[Revelade]

Hmm... the thread title is deceiving... fortunately.

Nice write-up Pan, very detailed and filled with interesting comparisons and analogies.

Wii... I look at my gamecube. I look at games like Donkey Konga. Quirky and interesting, but the depth is not there. After a while, the curiosity dies and you're left with a shallow game. Nintendo pisses me off in a good and bad way. Nintendo makes quality products. Their system is very portable, uses little electricity and VERY reliable, not to mention fair-priced.

But while there's quality here, they totally ruined it the online experience for me. Friend codes? Only 1v1 online multiplayer in games like Battalion Wars? Cmon, Counter-strike has been around for 9 years and they've had 32 players online from the start. Nintendo believes that gamers are child molesters.

Nintendo's franchises.... are old. Mario, Metroid and Zelda. The same three which kicked off the gamecube. Give me a game that uses the wiimote naturally AND has a great online mode to boot. That would make me get a wii.

My opinion on the PS3 and 360 are very similar. I went with the 360 only for Live. PSN is free, but people say it's not as good, whatever that means. My game choices? Well, I've been playing CoD4 a lot and that's mainly because it's ONLINE, which is something the Wii fails to do. Anyway, the Live experience is what brought me into this gen, going online and finding gamers. It's pretty hard for me to gather friends and play games often, so this is where Live makes it happen.

The PS3 does many things. It is a blu-ray player, it is more reliable than a 360 and it has free online play. What puts me on the 360 side? I could say small things like how I like the controller better or how it's somewhat cheaper, but it's really Xbox Live that does it for me.

This will probably be the last console I'll buy. Online play was new for me. I don't know what will drive me to buy the next batch of consoles. Online play makes the replay value of my games go up.