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My kids wanted a Wii this Christmas, but being the single mother of three makes it hard to splurge on the latest thing. I know PS2 has been out for some time now, but after seeing the huge selection of Anime games you can play on it, I was sold. And for $129, it can't be beat.
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It is a unit for my daughter as a Christmas gift, per her feedback, she liked it a lot and has played the software guitar hero many times and will buy more games in the future.
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I'm in the middle of researching which video game system to buy, for me but for the benefit of the whole family as well. Here, I want to share my information for everyone, who is in this process as well.
The choices are the very sucessfull Xbox360, PS3 or the old PS2 platform.
Whenever people recommend to go for the PS2 when you are on a budget ("it's so much cheaper than Xbox360 or PS3), think twice.
PS2: $129 get you the bare system including a wired controller. For many, if not for most games, though, you will need a memory card to save game progress. If you want to play online, the PS2 saves the network settings on a memory card as well. The cheapest option "new" is an 8 MB card for around $20-25 here on Amazon. This makes the intial investment a $150. The games weigh in between $20 and $40 new. Still a lot of popular franchises see new releases with 2008 not being an exception. But expect less new games from 2009 on. Sony's official plan is to support the PS2 platform around 2010 before fading out. Still, with more than 1500 games to choose from (if you can find many of the earlier releases used and in working order somewhere (scratches!)) a great little system, but I would love to see a price cut to $109 or $99 by now (January 2008) or repack the current system with a wireless or 2nd controller. By the way, Sony is likely to ship a new PS2 with built-in A/C adapter, as the did in Japan. Disadvantage: If that adapter dies one day, it's hard to repair the console. Better to get one of the actual designs with external (replacable) adapter.
Xbox360: $279 for the Arcade bundle. Remember that I told you, your intial investment on the PS2 will be $150 because you will need a memory card to play games!?
So, for $130 more you not only get a Xbox360 (which surpasses the PS2 in terms of graphics and online play capabilities), but it includes a 256 MB memory card (to save game progress, network settings), a wireless controller (remember, with the PS2 you get a wired controller) and you get like 5 arcade games to play straight out of the box. If you add the cost of a wirless controller to the PS2 (another $30) plus a collection of Arcade games comparable to the Microsoft offer (another $20 easily), we are talking only $80 difference in hardware investments.
Of course, to benefit from all online features Xbox live marketplace has to offer (game downloads, demos, updates/patches for games and more) you want to get a harddisk later, another $50 if you buy a used one on ebay or $100 if new.
You could immediately buy the Xbox Pro bundle for $349 which includes a hard disk and might be the better deal moneywise, and then the PS3 starts at only $50 more. For $399 you get a gaming console and a Blu-ray player in one. Xbox won't play HD-DVD without additional hardware and bluray not at all.
Gameswise you have more choices on the Xbox360 compared to PS3 but Sony is famous for supporting their platforms much longer than Microsoft, so at this moment it is unclear when Microsoft will drop the 360 for a sucessor, but expect Sony to stand behind another 5 years at least (Remember, the're still selling the PS2 and plan on doing so the next 2-3 years extending the lifespan of that platform (new games) to 10 years. Thisn could mean, we will see a lot of great games on the PS3 in the future. But if you want to play now, the Xbox 360 is definitive the better choice softwarewise.
In the end my point is to tell you, that your investment in hardware & software to play something on the PS2 platform will be at least $170 (1 console, 1 memory card, 1 game) depending on the game you choose whereas the Xbox360 Arcade bundle comes for $279 with everything needed to play the included games (5 aracade games) plus it will play any DVD-based game you buy but it won't let you download much because you are missing a hard disk and the 256MB memory card included doesn't offer too much space than for your savegame.
So, that's $110 difference, but Xbox 360 is the best to get for gaming right now, if you like the kind of genres it supports.
If I do the math with the infamous Wii, you get one for $249 ready to play, a mere $80 more.
I might end up buying a PS2 for the moment, because I don't like many of the games the Wii offers and I want to see if the failure rates of the new Xbox 360 mother boards have become better (hardwarewise, 360 gave a lot headaches to owners because of high failure rates. MS is very eager to give great service along with a 3 years warranty against complete failure, but still you have to ship it in and wait for it's return).
But definately, with this math in mind, for my taste it only could help to reduce the PS2 a little in price or bundle it with a wireless or additional controller and a game. Untill then, it's not a no-brainer to buy anymore!
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I'm guessing that the the kids love it. I have not seen them since Christmas!
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With the price of new game venues approaching 500 dollars this game base was a great price and the amount of games available for it was no less than phenominal. My teenager was very pleased!
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