We bought a Wii.

This past week, our family bought a Nintendo Wii. While I'm spending more time on it then my boys, although they chomp at the bit for their turn, I must say that it is a cool device. I love the interaction of the device and that you have to move in order to play games. It's a lot better then sitting in a chair or on a couch mashing buttons.
The price of the Wii is a whole cheaper then the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. I paid only $250 for the Wii. I see that as being affordable for more families. If you have a Game Cube, your Game Cube games can play on the Wii. The Wii also supports parental controls which means you can control what kind of games that are played on the Wii based on the games rating. I think this should give parents more comfort over what their child is playing. You are also able to download older Nintendo games from past game systems like Sega, NES, Super NES, Nintendo 64, etc. While not all games are available from those systems many are and cost from $6 to $10. Again not a bad deal at all in my opinion. The Wii also comes with Wi-Fi which helps you download the games and surf the internet. I'm just impressed that the device only cost $250.
To me, it seems that Nintendo is attempting to reach families with this new game system. Learning to play the Wii wasn't hard at all and my wife who doesn't play a lot of video games found it fun and easy for her to learn. Even my oldest who is 5 has been able to play the Wii. It could definitely offer some family fun.
I would recommend the Wii. It's graphics are good and I like the I have more control over the games on the Wii. The Wii also gives a report at the end of the day how much time was spent on the Wii and it's broken down by activity as well. This is store in a message inbox and cannot be deleted as far as I can see. Which means you see how much you child is really playing on the Wii. Games are still expensive for it in my opinion, but compared to other gaming systems not so much. The Wii is still hard to find and you might do well calling around before you go out shopping for one.