I personally own the PS3 and love it ,but for younger children i think the Wii ,is your best bet,my Daughter is going to be 7 soon, and she is into a couple of the games on PS3,my son is 9 ,he loves his PS3.Have you thought of the hand held Nintendo DS,that seems to be a hit with the kids!

imho, if small children have the latest and greatest of everything, it leaves them with nothing to look forward to, in the coming years, except more of the very latest and greatest.

Nintendo DS would be more age appropriate. Do he have that? If so, buying more games for it might be an option as opposed to a system. Have you maybe consulted with the parents?

Have you considered a Game Cube?

Here is a link that might be useful: Game Cube

Thank you both!

Are all of these *active* games? I don't want anything to encourage him to become a couch potato. He has plenty of energy, and unfortunately our DS and DIL don't live where he can play outdoors very much. (City life, sigh.)

I talked with DS today. An in-law works for Disney and has all three of these systems in connection with his work and research. He favors the X-Box, partly because there's more software being made for it.

We don't usually give elaborate gifts, but I thought this would get tons of use while providing exercise, unlike most toys.

DGS says he wants to be a "Scientist-Engineer", so if you have any suggestions along those lines, I'd love to hear them! (He may be wired that way -- DIL's family is rife with engineers, doctors, lawyers.)

Sue, my 7 and 9 year old grandsons have Wii, Playstation 2, DS Lite and Xbox 360. All but the Wii will turn them into couch potatoes, so just pick the least expensive ones that you can find and set a LIMIT on the length of time they can play on the systems.

Craigslist has lots of these systems for sale. I will say that the Xbox has had to be sent in for repair and they are on their second DS Lites - just something to think about.