Before either system had been officially released, a co-worker and I took both the PS3 and the Wii over to my co-worker's friends' apartment. Okay, forget the convoluted social relationships. The important thing is, these guys had two HDTVs in their apartment, are in their mid-20s, had a surround sound system. Basically, Sony's target demographic.

It took me about five minutes to set up the Wii. Plug in the composite cables, attach the sensor bar and sync the wiimotes. Time for Wii Sports!

The PS3 took forever to get wired up. First, I wanted to attach the console via HDMI cables. But the TV only had a DVI connection, so one of the guys had to venture out to radioshack to buy a HDMI-to-DVI converter plug. Thirty minutes later, he's back with the plug. So I plug in the HDMI with the converter, fire up the system and... nothing. Blank screen.

Fiddle with cable connections, flip through TV inputs, scratch head.

Okay, so I remembered that you have to start the system with the composite cables plugged in, then go to video settings and enable the HDMI output, then restart the console. Done. But now there's no sound via the optical output. Sigh.

Go back into the settings, enable the optical output, and, viola, sound! Time to play Resistance (45 minutes after I unboxed the dang console).

Happy happy fun time!

The Wii was a total hit. And all we did was play Wii Sports. While I'd enjoyed the game in singleplayer, watching two players battle in tennis, boxing and baseball was a revelation. These guys were hollering, yelling, swinging wildly in the air, laughing nonstop at the entire thing and just having a grand time. No one cared the graphics weren't HD, or that you couldn't control your character in tennis, or whether they looked like a doofus swinging the Wiimote like a racket or bat. A total blast.

Once the PS3 got going, the guys were all equally impressed with the stellar graphics in Resistance, and were just as enthusiastic about blowing up monsters as they were about playing tennis as a cute, legless blob. They also loved the video quality of the Blu-ray movie Talladega Nights.

Even more interesting, though, was when my co-worker's wife showed up. She sat quietly through a few minutes of Resistance, commenting on the graphical quality but eventually losing interest in the gorefest on the screen.

A few minutes later, though, she was laughing in delight as she played tennis on the Wii. That console is just a magnet for casual gamers, and the first ever system that I think Nintendo can legitimately sell as a party machine. Seriously, bust this thing out at any gathering of non-gamers, and just watch how everyone's faces light up once the games start.

My wife, a few days later, had the same reaction to the Wii. An occasional hardcore gamer (she was seriously into Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast, and finished co-op Halo with me on Legendary difficulty), she was more excited about Wii Sports than any game I've shown her in recent years. Even my two and a half year old son wanted to swing the Wiimote around.

Sony has a solid console. It's a technological terror, and will definitely impress anyone who already plays a lot of games. Non-gamers will never be interested in the PS3, though. Too expensive, too difficult to set up, and the games are too complex and violent. The Xbox 360 is likely to suffer from some of the same problems, but is much cheaper.

But the Wii is the machine that can realistically turn gaming into a mainstream entertainment option. You have to have a dark, dark soul not to giggle while playing.

Sony and Microsoft will sell more than enough consoles to make money and advance the technology of games into new territory. I like complex, violent, photorealistic games, and hope they never go away.

But Nintendo is about to give gaming a big shot in the arm.