Short Answer: Wait until fall 2007.
Fuller answer: I kind of feel the same way.
I have been a very loyal Nintendo consumer because I love their franchises. NES, GB, SNES, N64, GCN. I also had a PS1 and Dreamcast in there as well as my best friend having a Genesis and SS (plus all the consoles I had). But Nintendo has gone a different route than I personally like and have not been able to reclaim their robust 3rd party support they pretty much lost with the N64. Nintendo + PC has been my staple.
But now I am open game. I love PC games, but hate the upgrade cost and dislike the fact the market is observably shrinking in regards to the number of quality titles. So I am more and more looking to a console to meet my needs. My big criteria have been:
1: Great online support. I am a social gamer at heart; playing with my friend on the West Coast is a big plus.
2: 720p support via VGA. I don't own a TV, I don't watch TV, and I don't plan to buy a TV. But I do have a 21" CRT.
3: KB/MS or other excellent input device. I hate gamepads for FPS. I can do it, but with my thumbs getting worn out from work it is not enjoyable.
4: A software library that caters to my cravings. I tend to like PC like games (deeper gameplay, long replay) and family oriented "Nintendo" games. My staple genres are sports, racing, FPS, and Nintendo 1st party games. I may only buy 10-20 titles (closer to 10) an entire generation and don't want 6 titles of the same game with the compulsory "roster update".
So I too have been watching the race shaping up before I take the plunge. But I am patient -- if I cannot get a 360 for $100 next week I will ride this out until fall 2007 at the earliest. But here are my current thoughts:
Wii: Technologically underwhelming sans Wii-mote. Huge turn off for me. Graphics are not everything, but 640x480 is blurry and has a lot of aliasing and it drives me nuts. Likewise the lack of power (RAM and CPU) hold back a lot of the nuances I have been seeing in a number of new next gen titles. Maybe this will change, but I am in definate wait and see mode. The Wii-mote looks awesome and I would have paid an extra $100 on either real next-gen console to have it packed in. Games... my sore spot with Nintendo. They are gonna have a killer Mario, Zelda, and Metroid. I expect a continuation of great new franchises like Pikmin. But after that... hmmm. They don't have the shere numbers Sony does in regards to internal or external support and have not gone the MS route of funding major dev houses to make exclusive content. I want to see if a) the Wii-mote can be effectively grasped by devs to make truly revolutionary, not gimmicky or unique, input and b) how long strong support lasts.
PS3: Hardware, sans BluRay, I would put on general par with the 360. I like the RSX move for Sony because it opens the door to the PC and got them a lot of quality tools from NV. Some performance areas of the G70/NV40 series concern me looking forward, but overall a huge win for Sony IMO and we are already seeing the fruit in ported FPS. Cell offers some extra exciting potential, but with the changing face of the industry the continued comments about dev tools and the reality of the hardware (8 asymetric cores to maximize potential, segmented memory pools, memory bandwidth concerns) I think the shift to more multiplatform and the 360 lead (and thus lead platform more often than in the past) can hurt some. On the other hand Sony has done the amazing: They are getting quality FPS titles quickly. Getting titles like FEAR, Call of Duty 3, and Rainbow Six: Vegas all in the launch window is GREAT. Toss in R:FoM and the PS3 has a better FPS lineup in the first 3 or 4 months than the entire PS2. Games in general is a hard one for me. I had a Playstation, but many of the Playstation exclusives never really interested me. e.g. Resident Evil. I didn't even bother to get it on the GCN. I have rented them but they just don't do anything for me. MGS is another one. The big pull for me on the PS are games like Gran Tourisimo, Madden, and so forth. And now they have FPS, although exclusives still look to be rare.
Online for free is a plus, but I want to see how support, features, and quality pan out. I am willing to pay for a great online experience. Sony excited me with their support for KB/MS and leaving it up to devs, but so far nuttin'. HUGE bummer. I have a PS2 controller and I hate it for FPS... I even like the GCN Wavebird better (egads!) for console FPS. No VGA is a killer (CRT only); I could pay an extra $70 or so for a Component-to-VGA plug, but with the news of downscaling issues I could get screwed so this is a definate wait and see. BluRay is nice, but I don't watch a ton of movies and have no intention of investing in yet another optical format. $200 for BluRay, for me, is a waste.
Xbox 360: I agree it has been gaining mindshare and momentum. Of my big 4 they nail 3. They have solid VGA support (only a few games don't auto-fake-letterbox 720p on a 4:3 aspect monitor; and those can be squashed). Online is great. The game library is looking hot. MS has a smaller internal studio size than Nintendo and Sony, but instead of $300M on a Rare like purchase, they have instead spent $20-$30M for a ton of titles from PROVEN dev houses. Gears of War, Lost Planet, Alan Wake, Bioshock, Wolfenstien, Mass Effect, Too Human, Blue Dragon, Lost Odessey, Splinter Cell 5, PGR4, Ninja Gaiden 2, Crackdown, and so forth. MS also has a lot of big guns coming internally like Halo 3, Halo Wars, Fable 2, Banjo 3, and so forth. MS ain't weak in the games. And due to their early launch they are the first with budget games. For months you have been able to get quality titles like PGR3 (with Forza Motorsport) for $30. The current library also has a lot of winners like GoW, Rainbow Six: Vegas, SC
A, CoD2, Oblivion, GRAW, FNR3, Kameo, SC
A, Dead Rising, Prey, Viva Pinata, Saint's Row, MotoGP, DoA4, FEAR, PGR3, Madden, NBA 2K, Condemned, LotR: Battle for Middle Earth 2, and so on. I mention all of those just to mention all the genres being filled with quality titles. Still thin in some areas, but a little something for everyone. Toss in XBLA and MS has really done a nice job in their first 12 months.
MS still has the propensity for stinkers for software (I guess Allard wants to follow the EA model). Seeing them delay titles like FM2 is a good sign in my books, although seeing how certain franchises are being positioned for times rather than features (FM2 e.g. is missing a lot of features I think should be manditory) is frustrating, but a sign of the times. MS's overall market share though has positioned them to get titles like Assassin's Creed and Brother in Arms 3 as well as removing the "exclusive period" for games like GTAIV. MS's continued efforts to support and woo 360-PC development seems to be working, and support for the 360 gamepad and whatnot on the PC is a nice perk. They also seem to be bringing quality perephrials like the FF Wheel to market... but this brings up ANOTHER complaint about MS: Totally unreasonable perephrial pricing. $40 for a wired controller? $150 for a FF Wheel with 270 degree turn and no shifter?
And MS's stance on KB/MS is plain irritating. Why should I have to buy a $500 GPU and a $100 PSU every 2 years for a $50 game? Just add a stupid Live filter and be done with it... or release a TB Gamepad (e.g. the rumored FPS gamepad). And it is not only cost--gamepads are not ideal for FPS style games (just watch a video of someone playing) and for people with repetitive stress injuries to the thumb (like myself) they are just dang annoying.
And to top it off, the Crash-Box 360 has me holding out. 65nm with a $100 price drop + large back library of $20 titles + some apps that actually push the hardware? Sounds MUCH better than 3 rings of death! The fact the PS3 kiosk crashed on me has me concerned about both consoles
And while peeps may praise MS tools, and I know Xenos was out in August 2005 and devs need to adapt to tiling, the fact many issues (like draw call overhead) and tiling still persist concerns me. They have all these devs making exclusives... either using middleware that isn't 360 specific or not pushing the hardware. Nice to see a title like SC
A using MSAA, but I am hoping that the fall 2007 / spring 2008 titles built with Xenos in mind show us different, because if not it looks like MS made a huge blunder on the GPU. I think Xenos has a lot to offer and has a ton of room to grow and has a great featureset, and eDRAM is important for cost reduction, but if devs are not gonna target the hardware then you might as well have gone a more traditional route. Same thing applies to Sony and Cell with 3rd parties.
In summary: Wait until fall 2007.
