If you have a somewhat high-end PC then you can't beat the pricing on games and you have a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge library of games to play, including all the awesome indie stuff. Also, with Steam Big Picture it's gotten REALLY easy to hook your PC up to your TV and play on that.
I worked in a game store last christmas and over this summer and I always had customers coming in asking what system they should get. The Wii is not an option unless you have small kids. They're simply obsolete. The Wii U is on par with the 360 and PS3, both released six and seven years ago. Next year (likely) they will both release new systems which will put the Wii U back in the stoneage, just like the Wii was severely underpowered this generation (which is not the third... just the third Sony generation... there WERE actually game systems before the first PlayStation
).
Every time a customer came in and asked me about 360 and PS3 I would say this:
Pros 360: Best online gameplay bar none even if it costs money (there is free online, but only for downloading add-ons and XBLA games, it's pay to play online multiplayer). Better voice communication and party handling. Kinect is a better experience than PS Move since it's more unique (Move is a Wii ripoff) and has more casual games like Fruit Ninja. Most multiplatform games (which makes up 95+% of all released games) are optimized for the 360 and some games, like Skyrim, become virtually unplayable on the PS3 in some circumstances because of bad programming. Most people like the 360 controller better.
Pros PS3: Free online multiplayer. Blu-Ray player (pretty huge if you're into movies and you don't have a blu-ray player yet). Better and more diverse console exclusives.
The console exclusive games depend on interest. On Xbox you have Forza, Halo, Gears of War and Microsoft often pays to get most DLC exclusive for the Xbox at first. On PS3 you have God of War, Uncharted, Killzone, Gran Turismo, Little Big Planet... But on the whole the console exclusives don't really matter unless you're religious about Halo or Uncharted.
After I bring up all of those points, I get down to the most important thing to the customer. What matters the most for people who get a game console is that they can play with their friends. So I tell them that if they have a few friends who have PS3s, then they should get a PS3. If the friends have 360s, they should get a 360. That is far and away the most important factor because you suddenly have a bigger game library since you can borrow games and you can play with your friends online.
If it weren't for the fact that I have a huge mountain of unplayed games for my 360, my PC and my PS2, I would have gotten a PS3 a looooong time ago, because I want to play the Uncharted series and some of the other exclusives. But in the grand scheme of things, you will mostly be playing multiplatform games and mostly with your friends.
Also, when you get a console these days, you're not just getting a game machine. I watch MLB and Netflix on my 360 and I stream movies from my PC through the Windows Media Sharing thing. You can do that with the PS3 as well.
The Red Ring of Death that plagued early versions of the 360 is irrelevant since several years. It's not an issue anymore and in my experience at the game store, we had roughly the same amount of returns for 360 and PS3. When you hook it up you can have it either standing up or laying flat. I recommend having it flat because it means less of a risk to ring scratch the discs.
