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To Wii or not to Wii....

To Wii or not to Wii....

To Wii or not to Wii....

In a previous post, I stated that us gamers haven't had it as good for years, with several months of AAA games coming out, and a healthy line up for 2009. Gaming is one of the few entertainment mediums that is holding its own in this credit crunch, and we have some amazing machines to play them on. The problem is, which is the one to go for? Console wars The current market leader is Nintendo's offering, the Wii. My partner and I bought one of these for my parents at Christmas, and they love it. Although the machine isn't as souped up as the other current gen consoles, it makes up for it with a natty controller that only adds to the immersion in the games. It also has (arguably) the best version of Resident Evil 4, unique greatness in games like Super Mario Galaxy, No More Heroes and, ahem, My Pet Hotel. My five year old, after playing for 10 minutes, decided that we should buy one for home, and although I'm not a fan, I would buy one, simply for Mario Kart, No More Heroes and Resident Evil 4, as well as games like Madworld that are coming soon. On the downside, in my experience the Online side of things is limited, there is no onboard storage space (especially stupid when you have the retro goodness that is the Virtual Console) and far too many "Cooking Mama" type games to attract anyone other than casual gamers. Oh, and as my mum can confirm, the controllers are pretty expensive. Next up is my current console, the Microsoft Xbox360. Seriously, I love my machine. It has the largest games library available, has the better online platform (although admittedly, you have to pay for this), and it is cheaper than the PS3. My Xbox was stolen about four months ago, and I was so gutted that I went and sold my PSP and collection of games and UMDs to buy a new XBox, but this time with a larger hard drive. Even games that were traditionally Sony exclusives are getting XBox releases, with Devil May Cry 4 and Soul Caliber 4 being released in the last 12 months. There are downsides here too, with the red ring of death, no Blu Ray player and quite a noisy fan to deal with, but it is still my console of choice. gaming-setup Sony, once heralded as the leaders of the pack having released the first two PlayStations seemed to get a little arrogant with the release of its third gaming monster. A price tag of nearly £500, a lack of backwards compatibility, too few launch titles and even less must have games meant that, although the PS3 was still in the race, it was running in concrete boots. There are some cracking games on the PS3 however, like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resistance 2 (with 64 online players) and the online is non too shabby (and free too). Sony have also turned things around recently, with must buy games like LittleBigPlanet and MGS4, and it is the cheapest BluRay player on the market, but I still think that it is too little, too late. Sizeably, it is a beast, and the price, despite recent drops, is still too expensive for the mass public. I'm not a fanboy, having wanted a PS3 since release date, but I am happy to wait until the price drops again and there are more games that I want to play. I'm not going to say what you should buy, that is your choice, and yours alone. I am not going to say which is best, as this can start arguments that will go on forever, but each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses, and it all depends on what you like as to what you should get. Personally, I reckon the PS4 will wipe the floor with the XBox 720 Wink I must also thank my fiance, Lisa, for a) allowing me far too much time playing and researching for this stuff, b) for being my unofficial editor and c) for coming up with the title. Cheers, love!

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20 Comments
Strat
Community Veteran
Nice collection of kit you have there Carl Wink
adiewoo1
Not applicable
I love my PS3, but it isn't now the cheapest Blu Ray player - saw one in Tesco for 150 quid tonight (though not profile 2.0). I think it's also much more of a complete media centre with proper DivX certification and PlayTV. Also have a Wii which I think is a great addition and the kids love it. Now the question is where did that pic come from, it's not yours as it has a PS3, 2 Wii's, original XBOX, US SNES, NES, N64, Megadrive, Dreamcast? I doubt I'll ever get a 360 purely because I don't want to pay 5 quid a month to play online. Now where's that dog to post a riposte?
Andrew_B
Grafter
Please tell me that they are all hooked up to that screen.. does Duck Hunt work on the NES? :D But the real question looking at that surely is.. Rock Band or Guitar Hero?
clockley
Grafter
I would love that collection lol, but I think I would be saving for years. I am hammering Guitar Hero World Tour at the minute, but Rock Band is equally as good Cheesy
clockley
Grafter
@Adiewoo The pic is from a website where people were showing off their gaming setups. Have to admit that I am more than jealous with some of the offerings. Still, should be buying a Dreamcast shortly!
scootie1
Not applicable
sry adiewoo the dog was abit late posting. to busy with the relable XBL mutliplayer. whos trying to sell you XBL subs at £5 a month(Dell boy or Boycie). i pay £2.50 a month(29.99 a year) for my XBL sub. i could probally run a brand new 60gb xbox plus 4 years of xbl subs and still work out cheaper than buying just a ps3. who pays through the nose for there online multiplayer now then. dont worry carl your blog hasnt sparked this wee console war off. just a ongoing frendly disscusion on the pros an cons of the consoles we own.
Ben
Newbie
Total PS3 fanboy here i'm afraid. An awesome machine :-D Wii parked right next to it and not an xbox in sight. And thats the way I like it 😄
clockley
Grafter
Come on though, PS3 owners, do you not think that the PS3 is underperforming a little? I know that the PS1 and 2 came into their own in their later years, but at the moment it is severely undersupported....
Dan
Grafter
i'm not a gamer. i have two games machines in my home - a BBC Micro (I said I wasn't a gamer), and a wii. So it has taken the industry 25 years to entice me to a new machine. well done nintendo.
clockley
Grafter
The Wii is going a very good job at attracting new gamers, but at the risk of losing their "hardcore" fans by offering casual "shovelware" like Cooking Mama and its ilk. Certainly the games that interest me on the Wii are few and far between.
Laser
Grafter
I own a PS3. It doesn't get as much use as my PS2 did in honesty. The price thing IMO is over-stated, usually by people quoting the cheapest price for the XB360 and the full RRP of the PS3! 😉 Obviously it *is* more expensive, but then it also does more out of the box - Sony weren't just aiming at a games machine. The DVD upscaling is superb, and you have a BD player to boot. The lack of backward compatibility is disappointing, and there are precious few *really* good games (but IMO that applies to all systems this gen.). What bugs me about the XB360 (which is a perfectly capable machine in many respects) is, like it's predecessor, it is unsubtle and lacks polish. The XBox1 was a big ugly noisy PC-in-a-box which only became truly popular when people worked out you could pirate stuff for it really easily. The 360 is designed and styled better, but I was really shocked how flat and lifeless it felt when playing even headline games like Halo. Makes more noise than my vacuum cleaner, too! I like the idea of the Wii, and I respect Nintendo for choosing to "not compete" (their words) with the big boys. Everyone laughed at them (deservedly when they changed the name from Revolution to Wii...), but looky see - who has the most popular machine, hm? Still, I don't own one because 95% of games for it are the ghastly cutesy Nintendo fayre. Make GTA, Splinter Cell, COD, etc with that cool controller and I might buy one! And, my god, the console and TV set-up in that photo is awesome!!
Neil3
Not applicable
@Carl Lockley To be honest Carl, I don't think the PS3 is underperforming at all. There ARE a lot of great games out there and as a piece of hardware, the machine is quality, well it should be, it's made by SONY. It's media capabilities are extensive and there are some cracking exclusive titles for the machine ( shame about FFXIII though! ) Hats off to Microsoft for producing the 360 and the quality of it as a games machine cannot be disputed but sorry, It's just a bit too flimsy, too noisy and too unreliable for my liking and remember, you get what you pay for.
psybox
Dabbler
The PS3 does so much more. We replaced our dvd player with it to get the blueray plus the media capabilities and usb slots to watch things on the telly (photos, videos, home videos etc). The online downloads are very cheap and has many of the older games for nearly pennies. We no longer need to go to a pc to look at files and photos etc - just plug into the ps3 and watch on telly - great!
slockley
Newbie
Carl just want to say that was a fantastic read! Think you should start reviewing console mods next, there is a fantastic new market in such devices and setups!
pcoventry
Grafter
I know who to come to now when I can't get my console to work and I don't want to call Tech Support. :) Nice one Carl a very good read mate.
lw93aed
Newbie
I bought a PS3 as a media gateway, and in my opinion that's what it's for. It's therefore not really comparable to the other two. I do enjoy an odd game - Motorstorm Pacific Rift, Civilization and Virtua Tennis being the ones I've bought, but I use my PS3 far more for the BBC iPlayer (killer app, also on Wii but probably never on Xbox 360), PlayStation Home (like SecondLife) and playing MP3/4s off my home media server. Plus it's an excellent BluRay player with an easy way to get the latest ever-changing BluRay specs. Now, I'm just waiting for Skype support and it will really be the centre of the living room.
Mackins7000
Dabbler
To be honest pal this article is very misguided and a bit biased. The PS3 was £425 at launch and when you look at what it's capable of compared to other consoles at launch, it was a bargain. Look at the price of the PS2, Dreamcast, Xbox and Xbox360 launch prices and you'll see what I mean. None of them came with wireless, rechargable controllers with the exception of the 360, but even that required the Plug & Play Recharge kit at extra cost. None of them came with HDMI as standard. None of them had the latest in HD media ala Blu Ray. None of them had a built in Wi-Fi adaptor. I own all consoles and there's pros and cons to each. It's a common misconception to think Xbox Live is better than the PSNetwork, it isn't. A lot of PS3 games have lobbies so you can pick which room to join and makes it a lot easier to join large groups of friends and their friends in games. Lag is present on both and it comes down to some people have good connections and some don't. Also the PS3 has an extremely user friendly interface in the XMB, the NXE of the 360 is cluttered and hard to find what you want in comparison. The PS3 HDD is also cheaply and easily upgraded, I upgraded mine to 320gb for £45 and took 5mins to change. The 360 HDDs on the other hand are way over priced, you're looking at, at least £100-120 for a measly 120gb HDD. Another big point is the noise, the 360 sounds like a helicopter and really gets annoying, whereas the PS3 is virtually silent. One point that doesn't need reiterated is the build quality, yes I mean the dreaded Red Ring Of Death. I'm on my 5th 360 since launch, my PS3 has been faultless since it's launch and I play it by far the most. You mentioned the PS3 doesn't have backwards compatibility, yes the new ones don't, but the original 60gb ones do and in all fairness, who really wants to play PS2 games in this day and age anyway? The 360 does have some excellent exclusives though, such as Fable 2, Gears Of War2, Mass Effect and others. I've never been as impressed with a console on launch as I was with my 360 though, I totally loved it, I was actually disappointed with the PS3 when it arrived, but it gradually got better and better 'til it surpassed my beloved 360 and reduced it to use on special occasions when a AAA exclusive is released. The Wii on the other hand isn't for true gamers, they're basically rubbish. Since launch day there's only been one game that in my opinion was great and that's Zelda Twilight Princess. I've never ever owned a console that's spent so much time off. The novelty soon wears off and the sub par graphics soon wear on you. The Wii is a success through cost and marketing. I bet there's millions of them sitting there doing nothing and have been for months. Definately the worst console I've ever owned. Ok for kids and drunken parties. Other than that, they're not worth buying.
MT
Newbie
The problem with consoles is that everyone has differing opinions, and giving your own opinion generally causes flames galore! I own all 3 of the current generation and I agree with most of what Mackins said above with 1 exception: I have never played on a console as much as I have on my 360 (mainly thanks to Gears of War 1 and 2 and Halo 3). The Wii hasn't been on since Christmas, and before that the Xmas before probably! The PS3, for me, doesnt cut it for my media. I find the network streaming more unstable than my xbox and it doesnt buffer anywhere near as well. I do, however, love Singstar on the PS3 and its cost me a fortune in song downloads... End of the day its personal preference and everyone is entitled to prefer whichever console they like. Smiley
Mackins7000
Dabbler
You should use a removable HDD mate. I used to use Media Streaming too but found it too slow and unreliable on both m 360 and PS3. For m 360 I was using XP Media Player version on my PC and found it to be a nightmare to use, I can't reall coent on using Vista or Windows 7 on it as I gave up on the media functionality of my 360 when my PS3 came along. Streaming to the PS3 was much better and faster for me using Nero Home at first, which was a bit dodgy at first but one day just started working, then using PS3 Media Server which was even better and far outclassed streaming to the 360. I find that watching certain files on the 360 aren't as good as the PS3, some files have like graphical glitches like vertical lines etc... I also hate the 360 User Interface. I thought the blades were pretty cool and I couldn't wait for the NXE but when it arrived I was horrified, I found it much worse than the blades, it's just a vertical, cluttered, hard to navigate, rip off of the PS3 XMB. But as I say, once you use a removable USB HDD, you'll never want to stream again.
LMFAO
Not applicable
I wonder if this guy ever leaves his house.