The new models aren’t that loud either.
Unless blu-ray was a deal breaker I’d go with a 360 as well. The wii just insn’t a platform that covers real gamers. It’s got a few great games but not enough.
Thanks for the info.
Must every thread that even mentions the Wii tout it as a system “not for real gamers”?
Whatever the hell that means. :rolleyes:
Most people I know who’ve bought a wii have said they don’t play it much anymore because of a lack of games. The have found themselves playing the other platforms more because of this.
This 35min vid is well worth a watch. It’s the best video game blog team IMO talking about re-visiting their wii’s.
http://area5.tv/co-op/2009/3/26/0103-dusting-off-the-wii.html
I’ve nothing against the wii at all btw but if I wanted to get back into the gaming scene I wouldn’t get a wii on it’s own. I’d get it as a 2nd machine but not as a primary one. YMMV, obviously.
Tell me about it. yojimbo, I’ve been gaming for 25+ years, I had an original Atari system, Intellivision, NES, dreamcast, playstation, xbox, etc. etc. Hell, I played games on a fucking TRS-80. And right now I’m playing exclusively on the Wii and loving it. You want to tell me I’m not a “real gamer”?
Please. :dubious:
Justin_Bailey said the phrase “real gamers” not me. You’re enjoying your wii, fair play.
When I said real games I meant that the big entry games for the wii seem to be wii sports and the like. They seem to me to be more tech demos than true games. Great for a party but not much more. There are plenty of other good and great games for the wii but a lot of them are cross platform or have a better looking alternative on another system.
My opinion of the wii is that there isn’t enough depth in the library. The OP asked for our opinions. That’s mine.
The prices we’re quoting won’t mean much to you. Video game prices are always weird in the Gulf states because of rampant piracy.
However, I do suggest you avoid the XBox because of the region coding problem- you’ll have to use hacks if you want to play North American-sourced games if you bring it back, since the stuff sold in Qatar will be for PAL TV systems and will probably play only Euro region games.
I quoted you saying the Wii is not for real gamers. So no ducking it.
And if you think the Wii doesn’t have any “big” games, then you’re playing the wrong Wii games. That’s all there is to it. Does the Xbox 360 have more big games? Of course. But does the Wii lack “big” games? No, that’s ridiculous.
Actually, I did say that didn’t I. I didn’t mean it in that way. That was just sloppy of me.
Through an accident of fate I have both a Wii and a 360. I’m not what you would call a hard core gamer and this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever had two consoles from the same generation of platformers. Nor do I consider myself to be a rabid fanboy. My platform ownership is as follows:
Atari 2600
Nintendo Entertainment System
Sega Genesis
Sega CD
Nintendo 64
Playstation 2
Wii/Xbox 360
The Wii is the most inexpensive system around coming it at $250. Of course you might have to spend a little extra money to get another Wii nunchuck and maybe some chargers for your Wiimotes which will bring up the real price of the system to about $320 or so.
The 360 can cost you anywhere from $250-$450 depending on which version you want to get. I forget the specifications of my 360 (I’m not a hardcore gamer, remember) but I spent $300 on mine and it came with a 60 GB hard drive and one controller. Again, if I wanted to buy another controller so that I could game with others then I’ll have to shell out roughly $50 for the system. I also had to but an adapter for wireless internet which cost $100 and a few odds and ends cables bringing the real price of the system up to about $400+ for me. (Wii has built in wireless capability.)
I got my 360 in December and since then I have hardly touched my Wii. This isn’t to say that the Wii is a bad system but I find the 360 has a lot more games on it that I actually want to play. Grand Theft Auto IV, Dead Space, Fallout 3, etc. were available for the 360 but never for the Wii. I also have Rockband 2 for the 360 rather than the Wii because the former allows me to download new songs on an almost weekly basis.
On the Wii the game I’ve played the most is Wii Sports which came with the system. In contrast, my 360 came with Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones, neither of which I care to play. I do enjoy my Wii Fit and I’m looking forward to getting No More Heroes and Madhouse (I think that’s the title) for the Wii, but for the most part there aren’t many Wii games on the horizon I’m interested in.
I’m pretty happy with both my 360 and my Wii because they’re both good systems. My 360 does enable me to listen to the music on my iPod, watch movies via Netflix, and play some pretty neat online games like Carcassonne and Settlers of Catan. Overall I am happier with my 360 than I am with my Wii.
However, whatever system you think has the best games for you is probably the best one.
Odesio
Thank you for correcting yourself. A rarity on these boards.
I believe you might be thinking of MadWorld, not Mad House. There’s also one or two other wii games coming out in the entirety of 2009 that I’m sorta lookin forward to, one being Conduit. Other than that, I really enjoyed Mario Galaxy and Zelda Twilight Princess, sorta enjoyed one or two other games, and that’s it for the system imo. YMMV obviously, but it just doesn’t have the game library to support someone who plays on a daily or even weekly basis (I vary back and forth depending on how much work I have to do and how much beer I need to drink)
The 360 (and to a lesser extent the ps3, and I say lesser extent simply due to the smaller gaming library) has a much more extensive collection of A-list titles that will satisfy someone who games more regularly. Hence people saying the Wii is not for “gamers” or “hardcore gamers” or whatever you wanna call it. I personally don’t like this nominclature but it is what it is. If you play games often, you’ll run out of options on the Wii rather quickly, plus the Nintendo WiFi is so freakin annoying and keeps your hands tied together that it really just isn’t worth the hassle more often than not, whereas XBL and PSN (I personally prefer XBL, you get what you pay for and that $50 a year makes for a great service) make it MUCH easier to find friends and play with them, you don’t need system codes and game codes and day-of-the-week codes and whatever other freakin codes the wii forces you to use to play games online. Plus the lack of voice communication kills a lot of strategy in games that require it (team-based FPS games for example).
If i may so bold to step into the gaming wars!
I own all three systems, although i have barely played the Wii as it was bought for our youngest son, so i cant really comment on it other than what my kids have told me.
The Wii, A heck of alot of games out for it, but does suffer from a collection of “shovel ware” which are mostly just made to take advantage of a new feature of the controller to iron out the kinks while they come up with games which actually could use the feature. Several very interesting games, which original concepts and ideas exclusive to the console, mostly because Nintendo made them or they were only made because of the control system possibilies of the system. The Wii will have the most number of exclusives of any console, because of that good or bad. the remote takes 2 AA batteries, which last a few days, And the control system does take some getting used to. Both my kids mostly use the game cube controllers while playing half the time. The Wii has a gamecube built into it so its existing catalogue of games is very impressive. however there is a good chance of being drowned in one game only controllers (wheel,bat,golf club,fishing rod,zapper etc etc) Also if you download old games onto it, you have to buy a different controller at extra cost, as the older games for some cheap ass reason will not work on the new controllers at all(or so i have read)
It is not a next generation console, but nintendo certainly knows how to crank out good games and plenty of them, if you sift thru the crap, and give them time to establish a user base. The argument that they arent for the hardcore gamer is not correct as zelda and mario and metroid are hard core games, having said that i am a hardcore gamer and i have never got into any of them but the lisences have lived the test of time and are here to stay.
It doesnt play DVDs for some reason although apprently it can at extra cost.
And important note before i discuss the 360, the Wii plays all gamecubes games, out of the box
so my rating for the Wii is a 7/10 from me, and a 9 from my kids.
The 360 is semi backwards compatible for xbox games IF you are willing to download a bunch of patches, god only knows why they didnt put all of the patches on the hard drive, which most people will buy anyway.
Now before i discuss the console i must rant about microsoft. Now as i said i am a gamer, it is all about the games to me, the brand means nothing to me but microsoft is a company in it for the money…no question. now i am not saying that nintendo, or sony are not. But microsoft got into the market because they saw how much money was being made by those two. The annual cost of the xbox live, on top of the other fees, etc etc AND the adverts forced on you even after paying annoys the hell out of me. The three separate consoles editions are pointless. if you buy the arcade, you almost certainly will go buy the hard drive, they only reason the arcade exists was to out price sony on paper. they should have went with standard or elite, and not the arcade.
But anyway. i digress. The 360 is a solid console, next gen graphics and it was a great idea to have to component cables AND the AV cables in the box, flick a switch and you Hi-Def. The controller uses two batteries again, and the battery life is excellent…or is it? now i bought it for our oldest for xmas, and got his 8 or 9 games for it. He loved the xbox, and was very excited on xmas morning, and he played it…and then seemed to forget about it quickly. He does play it but i am not sure how much as i have had to replace the batteries in the controller a couple of times, and its has been a few months now…we have had the Wii for about a month and its on its 3 set of batteries from the near constant playing.
Now to the games, and another mini rant about microsoft (sorry) as i stated above microsoft is in it for the money and it sure knows how to spend money to make money. My problem with the console is this, microsoft is not good at making good games(couple of exceptions aside) but they are exteremely good at buying talent. The original halo, was originally designed for the mac, until MS bought it and made it exclusive for the xbox, and made that console what it became. Also they bought out Rare(perfect dark and goldeneye) with the hopes of milking that cash cow for all it was worth…and ended up ruining the independant game makers in the process so now it craps out the horrible perfect dark zero. Also the main processor it runs on was actually developed for the PS3 and MS came in and bought them for the 360. thing is though sony had 16 months longer to work on it before release,
Also the 360 starting line up was poor with poor mans GTA crackdown and saints row, both good enough games but nothing to compete with GTA, so how does MS respond? it pays rockstar to make the lost and the damned exclusive for the 360…only available thru xbox live… at more cost. it makes money for them but i think will make the gamer less happy towards them.
Onto the console itself, the menus are awesome, but it looks awful(IMNO) the drive is sideways, and awkward and yes you can lay it down…but then the HD looks tacked on…which it is. Also you have to buy 360 only HD’s for it so as time goes on…with exclusive games only on xbox live…you will need to buy more of them at 100 bucks a pop for 60 gigs… which will get old fast if they keep forcing people to download the expansions instead of buying the disc in the store. Also to actuall watch a hd dvd you have to shell out another 200 bucks on the player?.. WTF sense is that…oh right more money for MS.
Also to the xbox has more games, it has been out longer, so i dont think its a fair claim, but awesome games are out now for it, and sony triple a games arent here yet.
Also any company that goes to E3 and makes the anouncement that it is bring avatars to the system…and expects anything other than muted applause is not going to compete in the hi def wars. did anyone else laugh when they made that grand statement?.. i pissed my pants laughing then got mad and demanded games dammit! we want games not stupid cartoon pictures!!!
It plays dvds, and it is hddvd compatible, which lost in the format wars to bluray as it lacked storage space (15 gigs compared to 50 gigs). Which brimgs me to my next point, does anyone else wonder if the 360 will fail in the long term against the PS3?
The two consoles will go head to head, and nintendo will quietly be more successful than either of them most likely. But i have wonder if the 360 will suffer in the future against the ps3 as the storage space on the disc becomes more of a factor. Ps3 games will be able to be 3 times larger than the 360, which might not mean much right now but developers might release certain games exclusive to the ps3 purely because it could not be done on the 360. I have heard that metal gear 4 was released on the ps3 as it could not have been done on the 360, (interview with the creator IIRC) now that could be true or not, but we are still mostly in first generation of the next gen, so come gta5 or some other triple A title in a couple of years, the 360 could lose alot of titles and gamers because it is viewed as the weaker console, and as MS is used to patches and upgrades thru computers i am unsure if they can back the 360 against serious compitition without being able to alter the hardware or OS, which could well mean certain games wont work at all without upgrades, or additional downloads of software and console gamers wont stand for that in my opinion.
Also the ps3 uses 8 cores, the 360 has a triple core, so as the games get more and more complex i can see the 360 struggling with some games. the ps3 was designed to last 10 years, and i dont think the 360 was even designed to last that long. the RROD is still a concern for people, i do give MS props for even being able to stand up in this console market with such a bad design flaw…and the exceptionally loud fan, still not keeping the cores cool enough, it does make you wonder if the more extreme games come out if the RROD will make buying a intercooler for your console a must have.
On to graphics, system-wise the ps3 is stronger slightly as its memory is dedicated on its GPU while the 360 shares with the CPU. And my impressions are the ps3 can do more life like images than the 360 but it is still fairly early days in this generation so that can change. As the programmers get used to the systems graphics will improve but with more disc space i think ps3 will have the edge, but it is important to note good graphics does not make a good game.
Now onto the ps3…which i love. But i am not a fanboy, and will admit sony has SERIOUSLY hurt itself with the way it has gone about with the console so far. it has like what!!! nine different versions of itself… some are backwards compatible…some arent, some use emulation, some use hardware to run ps2 games. now i can understand when you are losing so much money on a console by putting so much into it you lose 200 bucks everytime someone buys one you cut costs by not putting the software to emulate ps2 games on the hardrive? i can understand not putting a actual ps2 in the box…but software? you saved money by not putting software on the hardrive to so you users could play the over 1400 games for the ps2 released?.. now to be fair most ps3 users will have a ps2… but it would be nice not to have to use it, and simply slide the disc into the ps3 but come on!!! dammit at least allow the ps2 emu to be downloaded on the network!!!SONY!!!
so…anyway so at least now you know it will not be all glowing praise for the ps3. The price is still too high,… its not really when you consider what you get for your money and it is newer than the 360 so when the two systems have been out for the same time they are price comparable.
Both systems accessories are freeking expensive.
The ps3 menus are as nice as the 360 but i give the win to the 360 on it, the playstation network is free and so is home, which i really think could become huge when they actually release…finally…eventually… i havent tried xbox live so cant comment on it but i do love the presentation of PSN but do they really expect us to pay 2 dollars for a beavis and butthead episode? so far PSN seems to be in beta only as they find things to put on it, and it does have a fair selection of things now but nothing to shut about. The xbox does have netflix which does offer more movies… but we are all online right now…why are they offering these services to us when we can do them right now?
Having said all that though, i do prefer the ps3 over the 360, the controller is better suited to your hand and not as heavy due to its internal power supply, which you plug in to charge so no extra cost for batteries which is awesome. The ps3 does feel like it take slightly longer to load a game than the 360, but i havent played the same games on the two consoles, so cant really say but i just feel when i load up burnout paradise i can go make dinner while it loads up, however once it has loaded up…it doesnt load again until you are finished. (it does load but while you are playing)
I do think that when the ps3 starts getting its ps2 games updated and sequels start coming out its games library will outweigh the 360s and i do think it is important to note that the ps3 is not depending on those franchises to launch the console, whereas the 360 held back halo 3 to give gamers a reason to upgrade to the 360. So the ps3 has a good start on new IPs.
In my opinion the ps3 is the best console on the market, i love it, i am actually considering selling some of my comic book collection to buy more games for it which i will need to do because the next gen games are so freeking expensive!!! which means gaming bargains can be had for the Wii but 360 and ps3 games are still expensive but pricing are being to fall and classic games are dropping in price which is awesome… still havent played bioshock or fallout 3 yet… i am ashamed.
in conclusion the Wii wins the console war… the PS3 reins supreme for the hardcore gamer(who refuses to try the Wii out of fear it will be as awesome as everyone says who actually has tried it) amd the 360 will be made pointless in a year or so when microsoft decides it has a newer shinier box to sell us and strips the shelf of everything 360 so its impossible to find and your forced to buy the newer xbox so it can compete with the ps3 as it ages gracefully.
and thats MHO
also i am sorry for the spelling errors etc as it is late and my baby wont goto sleep so i am trying to find something to do which doesnt involve watching endless stupid videos…
Thank you all
Let us know which you choose, as people are obviously keeping score. 
360 owner here. Got it this past Christmas. Never noticed any appreciable drive noise beyond, perhaps, some at system start, so that really shouldn’t be a concern.
Also, 360 controllers are all generally wireless these days just like everyone else’s. I hear they’re slightly less annoying to charge than the PS3 ones, but I just use rechargable AAs so I wouldn’t know.
I’m really not sure why anyone would buy a PS3 unless they desperately also wanted a Bluray player. There are very few exclusives for any platform, really (Curse you, Sega, for Valkyria Chronicles!) and the system just seems expensive for no gain. It hasn’t been managed well, and now that the 360 has worked out its hardware issues, I really don’t see what it has going for it.
You could get the rechargeable battery pack for your 360 controller. I have one and don’t have to worry about rechargeable batteries.
Go with the 360.
The PS3 is a waste of money - a symptom entirely of its shriveled, shrunken library than the console itself. I actually think, if we place the consoles themselves in a vacuum, that the PS3 is my favorite to play on.
The Wii, despite the continued chord of puckering asses, is not for gamers. A few gems aside, its game selection consists of shitty ports, the aforementioned “shovelware,” and gimmicky accessories that I’m sure are fantastic fun but don’t really do it for me.
Former 360 owner, current PS3 owner here. The costs are awfully close, once you add it up. I needed a wireless adapter for the 360, because I didn’t want 75 feet of cable running through the house. That’s $80. The PS3 controllers have built in rechargeable batteries. That’s $20. There’s your $100 price difference right there. And I now have a bluray player. And online play for free for when I rarely and casually want to play a friend online (saving me $50/year). And setting up streaming from my home computer was much easier than with the 360. And the last thing I wanted to do with the 360 was use it as a DVD player (noise and hardware use) - so now I have one less component in my cabinet.
But I tell ya - I wish I would have popped for the 60gb version that plays PS2 games.
Following up on Munch, there are better incentives for the PS3 right now. I bought one at Gamestop, where I got a $50 gift card, which I used to purchase my first game. Best Buy was offering a free controller, which is about $50.
I bought a PS3 because the incentives negated the price difference with the 360, it included a Blueray player, and I like some of the franchises it has (Silent Hill, Metal Gear). I also have a Wii, which I am satisfied with. I wish the Wii would shed it’s “family console” image and get some FPS games. RE4 on the Wii was great, but there are too many games with fluffy bunnies and saccharine. Rabbids are okay, though.
It’s a tragedy they canceled Winter for the Wii because they didn’t think there was a market for it. The little promo bits looked very interesting. Though the processor and graphics for the Wii are very last generation, I’m hopeful we’ll see more “T for Teen” and “M for Mature” games. Mad World and the Silent Hill redux give me hope.