Systems Showdown

Selecting the right gaming consoles for your collection can be a daunting undertaking, one further complicated by considerations of cost, popularity, and audience. To help inform your purchasing decisions, below is a summary of how the three major seventh-generation consoles—Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3)—stack up against one another in these areas.

At $249, Nintendo's Wii console, which features backward compatibility with Nintendo's previous console, the GameCube, is the cheapest of all three consoles.

There are currently multiple Xbox 360 systems in production: an Arcade system that comes with a memory card instead of a hard drive (at the expense of backward compatibility and the option to save downloadable content), a 60GB Pro edition, and a 120GB Elite edition. They range in cost from $179 to $399, respectively. Additional optional costs to consider are the $50 Xbox Live subscription fee and $50 cost of a wireless controller.

Sony produces two versions of the PS3: one with an 80GB hard drive ($399) and one with a 160GB hard drive ($499).

Games for the Wii are generally priced between $30 and $50, while those for the Xbox 360 and PS3 fall in the range of $30–$60. Of course librarians can always buy used titles at brick-and-mortar game stores or through e-tailers like Amazon or buygamescheaponline.com, sometimes for a savings of as much as 60 percent off the original price.

The Wii is this country's best-selling console (22 million units for 2008, according to vgchartz.com), followed by the Xbox 360 (17 million units) and PS3 (eight million units). The Wii has also experienced the highest recent surge in sales. According to the NPD Group, 753,000 of its units were sold in February 2009, a 74 percent rise from that same period the previous year.

But sales are just one way to gauge a system's popularity. The Nielsen Company recently measured console usage time and determined that, for the period January-October 2008, the Xbox 360 accounted for 17.2 percent of total playtime, followed by the Wii (13.4 percent) and the PS3 (7.3 percent).

The total number of games available for each system is another factor to consider. The Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) lists the Wii as having the most games of all the consoles (955, with Wii Sports and Wii Play being the most popular), followed by the Xbox 360 (749, with Halo 3 being the most popular) and the PS3 (448, with Metal Gear Solid 4 being the most popular).

Libraries targeting young gamers, families, or even older patrons just beginning to play games should give priority to the Wii. Of the 955 titles available for the Wii, 791 are rated E10+ and under (see Game Ratings Rundown, LJ 2/15/09). Additionally, many Wii games feature easy-to-use, motion-sensitive controls appealing to the casual gamer. The Xbox 360 sports a library of 388 games rated E10+ and under; the PS3, 214 games rated E10+ and under.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 are graphics powerhouses, though, when compared with the Wii, and appeal to a more avid or "hardcore" gamer audience, which is why many of the titles for these platforms are rated Teen or Mature. This is something to consider for libraries wanting to attract more teens and/or adult gamers, though the consoles also require a greater mindfulness of games ratings and content.

I personally feel the Wii and Xbox 360 are the best platforms to build collections around. They have solid catalogs of games, are popular, and are worthy of their cost. Except for the Xbox 330 Arcade, they're also compatible with earlier console editions (the PS3 is not backward compatible with the PlayStation 2 console).

The PS3 simply doesn't measure up popularity-wise, nor does it have a significant library of games. It's also the most expensive current-generation console on the market. All is not so bleak for Sony, though, which continues to enjoy incredible success with its PS2 (Nielsen estimates that the PS2 still accounts for 31.7 percent of total playtime). This is good news for libraries with large PS2 game collections or those still collecting for the PS2.