Three years ago, my kids were dragging me to every Game Stop, RadioShack and Toys R Us within a 20-mile radius looking for a Nintendo Wii video-game console, the hottest ticket of the holiday season. We never found one on the shelves, but my oldest son, Zachary, was lucky enough to get one for his bar mitzvah.
Over the months that followed, our family was leaping, swatting, punching and kicking our way around the basement engaged in virtual adventures and sports competitions, waving wireless controllers and nunchuks at the motion sensor. Good fun and good exercise, hard to complain (except when it comes to the price of the games).
Longevity Test
Within 18 months though, the Wii became lonely, collecting dust on the shelf above the TV with only an occasional reprieve from isolation when a new game arrived or certain of the kids’ friends came over. Whether it’s because Facebook is the only nonhuman commitment today’s kids are willing to make, or perhaps because of some shortcoming of the Wii, it failed to pass the longevity test.
Then, last year, Zachary started to pine for an Xbox after experiencing it at friends’ houses. When Microsoft launched the Kinect, its motion-sensing answer to the Wii, the tide turned in its favor. I suppressed concern that both platforms were future eBay fodder and bought the Xbox and Kinect bundle for $350 at Toys R Us.
So how do the two platforms compare? Both are similar in capabilities and specs with similarly fast processors in the 700-megahertz range. You can surf the Internet or watch videos from Netflix on either system.
But whereas the Wii allows online play with some games through WiiConnect24, Xbox Live opens an entire world of interaction with other gamers. You can even watch Netflix videos party style with other movie fans, and pausing…