Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Need advise on picking PS3, XBOX 360, Wii, or ?

Both my kids got there start to reading from wanting to play more advanced games. Both my 9yr old and 5 yr old play Pokemon and they can have some fun swapping characters from their DS's to Battle revoltuion on the Wii. Don't forget you get to download (buy) a mass of old games on the Wii virtual console.

If a quick game of something is more your style, the Wii is it. I have been looking at the 360 and PS3 and most of the games are so much more involved, I don't have the time to play them. I had a hard enough time getting through Twilight Princess with my schedule.

a six year old? Wow. That's a little young for the ps3 or xbox. Not sure if there are many kid friendly games on those systems. I have the ps3 and like it a lot. For a kid i would recommend te WII though. I hear there are a lot of kid friendly games on there plus he will get a workout.

Thank you for all the input from everyone. If there are various hardware/accessory options on the Wii, games you would definitely recommend, and place to buy, etc, please let me know.

For some of the older/downloaded games you may need the classic controller. The system only comes with one remote and nunchuck so you will need another set of those for head to head play. The best deal for an extra remote is to buy WiiPlay, it comes with a remote and some more games you son might like. WiiFit is also a fun game my 5 yr old likes to play and there are a few snowbaording/skiing games that make use of this controller.

If you ever venture into playing Gamecube games on the Wii, you will need a gamecube controller, this can be bought, in place of the classic controller, but the classic controller plugs into the remote for semi-wireless play, the Gamecube controller is wired and only has about 6ft of cable.

There are a ton of accesories you can buy, but the only ones I have ever been interested in are the rechargeable battery packs for the remotes. I presently just use rechargeable batteries so you may want to keep a few of them on hand.

Be sure to have at least two controllers with nunchucks (sp?). I haven't tried any other gadgets like zappers, though we do have the balance board.

I recently saw a battery charging/cradle system that looks pretty good. I'm regularly recharging AA batteries for the remotes, so I'm considering that charging option.

Games? Mario Kart might be a good start. The included wheel is cool but really not necessary. My son likes to use it.

Be careful of getting games that are too complex for the age range. Assuming that you've got a wireless network, you can download "Virtual Console" games using the Nintendo channel when you connect the Wii to your network.

That also brings up the storage issue. Last week, coincidentally, Nintendo released a system update that supports higher capacity SD cards. The internal storage is pretty limited, and the support for SD cards had been limited to 2GB. Now it's 32GB. So you might want to get a card if you don't already have one.

EDIT: Jay beat me to the Send button.

Young kids seem to gravitate to the Wii. If you want to pick amongst the 3, one way to choose is get one that most of his friends have. That'll make it easier to share games (and cost).

That being said, I'm with you regarding the 'iffiness' of introducing kids to video games. I have the DS, PSP, Wii, Gamecube, and PS3. But I'm the major player because I know how addictive these can be and the last thing I want is a battle w/ video games and my kids. I've let my kids play Wii but only turn it on w/ a pre-agreed time limit so that there's not fight to turn it off.

My 6 yr old daughter also asks me for her own DS often. I told her she can get one when she can explain to me what it is. She doesn't really know because her group of friends don't play it and I don't play it in front of her often. Don't know how long I can keep that going though...