Christmas is coming up rapidly. My wife suggested we get a video game system for our five-and-a-half year old daughter. My first thought was "Xbox 360 Kinect" because it actually forces you to do some exercise. Price for the hardware bundle and a few games is quite high and there isn't much selection of Kinect-specific titles.

My second thought was "ehh, slum it with a Wii" but that's still a non-trivial amount of money and the hardware is completely obsolete.

My third thought was to wait for my daughter's sixth birthday in May, at which point there may be more options, or at the least more Kinect titles.

Thoughts?

My daughters (7 & 9) are diggin' the Wii. The hardware is only obsolete if its not usable. The Wii is quite fun, and half the $ of the kinect.

Hell, the hardware in my Cinematronics Space War game is way "obsolete", but still functions, and is still the most fun game I've ever played. Daughters like it too, unless they lose.

I might be biased, having a Wii myself, but I do think it's a great system to play with a bunch of people. For a party system it's fantastic! I would assume the same applies for a family, but I'm not in that position yet

It's true that the Wii gets a tad expensive once you add in three additional remotes and nunchucks. I wish they'd decrease the cost of that a bit, at least bundle the nunchuck with the remote, but that's a lot of how they make their money on these things. When I picked up the Wii on launch day, I went all out and got all four remotes. That was a bit expensive back then...

I do know that if I were to purchase another console, it would probably be a 360. I like what they're doing with that thing in areas other than gaming.

The only criticism I've seen of Kinect is that you need a really large area to play it in. For a family I could see that being a basement TV or something, where there might be a longer expanse than a family room.

Dollar for dollar, the Wii clearly wins, but I'm attracted by the Kinect system because it seems to be expressly engineered to make you get off your butt and move around, and that's a good thing. It's also clearly a feature that there are no accessories to buy, remotes to recharge, and so forth.

Amazon will sell me a Xbox 360 Kinect bundle for $300. That's with only 4GB of internal capacity, but I'm assuming it's plenty to get started. For contrast, a Wii "mega bundle pack" with seemingly all the attachments you could ever want costs $260.

Maybe I'm just interested in all the other crazy things you can do with a Kinect...

I spent 10 years selling video games, albeit ages ago. I always recommended looking at the available games before the technology of the system. Once you know which systems have the games you like, the decision gets a lot easier.

-jk

You are channeling the CS1 professor I had in college.

"Find the software you want first, then buy the hardware it runs on."

Yeah - definitely wouldn't get the Kinect. The games, while flashier than the Wii, just aren't a patch in terms of gameplay.

That said, I don't use the Wii much, but the kids love it.

My favourites in terms of value for money are still the N64 and the Megadrive - I still have mine, both are racked behind my PS3 but they come out regularly (usually for Street Wars, Banjo and Kazooie or Sonic)

You can still pick them up in good nick secondhand

Dan, that's what I assumed too, but...


Perhaps I'm looking at the wrong bundle, but look closely at that "deal." Beyond the Wii and one remote/nunchuck (normally $200), you appear to be getting a charging station and about $50 of sheer plastic. The image makes it look like you're getting at least two more remotes, but you don't. It's mostly stuff like a fake tennis racket, steering wheels, and remote covers (you actually get two remote covers and only one remote).

Without any bundles, I was calculating around $365 for a Wii and four remotes/nunchucks. I'd still recommend the Wii, but sadly the accessories price out to a pretty expensive proposition. Of course, this doesn't come close to what you'd have to pay for all the PS3 Move accessories...

I saw a Kinect actually setup and in use at a Best Buy today. I figured there would never be in store demos of those based on what the video game websites say. They make it sound like you need a huge room for it to work but they had it going in a pretty small space.

From what I have read about the Kinect it sounds not ready for prime time. Like Dance Central which sounds like the closest thing to a full fledged game only works with one player at a time.

The thing people like about the motion games is getting a bunch of people together and acting silly so only being able to have one at a time seems ridiculous.

It's really too bad Apple doesn't get into this market. Start with an AppleTV, add some kind of controller, and tap into the giant market of app developers. Seems like a winning strategy, although it's also safe to argue that the Wiimote, Kinect, and even PS3 Move have upped the ante for casual gaming.

Of course, the Kinect camera has a USB interface and an AppleTV has a USB connector...

I think what people call casual gaming has become too varied to fit under one heading.

Peggle is a totally different type of game than Wii sports and could have a different audience. Making the kind of games that are on the iphone available on the apple tv might be a good idea. For me though when I play something like Peggle I do on a laptop while watching TV so I would never buy if for something that required playing it on the TV.