THE ATROCITY HAS BEEN COMMITTED!!! Thanks for everyone's recommendations!

The atrocity here being that the PS3 isn't your clear choice!

The 360 is poop.. and if you are looking for party games.. the Kinect is poop on top of poop..

I don't own consoles myself, but from reports of people who do, I think you want a Wii. The Wii's controller encourages whole-body-movement, and is well suited for getting people behind's up during a party. It also has games that make use of exactly this feature. Note that the price will go up though if you buy additional controllers.

The 360 has better hardware and better games, but the type of the games that the 360 excels at can also be played on PC (perhaps not the exact the same game if it was a console-only release, but a similar one).

Usually I don't recommend Wiis, but it does what you want, and most advantages of the 360 are things you don't need (because you have a PC).

I think it's mainly dependant on what his friends have.

All of my friends have the bawks and if I didn't hate consoles with passion, that would be my pick.

The Wii seems to be one of those 'good in theory' consoles these days. The number of games sold per console sold is by far the lowest of the three current gen consoles and I don't really hear of much on the horizon for it either. It took off, sure. But mostly with non-gamers who have moved onto the next trend now.

As for the 360, the marketplace is where it's going to be at. All the downloadable indie games (including many not available on PC) are where your little bro (depending on his age) is going to find most of his enjoyment. But yeah there are issues with transferring those games onto a replacement 360 should yours die. Something which is hard to forgive in a console with the life expectancy of the 360.

In my experience:

PS3 - Great for movies (blu ray) and for mature gamers. Depending on the model, should support up to 4 players (the controllers at least can be identified from between 1 and 4 just like the Wii ones) and you can't go wrong with Ico/Wanda (both of which should now also be available directly from the PSN store).

I use mine mainly for movies, Hulu JP and RPGs (Tales of series, etc.).

Wii - Great for the more casual gamer, or the younger gamer. It does games and gimmicks aimed at the non-gamer (Wii Fit, etc.)

My wife and children use the Wii far more than me (I use it mainly for the Game Cube backwards compatibility, but I hear newer models don't have that). They mainly play Pokemon themed games, Kirby games and Animal Crossing.

360 - Too big. Too expensive. Too many reports of hardware failures. No interesting games. I haven't purchased one, nor do I ever intend to.

Yeah cause everyone loves that system...
I have all 3 the wii is the least used it's almost purely a party system, The PS3 comes next it's mostly used to watch B-Ray movies, the xbox is the most used with movies watched on it multiplatform games that I don't want on PC (action games mostly but also platformers).

The other thing you have to consider is the online/multiplayer gaming side nowadays..
Wii - you need to know peoples details for 99% of games
PS3 - You have SEN(the new name of PSN probably to get away from the bad press last year) it's free but most comments floating around complain it's missing... something... SEN+ offers free games etc for a monthly fee
Xbox - Xbox live widely regarded as THE best online service on consoles, a Gold account is required for most features

The Wii console is probably the best party console out there, so if that is what you are aiming for, Wii feels like the best choice. Games like Super Smash Bros Brawl, Mario Kart Wii, New Super Mario Bros & Wii Sport seem to be instant hits, no matter who you play with. Also, Wii virtual console has a few excellent party games as well (like the TG16 versions of Bomberman).

There are quite a few great "serious" games as well, like Zelda, Mario Galaxy, Okami, Metroid, Punch Out, Muramasa: the daemon blade, Fire Emblem: Radiant dawn and also a perfect backwards compatibility to GameCube, which means that you can play gems such as Eternal Darkness, Viewtiful Joe, Fire Emblem: path of radiance, Ikaruga, Time splitters 2-3 & Super Monkey Ball.

Using my DS as a benchmark, my bro and nephew like games like Pokemon, Metal Slug, N Plus, Mario Kart, Okamiden, Kirby, The World Ends With You and Mortal Kombat. While a lot of them are not multiplayer, I think I can settle for a few singleplayer-only games if their gameplay falls in line with these games. Do you think the Wii has a lot of them?

Eh? What? You log into the new console open your profile and select transfer licenses it takes 2 minutes :S You can even do it on the xbox website if you want and queue the downloads up from there too.

Yep, GameCube games runs just as well on a Wii as on a GC (they even have slowdown in the same places ;) ). You need GC controllers to play GC games, and also a GC memory card, but those can be found relatively cheap these days. Also, a large portion of all Wii games supports GC controllers, so people who dislike motion controls can use those instead.


And yes the Wii online interface is awkward. You get a code which you use to connect to your friends with (some games comes with separate codes, while some connects through your consoles own code). Many (most?) games allows for random matches, but there are usually no proper server lists

Whatever you do - do not under any circumstances buy a 360

Umm the S is smaller than my friends ps3slim (and much smaller than my old PS3) also do people only look at the first 2 years of the xbox? Failure rate of the S and the 2 revisions before it have been at or below industry standard...

I've heard of people having problems with certain titles. Maybe that has been resolved since?