I am in same boat Papasmurf (outside of being older and don't have parents to gift me, maybe the wifey though). I original planned to get a Wii this summer being cheaper and going back to Nintendo after a full console absence (no gamecube for me). But a couple of things have changed that.
One, the 360 being out for the last three year have generally been a poor man PC clone with another subscription fee. Me being an ex Everquest, COH, and WOW player, its would be no biggie except I don't respect playing with people who cuss at me. I will slap a child silly before he said another word to me if we were face to face, hence why they do it online. But I digress. The 360 or the previous Xbox never struck me as being a console with games I like to play. I mean I like to play the odd shooter now and then if it had a great story to it, but not much multiplayer (except for UT series and the odd LAN Battlefield series) probably to the same reasons that I stated earlier about paying for Live. But in the last year, X360 have stopped focusing on the shooter crazied kids and starting to go after the other markets, one being JRPGs, which I am a big fan of. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest (Warrior in the NES days) games is what I grew up on. So when the series jumped to the PS1 I jumped with it and also grown fond of the Wild Arms and Breath of Fire series. So now I sit at the cusps of another seemingly major switch where the 360 is picking up a slew of JRPGs and Sony seems to be focus on getting the American core market with its shooters and action games. That is fine but I don't see a reason to stick with the PS3 if that is the case as now I will be missing out on more than just a few western RPGs, which I have yet to like outside of MMOs.
And then is there is Nintendo strategy. I know I might get flamed for this but if you took away Mario, what do you really have. I mean don't get me wrong, Zelda is what started me down that road of JRPGs and that would be one of the first games to pick up. But I am sorry, but as cute Wii Sports and Wii Fit is ( I am played them at my family in-law house) I don't see how that would sustain me for a few days. Brawl is nice if you like that chaos fighting stuff but I was born off Street Fighters and Mortal Kombat, so lost me there. Mario is Mario is no denying that but eventually you can't keep recycling him for everything. Metroid, I didn't get the story or gameplay of the little time I've played (a half hour into the game) of it. So far outside of Nintendo first party games, then you have what? I am not going to buy any games that are PS2 remakes or ports, that what I have a PS3 for. The closest thing that my wife likes to play is music games and I have Rock Band for that. Tales of Symphonia is the only thing that looks interesting to me. So that is about maybe 4 to 5 games for the system at the most (Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart, and Tales).
So I guess it comes down to E3 at this point. I have my PS3 so, they don't need to sell me but as for my secondary system, will it be X360 or Wii. I mean honestly, I am leaning toward the x360 because of the JRPGs (unless PS3 can match or do something to say hey we got them coming, don't give up on us yet) and Wii is "family centric system" meaning more casual games and less games for the non Nintendo core. But Nintendo did say to they would address this at this year E3 but somehow I doubt it. I mean why would they? They are literally making so much money and gaining so much market with the non gamer market, I wouldn't worry about the core audience either.
Yea, I would wait until after E3 before choosing one and see what games are coming out for the systems before choosing.
I'm just saying...
