XBOX 360= XBOX 1.5 , PS3 = PS2.5 , Wii = Gamecube 2.1
Actually, the Wii is twice as powerful as the GC...This is the same as the GC compared to the N64, and nobody said they were the same thing.
The Wii also has built in Flash memory, a refreshing menu which does not hesitate to be fun, and virtual console. People just don't pay much attention to them because they find the controller interesting enough. (Which devalues the gimmick claim, since gimmicks are generally very stupid, very useless, and very quickly forgotten. (Eg: "A fish tank! ...With a picture of a fish on the bottom!")
Regarding repetitive gameplay, I completely agree with you, Evak.
Nintendo is getting a bit better about not doing that as much lately (even with the DS, incredibly), but they still do the occasional stupidly uninteresting thing.
The only reason those old classics are repetitive time wasters is because they couldn't fit much else! (It was not to improve gameplay, though it was definietly quite wonderful at the time).
I, too, like games that get more and more interesting as I play them and that are never fully discovered until the very end. (And yes, an ending is a very good thing).
360: No point. Even my mid-range thing here can run 360 games. Not well, but it can run them. Then with a slightly newer PC, games like Oblivion work far better than on the 360 with nicer graphics. (Largely thanks to the distant tweak which makes distant landscapes look nicer).
Although, regarding cost... I noticed a price comparison that put the 360 above the cost of the PS3 thanks to XBox Live. It was a pretty stupid and unbalanced comparison, though.
PS3: Equally little point. As we know, the big game developers these days make games for every platform to maximize profits. This means that the PS3 will be held back by the hardware of the 360 since these quick profit games are rarely very scalable and so will be made to run on the less powerful system. The artwork will definietly rarely change, at any rate.
So why bother buying the more expensive PS3 when games will be tailored to work on the 360 anyway?
Similarly, the developers who are a bit more adventurous (and thus are more focussed on making a good product and less so on making the product run on all the consoles) would probably aim for the cheaper dev kits (Not PS3).