The Nintendo Wii and Sony Playstation 3 belong to the 7th, and the latest, generation of gaming consoles. Although you may think that they would be more or less the same as they are competing for the same market, nothing is much further from the truth. The biggest difference between them is their hardware. The Playstation 3 out-muscles the Wii many times over. The hardware difference is pretty obvious when you look at the lush environments that Playstation 3 games can produce and compare it to the Wii. As Blu-ray is the media of choice for the Playstation 3, it has the ability to play Blu-ray movies as well as the older DVD and CD formats. The Wii is unable to play Blu-ray movies as it lacks the hardware to do so. Another advantage of the Playstation 3 is its hard drive. The drive can be used to hold game saves and even other media like movie clips. The Wii has pretty limited memory and expansion is done via memory cards as there is no space for a hard drive. The silver lining to this big dark cloud is the very low price point of the Wii. At roughly half the cost of the Playstation 3, the Wii is quite the bang for the buck.

A big topic to tackle is the issue of motion controllers. The Wii was designed with motion in mind and its unique way of interfacing with the players is the prime factor that it outsold other 7th generation consoles. To be competitive, Sony developed a motion controller, called the Move, for the Playstation 3. Although the Move is said to be better than the Wii’s controllers, the fact that you need to buy it separately from the already pricey Playstation 3 makes some players a bit hesitant or unable to get it.

Even though the hardware is pretty limited, it doesn’t appear to be a constraint; as many of the Wii’s games do not really aim for realism. Titles like Wii sports show that a game doesn’t need to have a huge number of polygons to be fun.  These casual games do not require much to play and can be played by just about anyone. In contrast, the Playstation 3 shines with hardcore games that immerse the player into big worlds and deep storylines; RPG, simulation, strategy, shooter, hack and slash are only some of the types of games that you would find with the Playstation 3.

Summary:

1. The Nintendo Wii is not as powerful as the Plasytation 3
2. The Playstation 3 can play Blu-ray movies while the Wii cannot
3. The Wii cannot accommodate a hard drive while the Playstation 3 can
4. Motion controllers are standard with the Wii but not with the Playstation 3
5. The Wii is focused more on casual games while the Playstation 3 is more on hardcore games