I know there's google and that but I want a little bit of advice...I bought Gwyn a wii fire Xmas and he loves it. He is keeping it in his Shrewsbury, so I want something equally good for his house with me. I an of getting him a second hand x box instead of another wii but don't know enough about them...I am looking at the 20gb one. It says that it can be used to surf the internet...can it? Are there issues with flash like with that idiotic iPad? And are there enough functions on it that I wont be kicking myself for not just getting another wii? What do you reckon?

I don't believe there's any surfing on an Xbox. That would get in the way of M$ charging for things that are free on-line like Hulu and Netflix access.

The PS3 has a browser but its gadawful.

None of these things are that good for surfing the internet. They are good an interacting using their own stores and online communities, like for gaming.

Xbox is considered king for online Call of Duty and stuff like that.

Ah I see only gwyns wii lets you do things like watch iplayer on the telly and so on... Can I do that on the xbox?

Not sure if the Xbox has iplayer overseas or not.

Did a bit of surfing and found that as of August 2011 msn were trying to make you pay extra for it which the bbc, bless it, was resisting...

So maybe not best for family games then? Forgive my naivete, but I don't do a lot with these things, and really like the sports games on the wii (Gwyn and I have been golfing on it for hours!)

I have the PS3 and Wii. I think it's a pretty good idea to have both. The XBox would be the substitute for the PS3. (Those two would be duplicative).

I think the Wii is better for family games, hands down. The PS3 and XBox are better consoles, in the technology sense. More under the hood, better graphics. Better "hard core" games.

There are some good Family games for the 360, but not many. The Lego series, which is also available for the Wii, but which make no real use of the motion controls. Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Pinata also comes to mind, I have played neither but heard some good things.

I'm hearing very good things about the Kinect for XBox. The raves just keep coming from families I know. So that's something to think about. The motion control of Wii is what draws newbies, kids, and guests to your home in. The Kinect has continued that because there's not even a controller, just an imager.

So I retract my earlier answer. In view of the Kinect, maybe I should have been more enthusiastic about you getting it for family games.

I did not like my Kinect, but that's because I am a gaming snob. Also, I find it creepy having a camera attached to my TV. It's kind of Big Brothery. I also find it creepy that there is a camera on my netbook, but somehow I have learned to ignore it.

Someone less snobby and crazy might like it though.

After Kinect was released, there was a story about how it had taken naked pictures of someone playing. There was no way to manually erase them at the time.

http://pvhax.com/forums/showthread.php? ... ect-naked!!

I had not even heard about that, but it does confirm a lot of my worst suspicions about the software. Just plain creepy.