At the time of writing this, I think the most popular consoles bought from the shops (I have no statistics in front of me) are Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii. I happen to own them all and have been playing with them all, so here's my opinion. This blog post only scratches the surface and is very short about the cons and pros of the consoles as "short" is my style anyway. Yep, I admit it, I'm not a professional writer. And I'm not a fan of any console, I only see them as tools for having fun. I'm sure many disagree with this blog post as I have seen various web pages and forum topics comparing those three consoles. Anyway, in my opinion, Xbox 360 is the best of these three for many reasons.

An Xbox 360 user has a friends list which shows what people are doing and you can send them messages or invite them to play a game (PS3 also has a friends list, but it's slow to use in my opinion, Wii's friends list can't used be during games). An Xbox 360 profile shows which games someone owns and gives a rough picture how good or long someone has played the game (PS3 now has trophies which is kind of an equivalent to achievements, Wii has no such thing). Xbox 360 has the best games (PS3 also has for example COD4 and GTAIV but it has no UNO and other Xbox Live Arcade games, Wii's games seem to cost approximately the same as X360 and PS3 games here in Finland so why would you buy Wii games with worse graphics). Xbox 360 has the best controllers and headsets (PS3 controller sucks and you can only buy third party headsets and the one I have for PS3 takes the sound too far away, Wii controllers are OK and innovative). You can buy game content money cards also known as Microsoft Points for Xbox 360 without a credit card (but for PS3 in Finland you can't buy budget games or game content without a credit card as far as I know and I don't trust in credit cards as even Finnish credit cards have been cracked or something like that, Wii has Nintendo Points cards). Xbox 360 has nice graphics and sounds and you can use for example a VGA or HDMI cable for graphics depending which console version you have (PS3 graphics and sounds are fine also, the best Wii can do with graphics is using a component cable for graphics). With Xbox 360 you can listen to music from a CD, your Xbox 360 hard drive, iPod or from your computer if you happen to have the Windows Media Center in Windows XP, but I don't have it and I don't know about the later editions of Windows (with PS3 you can also listen to music from a CD, from the PS3 hard drive and from your computer if you allow sharing in Windows Media Player and your other Windows settings are correct, with Wii I haven't found a way listen to music). With Xbox 360 you can watch DVD movies (which also possible with PS3, but not with Wii). All three consoles have some things in common, for example you can download free demos and videos to all of them.

There are some good things about PS3 and Wii also. Xbox 360 malfunctions a lot and scratches the game discs, but not for all people. My first console had the red ring of death approximately in a year and was replaced for another Xbox 360, which had the red ring of death in a few hours I started using it, so I now have my third Xbox 360 which scratched my COD4 and GTAIV discs, so my third Xbox 360 has been in repair twice already this year. The reason why I also have PS3 and Wii is that I'm kind of addicted to playing online and I don't want to reward Microsoft by buying a second Xbox 360 in case my main Xbox 360 stops working again and I also wanted to see in real life what's it like to own different game consoles and will my opinion change in time about the fact which of them is the best one and that opinion hasn't changed. PS3 and Wii are much more quiet than Xbox 360. Wii is the smallest of the three consoles. With PS3 you can watch Blu-Ray movies (which have approximately the same quality as HD DVD movies) in addition to normal DVD movies (for Xbox 360 you need to buy an external HD DVD player, but unfortunately the support for HD DVD format has been stopped by major companies and I haven't heard about an external Blu-Ray drive for Xbox 360). I have also been able to record Finnish television programs and convert them into MPEG-2 format and transfer them to PS3 and then watch them (With Xbox 360 I haven't been able to transfer and watch Finnish television programs in MPEG-2 format). PS3 and Wii can be used with a wireless network without any additional equipment, but with my core Xbox 360 I would need to buy an additional device for that, but as it is my main game console I have connected it with an Ethernet wire to my DSL modem (sometimes I also use a router when I have connected more than one machine to the Internet at the same time, but that's another thing). With PS3 you can install another operating system and I'm using PSUbuntu, but I don't use it much. With Wii controller you can wave it in the air or aim at enemies, but at least my hands get tired and I need to stand up (if I need a workout I can go e.g. out or to a gym or swimming hall). PS3 and Wii both have a web browser. Wii has Channels and in the beginning I used the Weather, News and Voting channels daily and then I got bored with them. Wii has avatars called Miis, but I don't need them (Xbox 360 is going to get its own avatars in about three weeks from now).

So, that's it. Those were some of the reasons why I think Xbox 360 is the best of the three consoles at the moment. Feel free to comment, I'm sure we disagree or agree totally or partially. :)