Which gaming system should we get?

[danceboy]

I don't play video games. Neither does ricevermicelli. So we don't have a game system. But we're about to have two kids (5 & 2) that will be wanting to cling to, and climb over, a mother who will be trying to recover from surgery and possibly chemo. And who could hopefully be distracted by a video game console.

So what would people recommend? Both for a system, and for a few games. Something that doesn't grow with the kids is not a negative in my book (it might not be a positive either, but I'm certainly not willing to pay much for it).

ricevermicelli wants us to get something that can play netflix, but that doesn't seem to limit it much (unless some systems do it better than others?). The ps3, wii, and xbox 360 all claim to speak WPA2, so we should be ok there (unless one of them is lying...).

Also, anything that I don't even know enough to be thinking about?

Comments

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

so, wii, ps3, xbox 360...

wii has cool controls that respond to waving around and some VERY well done games aimed at kids of all ages. netflix playback is poor (low rez - you won't get anything nearly HD out of it). has some unique games that cannot be found anywhere else, but as usual, games get ported.

ps3 is probably the BEST blu-ray player on the market (if that's important to you) - does all audio and video codecs of note and is up to date and updateable nicely. has some good games with magic wavy around controllers, some good stuff for kids plus a camera thing to track SOME non controller motion, and some unique games to the console, otherwise MOST games can also be found on the xbox 360 as well, for both most in HD. NOTE: really Really REALLY good netflix experience with no added monthly rate. can also play at least amazon, and probably hulu, and others (i haven't checked out those signup/pay-for services)

xbox 360 - probably the best gaming experience for a console at this time; kinect feature can track you doing all kinds of stuff, WITHOUT controllers, and i do generally like their joy pads. less with the controllers that go all wavy like the prior two. can play and stream several video services buy you have to buy monthly/yearly "gold" service to do so (additional cost). some very good games overall, but few unique to the console compared to the more interesting (to me) that Sony has. cannot currently play blu-ray. acceptable dvd player.

all three can download games from a service. i think the xbox setup is more slick for that. all three have vast USED libraries of games you can buy relatively cheap from a variety of sources, and many of the older games are VERY cheap new in box.

there's also "apple tv" if you want more streaming services, esp from a networked computer (esp if you have apple, they're friendlier for that; so you might be able to stream anything you'd ordinarily view on a mac to the apple tv box, and then tv...), which might cover all streaming services nicely, and then you just choose the best gaming system.

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