Wii sales for February trounce Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (I bought a 360 and a Wii)

I posted on this topic about 6 weeks ago or so. Since then, with your advice, I bought the XBOX 360. A little while later I purchased a Wii on order for a family package. Both units alone come close to what a PS3 go for. I'm happy with the XBOX 360 which is my primary unit. I use it on a 52" HD screen and the graphics are awesome. I use the TV a lot more now and really feel it's giving a great return on the investment for the entertainment value. I also set up the secured wireless network which works flawlessly.

The Wii is actually on order and will arrive in a couple of weeks so I haven't used it yet. Gamestop offers this package at a fairly reasonable price for those interested.

So anyways, I'm pretty happy with the XBOX 360. I joined a couple of those rental sites like Gamefly and Blockbuster and I'm still trying to decide which one I'll still with.

My son has pretty much taken over the console on the weekend when we let him play for two hours. He whips me at COD3 but I can still get him on the other ones once in a while. Warning to dads, don't get your ego involved with this, you'll lose every time! LOL...

I love my 360. If you've got patience, try Splinter Cell: Double Agent. Or try Viva Pinata. Sounds weird, but that game is like crack, super addicting.

People I know who've used both rave about the Wii.

My Son's PS2 is dying a slow death (laser). I went online to see how much a PS3 would cost.

Six hundred dollars. One controller.

No thanks.

Sony's new PlayStation 3 video game has gone from top dog to underdog in record time.

I'm in the Sony camp (for now) but when did the PS3 ever claim top dog status?

Sony has done an absolute pratfall over the first hurdle by issuing a system that costs a king's ransom with very few games available. Conspiracy theories are cheap and easy but there can be no doubt that PS3 'shortages' were intentional and meant to pump up demand and generate free media coverage, especially given the long lead time prior to the PS3 launch.

Compounding their problems, of course, is the dark horse in white clothing known as the Wii. Derided as an irrelevant successor to the irrelevant GameCube, it has thrust Nintendo back into the thick of the game wars. I can't tell you how many people - most of them lifelong non-gamers and well out of the traditional demographic - have surprised me by telling me they've purchased a Wii. Hyperactive button-mashing and memorizing an encyclopedia of moves are out; physically simulating a golf or tennis swing is in. Its ease of use and short learning curve are its trump card. Beyond some gee-whiz graphics that PC gamers have already approached or equalled with their ATI and nVidia adapters there is little to recommend the PS3 to PS2 loyalists and/or other platform devotees.

The final irony is that Microsoft, once dismissed as an interloper, continues to retain and build its user base. Its fee-based online service was derided as unfair by the PS2 community who had enjoyed free online gaming via the purchase of multiplayer-capable titles. PS2 users discovered to their chagrin that a free service meant that all the kiddies would crash the party. Games and sessions were frequently ruined by Junior teamkilling and ignoring strategy. Similarly, voice chat became more bane than boon thanks to a chorus of whiny boy sopranos. Obviously the ESRB ratings publishers are so proud of mean nothing to a huge number of absentee, ignorant and overindulgent parents.

In hindsight, a paid service won't keep all the too-young-uns from showing up (plenty of parents willing to foot the bill) but it is, as the economists say, a barrier to entry.

My affinity for RTS games means that the PC will remain my preferred platform but when the snowflakes return and prices have dropped some more I may very well end up as an another XBOX 360 convert.

My Son's PS2 is dying a slow death (laser).

You might want to try this.

For an extra $30 you can get a Wii and 7 games:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5303671

Sorry - still only 1 controller tho :)

Love the 360. XBOX Live is a great service, too. I've downloaded quite a few add-ons to Oblivion, plus the arcade games. Haven't rented any HD movies yet, but I'm sure I will be doing that too once the library grows.

Another bonus was getting the HD-DVD player for only $200. With the growing margin of homes with XBOX vs. PS3, it seems to me the HD format war is decidedly in favor of HD-DVD.

The Wii basically brought the old-time fun back into games. The controller really frees you, but how well it does depends on the game. It's awesome in Zelda, but disappointing in Red Steel (makes a good pointer for FPS, but the swordfighting is lame). Read game reviews or rent before buying.

And after buying a few $50 games you might still find yourself playing Wii Sports all the time. It's just addictive.

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The Wii blows the 360 and the PS3 away... if you like sitting on your own playing first person shooters, and need the most powerful graphics to enjoy a game, the 360 or PS3 will suit you nicely.

If you like to actually have fun, the Wii is the way to go. If you are only going to get one for your family, make it the Wii.

No other system will have grandma and grandson playing games together and laughing their butts of the entire time they are doing it. As my mother and son were doing this past weekend. Its simple, elegant, intuitive, fun and priced right.

Wii is going to clearly outsell every other console in terms of units installed this generation, its not even going to be close. They have already sold world wide about 60% of the total of 360s, and the 360 has had a years head start.

I've played all 3 consoles, and nothing out there comes close to the Wii in terms of just pure fun and appeal. They are still selling out within a few hours of a shipment coming in here, 4 months after launch... Big N just can't ship em fast enough for demand, and Super Mario, Pokemon and Metroid aren't even released yet.....

Compounding their problems, of course, is the dark horse in white clothing known as the Wii. Derided as an irrelevant successor to the irrelevant GameCube, it has thrust Nintendo back into the thick of the game wars. I can't tell you how many people - most of them lifelong non-gamers and well out of the traditional demographic - have surprised me by telling me they've purchased a Wii.

This is exactly WHY Nintendo is going to OWN this generation in terms of installed base. You see Big N knows how to make MONEY... they have always made money.. while people bashed the Cube, the original Xbox only outsold it by a small percentage, and MS lost money with every sale, while Big N was making money with every cube sold.

Big N realised properly, that fighting for the fastest hardware was a fools errand. They let MS and Sony fight that stupid battle, while they have sat back and made fortunes by trying to broaden the appeal of games. Why limit yourself to the "hard core" gamer? Sell a hell of a lot more stuff (and when you are making a profit on the SYSTEM, as Big N is doing with the WII at a $250 price tag) when you have a much broader market appeal and you don't need to sell a gagillion games to make up your losses.

Wii is also showing a lot of folks who wrote off the Cube that there were some seriously enjoyable games for that purple machine that they missed if they didn't own one. Thanks to being fully compatible. Lots of folks with Wii's are picking up used Cube ware for a few bucks and finding out, that "failure" of a system, had some very noteworthy fair.

Like star wars, Rogues Squadron II will hold up against anything you can find, and that was a Cube launch title, 6+ years old and still stands up strong... Metroid Prime unquestionably a must have if you enjoy FPS.... PIKMIN/PIKMIN2 unique, enjoyable and only Cube game... Resident Evil 4.. I don't care if you played the PS2 port, you definately owe it to yourself to play the Cube version and see what you missed. etc etc etc.

Sony and MS and many other gamer press grossly misread the market, and still to this day underestimate Nintendo... with stupid comments like "the wii is an impulse buy." Oh really? How is something that is SOLD OUT as soon as the shipment comes in an "impulse buy"? I didn't stand in line before the store opened with 50 other folks over 3 months after the launch of the system to get one of the few that were shipped on an "impulse". "It's nothing more than 2 gamecube's duct taped together"... Yes the Wii is not going to touch the other systems in terms of pure hardware power, but the Cube was not nearly as weak of a system as some of these folks believe, and as anyone who's owned a Cube and a Wii can tell you, the Wii is far more than 2 cubes mushed together... its far far more than the sum of its parts.

Serious hard core gamers will own all 3, because that's what they do. Moderate core will probably own 2 systems, Wii and an X or a PS3... but many many many more folks will own just a Wii than either of those 2 other sets combined.

Big N definately has fixed the issues they had with Cube, 3rd party support is solid as hell and growing all the time with the Wii... Big N learned from its missteps of the Cube, and has thrown down a gauntlet so large that it won't be seriously challenged until the next generation consoles begin to appear.

Walmart has PS3 "STARTER" bundle for $736.00 !!

Insane.

Well, I think the 360 is a fine machine for what it does. For me it is a nice, simple plug-n-play console that gives me PC-style gaming without the hassles of the PC. I've been playing a lot of Project Gotham Racing III, which it came with, and is very good. Just picked up Call of Duty 3, which looks and plays very nice. Yeah, I could play these sorts of games on my PC, but I'd have to ensure my hardware is up to date, find some way to get the picture to the big screen, and probably still wouldn't have the nice wireless controller.

Having said all that, once the supply stabilizes, I could definitely see picking up a Wii - it's a very cool concept, and Nintendo always did understand the concept of fun gaming better than most. And that's what gaming's all about, right, having fun? And it's true, chasing after the fastest hardware on consoles is a fool's errand, anyway - the hardware they can afford to put in any of them pales next to the best PC-based hardware.

My son got me turned on to the COD3 online XBox community. I'm addicted ;-)

Buddy of mine had the Wii COD3 version. Said it was "lame" and no online support so he sold it on EBay.

Get the 500$ model at Gamestop and give them the PS2 for a trade and it'll only cost 400$.

It's logical to assume that but the numbers of Blu-ray players and discs is taking off compared to HD DVD.

My PS3 just blew up today...no video output, won't boot...who knows. Sony is sending me a box to send it back to them. After just ten days it stops working. I knew something was wrong with the video output cuz after just a couple of days, it was hard to get it booted up.

Now I have to start Tiger Woods 07 all over again...!!!

Oh no! Well, if it helps, I've read numerous reports on the unreliability of the XBOX 360, too. They've recently extended the warantee for many of the older 1st series XBOXs. Since the XBOX 360 was out there for a year before I bought one, I had the benefit of reading the forums and looking for complaints. Every one of them said bascially "Buy the extended warantee for when it blows up in your face" - lol!

So this isn't a unique PS3 problem. I think the XBOXs have a fairly large percentage of unit failures. When I bought mine, I made certain I bought the "replacement warantee" and not just the extended warantee.

Any chance you can still get one for your unit? Just a thought.

In 3 years, even if my unit doesn't crash, my son will have probabaly annexed it by then and it will have vanished into his room. So either way it will be gone...lol!