Do I go ol' school console or new school console?

[Wolf]

Well it seems I face dilemma at the moment that I was hoping I could share with everyone here in hopes of helping me decide. For one, it is a sad day as it seems my NES top loader that has been so wonderful in allowing me to continue playing great classics from my childhood... has passed.  Looking online, I can only find the lowest priced around $90 (some want as much as $199!!! might as well get a new age console at that rate) and not really any of them listed as "new" but "used". And unfortunately Wii Virtual Console is not offering a lot of the games I have; not to mention the thought of REbuying a lot of games I have already as cartridges doesn't sit too well with me. What do you all think?

Also, I have thought about and debated on whether to get a new XBox 360 or PS3. XBox just released a new bundle with the Final Fantasy game (I have loved X and XII and XIII looks cool!). They seem to have a better game selection than Sony and a lot of brand games I liked for PS2 have jumped ship to 360. Although I hear the downside is that they charge for online gaming (which I am NOT a big fan of). Plus I hear their controls are not to comfortable in dealing with because of small buttons being so close together.

Then there is the PS3. Awesome system capabilities from what I've heard and free online gaming. However, they were insanely priced to start and when they finally came down within reason, they took away backwards compatibility... which is not happening because I have a LOT of PS2 games I still like to play on occasion. It's like their way of thumbing their nose at us for having to bring down the price, but there is no way I'm paying $700+ for a gaming system. That left a bad taste in my mouth with Sony.

So what do you all think? Thanks for your time! Woof!

[Fraggle]

I'm not able to comment on the newer console price/feature war, but is there any way you could get a second(or even third)-hand nes on amazon or ebay or a local goodwill shop? there must be hundreds of the things still around somewhere...

[BFM_Tails]

Perhaps you could get your NES reparied some where
I know there is always ads the newspaper saying they fix gaming consoles from commodore 64's to Arcade machines
I got a 360 recently, I must say I have no issue with the controls ( and i have BIG hands ) but the constant reminder of Red ring of death and paying for online gaming is the downside. I am very anti PS3 so I am biased. lol. Also I hate sony's controler. it just feels clumsy and horrible and makes me go ewww.
 

[BFM_Ðragons]

if you want to play final fantasy i would have to say go with the xbox,
cos i personally have the xbox and i just recently got the new ff,
which graphics on hd tv >.>

then you can also get halo reach in september xD

so yeah,

Xbox 360 FTW

[MrT©]

Depends on how long and how often you will have/ play on it for.
If u want to have it as like a 2ndry sort of console that u will keep for a long time, PS3
If u want to play on it a lot then, Xbox.
Depends on how much money you are willing to pay...

[Firêfôx°]

XBOX 360 of course  Great games and more! Also if you do get xbox 360 get xbox live too

[BFM_Ðragons]

even if your xbox die, its got a 3 year warrenty on the whole ''red light'' ordeal.

so i still say xbox either way xD

[benoit489]

Why don't you just get a nice gaming PC and get the best of both worlds? Nothing like playing those old NES games at crazy resolutions with nice smoothing effects.

If you had to choose, I would say go with PS3. It comes WiFi ready and you don't have to pay to play online. It also has some great games and can serve as a bluray player. Also, FF XIII runs at a higher resolution on the PS3 than 360.

[Zeek]

i think a 360.. i have one and most games for it are really good. yes it stinks having to pay for online play but its worth it. there is however one major down fall is that when u are playing a game and say a dog knocks it over while its playing the game will "bounce" around the disk tray and then get a ring impression that can damage the disk reader and the game. i had this happen to my World at war disk. some data on the disk is actually destroyed and can not be fixed. the disk reader will have a hard time reading disks so yeah. but i got a new one from a friend and it works better. another downfall is the red ring of death caused by many things but usually i think the older ones would normally get it tho. i had my 1st one for 2-3 years and not a single red ring of death

[Mercoledi]

Hiya!

there is however one major down fall is that when u are playing a game and say a dog knocks it over while its playing...

Now how could that happen?!?  I'm not trying to make fun of you, but... 

I've got my 360 lying flat in a shelf, no risk of it ever falling down unless in a severe earthquake (unlikely to happen in Austria). That also has the added bonus of the console being able to give off excess heat more easily, at least in my experience - and that thing generates a lot of heat.

It's also not possible for a disc to fall out of the tray when you open it (happened a couple of times to a friend of mine). However, once you've decided whether you want to have it lay down flat or stand up, you should stick to that. Switching between flat and standing can eventually ruin the disc drive. No idea how or why, but it happened.

another downfall is the red ring of death caused by many things but usually i think the older ones would normally get it tho. i had my 1st one for 2-3 years and not a single red ring of death

Frequent RRoD's (dubbed 'general hardware failure' my MS) only happened to early consoles because the manufacturer used the wrong type of lead-free solder (article at Wikipedia). This has been fixed, as far as I know. However, my 360 being an early-version console, it RRoD'd twice in 13 months. But even if your 360 should RRoD, it has a 3-year warranty.

Cheers!

[Wolf]

Well I appreciate all the feedback given. I weighed the options and opinions from those experienced with the decision before finally caving in. Drumroll PLZ!
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XBOX 360!!! I bought the bundle today with the FFXIII game, controller AND headset, free silver online Live membership, and 250GB of memory. Talking with people at work also said they have resolved the RRoD issue I was worried about and online play no big thing for me. I feel $399 was a good price for all that (at least I hope). If not, I guess you guys can feel free to point that out and laugh at me.  Anyway, I hadn't done too much for myself over the past couple of years for my birthday and with that coming up here in 8 days, I felt this was a nice birthday gift for myself. PS3 has some good games by the looks of it, but the backwards compatibility loss killed it for me (me, a guy who as you saw still plays NES, SNES, and N64 from time to time).

[Duck]

Woo!! You made the right choice! welcome to the Xbox world! 

[OBOLeader]

ahh.... well we knew it was gonan happen sometime... beware of Wolf the spammer on xbox live!