Q: i just bought my 14 year old son a wii like 2 years ago and he wants to sell it for one of the others. he is focusing on the 360 but doesnt know yet. i just want to know which console is the best out of the two. hes lookin for ALOT of gameplay and great playability. he wants a console that will also CONTINUE making more adult games like grand theft auto b/c, well thats what he likes, and theres been something goin around sayin that the Wii will no longer have games like resident evil coming out for, but just turning into another gamecube, and only making family friendly games. what should we buy for him?
A: The ps3 is the most powerful console. It runs on a Cell broadband engine which essentially is a 3.2 ghz gore with seven 3.2 ghz co-processors. The xbox360 runs on a cpu with three 3.2 ghz cores. The ps3's graphics chip is also somewhat better, made by Nvidia and it has its own library of graphic effects. The xbox's gpu relies on the Direct X 9 graphical library which is becoming outdated by the newer Direct X 10. Within 2 or 3 years this will be a problem for the xbox. In terms of overall computing power the ps3 is about twice as powerful. The xbox is cheaper, and has a slightly larger library of games. There is a bit of a myth carried over from the days of ps3's launch that the xbox has far more games than ps3. In reality it has maybe 1 1/2 times as many, and both have more exclusives than anyone could possibly buy all of. The ps3 has a motion-sensing controller similar to the wii remote but not as high-tech. PS3's online service, PSN, is not as elaborate as Xbox live but is free. Playstation Home which should finally be released by next spring is also to be free. Most recent games have been released for both consoles. The xbox has had exclusives like Halo and Gears of War. The PS3 has exclusives like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Warhawk. Games for ps3 are on average bigger than xbox games, because they are on blu-ray discs, which have either 25gb or 50gb capacity. The xbox has games that are on 9gb dvd's. Many multiplatform titles have had to put compressed archives on the xbox versions that install to the hard drive. In the future many xbox games may have to be multi-disc. The ps3 officially supports installation of any linux operating system, so that it can be used as a computer. The graphics chip doesn't work with this though so it can't be used to emulate other consoles, except some older ones. The price of an xbox plus an 1 year xbox live subscription is about the same as the price of a ps3. Because of this the ps3 is the better deal, unless your son really wants to play Halo rather than Metal Gear Solid. There's no difference for titles like Grand Theft Auto except that the ps3 has more space on the disc, and in the future will have the better version of most multiplatform titles. The Wii is not really a next-generation console, it was kind of a money grab by Nintendo using a relatively weak system and a clever new control device. Because it sold best to people who wanted the little bubble gum games like bowling and Mario Kart, that's the kind of games they're making. It hasn't got much time left, so they need as much money as they can get before it's obsolete. The controller is the only next-gen part of the Wii, and a few days ago it was announced Nintendo is being sued for stealing the technology used to make it.