The gaming industry is stronger than ever and it seems that things won’t be changing too soon. Gaming consoles have come a long way since they first appeared, as now they have the sole purpose to entertain, by any means necessary.
There are practically three competitors in the console race, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo, which is also the oldest. The products come in an interesting variety, as the gamer can choose between portable consoles, provided by Nintendo and Sony, or the more traditional, full console, which makes a nice addition to a wide-screen TV. But what is console is the best, and what should people buy this Christmas?

If you want to buy a console as a present for someone, or for yourself, there are a couple of things to be taken into consideration. You should consider the price, the library of games that are available with that certain type of console, performance and reliability.

First of all you should know what types of games you want to play. Microsoft’s Xbox is known to be “the party console”, with many shooters and intense games, suited for groups of people wanting to relax by competing between themselves. Nintendo’s Wii is more family friendly, it has a wide variety of games and it’s the most nonconformist of the big three.

The Wii doesn’t use the traditional game pads, but a remote with motion sensors. The entire system is extremely cool-looking, but it can get tiring after a while. Sony’s Playstation 3 is definitely the most capable of the three, being able to run games with graphics so good one could swear they can get out of the screen. The PS3 is also fitted with a blu-ray player, so you can watch high definition movies on the thing.

An Xbox 360 starts at $199.99 but a full power system is $399.99. Neither model comes with a pre-packaged game. The Xbox stands out through it recently updated software, called the Xbox Live Experience. One of the most talked about features on the Xbox Live Experience is users’ ability to directly stream movies from Netflix.

This feature is only available to users that have unlimited streaming account on Netflix in order to use Xbox’s new feature. The new Xbox software also included new navigational designs.

The Live Experience replaced the old blades with a more user friendly system. Another great new feature is that Xbox users can install games on their hard drives, making for better loading times and considerably reducing the noise the console makes.

Playstation 3 starts at $399.99 for an 80GB model, the 160GB model is $499.99, but neither this console comes equipped with a game to play. PS3 sales haven’t been as fantastic as people from Sony wanted, as blu-ray is still a pretty unknown format on the market, and because of the high expectations in graphics, games for the PS3 take so long to be released.

Nintendo’s Wii is the best selling console right now, and it deserves this title.  For $249.99 you get a system and five games included on a Wii Sports pack in disc. This is by far the most tempting offer out there and this is exactly why the Wii is selling in big numbers.