The 360 includes a free game of far more value (Hexic, yes, that is something you will play far longer than "Wii sports").
Are you taking the piss here? Seriously. Hexic, as in the glorified flash game? I note the completely unsupported assertion it is better than Wii sports, something that rather flies in the face of every preview of said sports game I've read (including the strong critical regard for Hexic). Hexic is not really any different than packaging Tetris SNES on the Wii would be. Plus, and rather more crucially, the $300 core system
does not include Hexic, as it is sans hard drive. So, again, not a fair comparison.
The internet is only free for a few months, and obviously is not necessary as you are already posting on the interenet. The controller is merely a input method, and does not make the games any better or worse.
I request the honourable gentleman actually
reads my post next time;
has free internet play
Wait, awful 360 pad? The only problem is the d-pad. Maybe it's just your preference, but the greater concensus seems to be that the 360 pad is the best traditional controller yet.
I found it horribly twitchy and the position of all the various bodgins uncomfortable. Yes, my preference (how shocking! a personal opinion on the internet!), but I found it hideously awful to use. To be fair, this
was playing the utter ga****y of Perfect Dark, so perhaps it's better for other games.
I still feel like the wii is merely a gamecube peripheral. Everything they are doing could be done with the gamecube or a modded xbox, so why is it considered a next-gen console?
Because 'next gen' does not - or should not - equate to simply adding shiny sheen graphics. The 360 and PS3 arguably don't do anything that can't be done with the current gen either, all they actually add is polygons to the same basic gameplay.
To redress to the earlier comment ala controller; firstly, controller input has a vastly important role in game quality. Try getting a ****tier PS2 or Xbox peripheral and comparing it to the 1st party. And that's a relatively trivial difference; as the controller is the players key input method, it has a
crucial role in actual enjoyment - it's quite largely why I picked the older PS2 over an Xbox (even though the PS2 controller itself is pretty crap IMO).
Secondly, the importance of the Wii controller is that it allows - and places an impetus upon - new gameplay methods. Even EA has to innovate to make games that sell for the system - it's a step above how the DS touchscreen impacted the DS' software lineup (compare the DS to PSP and the former has in general far more interesting games).
As a converse, the 360 and PS3 only offer improved graphics and some fancy physics. There is nothing inherent to either 'next gen' console that makes games better or worse - arguably, they push towards the 'worse' end as increased asset requirement and development cost drives less ambitious 'safe bet' franchise type titles such as generic shooters and racers, and the hard drive allows reduced bug testing and a 'patch it later' release process (the Wii is as susceptible with it's own flash internal memory, but lower dev costs reduce the drive to push out quickly).
Take something like Lego Star Wars and compare 360 to Ps2, and there is no gameplay advantage, no improvement - nothing that really justifies the £15 increase beyond some fancy graphical effects. But take that title, and envisage it using the Wii remote system for control, and you can see the potential for something vastly more different and
unique. This is what excites me, far more than an extra few thousand polys or specular bump mapped ray traced nipples (which I can get on PC if I really wish anyways).
