The 360 was release a year ahead of the competition, allowing it to sell roughly 8 million systems before the other systems were even released. It got off to a rocky start, and has had reliability issues up the ying yang, but it's in good shape to beat out Sony, and Halo 3's arrival will no doubt help.
pros - xbox live is well established, classic arcade, gamertags, achievement points, excellent graphics.
cons - horrible reliability issues, dated controller, classic arcade can't compete with the virtual console, messy implementation of backwards compatibility.
Wii
Released on Nov.19th 2006, the Wii has some serious momentum, and is catching up with the 360 at an incredible rate, and at the same time is leaving the PS3 in the dust.
pros - motion sensor control, channels (weather, opera web browser, news, etc.), Miis, flawless backwards compatibility, virtual console already better than classic arcade and is growing constantly, best price.
cons - graphics not as good as they could be.
PS3
The third Playstation was release alongside the Wii in some parts of the world. The fact that its true competitor (360) launched a year in advance, and that the PS3 won't be available in Europe until spring 2007 means that Sony's nowhere close to catching up with the 360.
pros - potential to eventually outshine the 360's graphics, apparently more reliable than 360, online gameplay free, if you want a blu-ray player it's a good deal.
cons - every feature of the system is a lower quality imitation of what the competition is doing, no rumble in controller, too expensive, falls short of expectations graphically, less promising game roster than competition.
