Paul, I think it really depends on the type of games you like to play.

Wii - My point of view, more for kids / teenagers or a family thing where everyone gets together play or when you have a party and friends over and want some entertainment for more than 2 people.

PS3/xbox - More for gamers with the RPG, first-shooter, sports games, better graphics and more adult game play.

I have played on a friend's PS3 before and it looks awesome on the HD-TV. But when connected to a normal CVT, the graphics really suck big time. So if you don't own a HD-TV, don't contemplate buying a PS3 at all, cause there's really no point.

I got the xbox 360 arcade from a JB HiFi offer - $259 Bundle with Gears of War II and Sega Superstar Tennis a month ago (shared with the BF). And though it only comes with 256MB Memory card, we don't see any problems with it. We played through and saved 9-10 games and there's still abundance in memory. Unless you're a hard-core gamer who's playing almost 24/7 and want to download lots of games from xbox live website, you don't really need extra memory or hard-disk.

As for reliability, the newer models have probably improved. We sometimes play and leave it on for hours while we watch TV and then get back to it, no problems so far. But yeah only down-point is that you have to buy a wireless network card. But it doesn't bother us as we don't need to go online to connect to xbox online anyway.

The BF was pretty happy saying that for just over $250, it's a pretty good console with good graphics and sound. I love the games too. Most games that are released for PS3 are also released for Xbox and Wii anyway.

And yeah, don't ever trade in games to EB Games, they give shit prices. Sell on ebay. Some games are also cheaper to buy on ebay - New and Sealed, but yet cheaper than their pre-own.