucky.

A new survey published in Game Informer's print edition indicates the Xbox 360 failure rate has climbed to a shocking 54.2%. The magazine surveyed nearly 5000 readers, asking them about their experience dealing with broken consoles.

Here are their findings:

Console failure rate
Xbox 360 ? 54.2%
Playstation 3 ? 10.6%
Wii ? 6.8%

Percentage of console owners who suffered a second hardware failure after the original repair.
Xbox 360 ? 41.2%
Playstation 3 ? 14.7%
Wii ? 11%

Percentage of people who rate their customer service experience "very helpful"
Nintendo ? 56.1%
Sony ? 51.1%
Microsoft ? 37.7%

Percentage of respondents whose friends have had console hardware failures.
Xbox 360 ? 69.9%
Playstation 3 ? 12.4%
Wii ? 6%

The magazine also makes a few notes about their results:

The reason the Wii has the lowest hardware failure rate could be because console is played the least of the three. 41.4% of Wii owners surveyed said they play the console less than one hour a day, meanwhile the majority of Xbox 360 (40.3%) and Playstation 3 (37%) owners say they play their console on an average of three to five hours day.

Also, only 3.8% of respondents said they'd never buy another Xbox system because of the failure rates.

How have your experiences been?

Update: Here is Microsoft's response to the report issued to IGN:

Microsoft stands behind the Xbox 360 as a superior entertainment console with one of the best warranties in the industry. We are constantly improving the design, manufacture and performance of the console through extensive testing of potential sources of any problems. Xbox 360 is pleased to maintain the title of "most played console" and the vast majority of Xbox 360 customers have enjoyed a terrific gaming and entertainment experience since their first day, and continue to, day in and day out.

[urban32]

I quite like the wi family friendly to