Additionally, you can't pigeon-hole the 360 as a machine with simply GoW and Halo. Like several people have pointed out, there are dozens of different and interesting games you just won't get on the PC. Give me Gears, Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Crackdown, Viva Pinata, Kameo on PC. Can't get them? Suddenly your "PC with a controller" doesn't add up.
Heck, the PC lags across the board in most situations. Take sports... the consoles almost always win here, and by a wide margin. The PC of Madden is still clinging to last gen versions and control scheme you cannot even customize the botton arrangement. Racing games is another genre where consoles are pretty robust in regards to quality and quantity. And entire genres and markets, like the Nintendo/Rare style games, are basically missing from the PC. Traditionally I have been a PC+Nintendo gamer. I have been on that path since the middle 80s. The PC has never been able to fill a number of genres and niches, and the PC is becoming much more constricted in both the number of AAA titles as well as the general number of titles. And with upgrade costs being what they are, and consoles adapting a more aggressive technology curve and adapting a lot of PC technologies, it becomes more and more difficult for me to justify a PC upgrade (MB, CPU, Memory, GPU, Power Supply) every 2 or 3 years to play the next big game. In 2003 I purchased a Radeon 9700 & 2.533GHz Intel CPU and 512MB of memory and had a blast with BF1942, and not much else. As HL2 approached in 2004 I upgraded to a 6800GT, 1 GB memory, and a faster HDD. And then 2005 came and FEAR crapped all over my PC, with Oblivion, GRAW, and so forth laughing at my PC. Crysis looks sweet, but in 2007 my 2.5 year old rig from a GPU/Memory standpoint won't hardly make a dent. Why is it everytime I want to play a new PC game I have to do upgrades that exceed the cost of a PS3?
Consoles now have HDDs, relatively robust memory architectures, output to HD displays, and have extremely robust and user friendly online networks that focus on making a great gaming experience. My only significant gripe are the controls, or more accurately lack of KB/MS support. Wii tries to resolve some of those issues in making intuitive and interactive controls a lower learning curve and more fun, but at this point most games tend to be more "different" than "better". Wiggling the controller back and forth to do the same thing as pushing A on another platform doesn't strike me as intuitive as a
gamer but I am not longer Nintendo's core audiance. I also think their design has thus far compromised more traditional/proven design mechanics with the hope new ones will emerge that are better as well as totally new experiences. This MAY happen, but no one knows yet. For me, personally, different is irrelevant. Better is important. The N64 had the analog stick, which was clearly better. The SNES added bumpers and some extra buttons in an easily to access fashion, which was clearly better. The Dualshock had 2 analog sticks and rumble, which was clearly better than the original PS1 controller. These all immediately opened more buttons to interact with the world in new ways as well as new input/output features--while not compromising the tried and true. Wii kind of dumps that paradigm and is finding its way at this point. It absolutely appeals to the masses, but as a gamer who doesn't want "simpler" but wants "better" I have questions. Metroid 3 looks very promising from an FPS perspective, but on the other hand when will you see more killer apps? That is my big dig against Nintendo, one which no one can answer quite yet. The GCN sold equally well in its first few months and still had issues getting robust 3rd party support and Nintendo was just painfully slow bringing software to market. These reasons and 480p with little to no AA really just make me throw my arms up and the Wii launch software didn't get me too excited either. Zelda is a GCN title, so what is there even worth thinking about for more than a minute at $249 + software. I paid that much for the N64 and Mario 64 (one of the best games ever IMO) and $199 for a SNES and SMW (another awesome, ground breaking game with depth and longevity). Then again I don't own a 360 or PS3 either... and do have a PC... sooo...
Dig, it all really comes down to the games you guys want to play now and looking into the future as well as will the hardware meet your immediate needs as well as grow in the direction you, as a game play, see yourself going. You mention your son playing FPS, would he like to do so on a gamepad? Do you guys all want to sit on a couch and play together? Together online? How important is privacy and controls to you as a parent? How does the PC/Wii/PS3/360 fit into this?
