As hard as it might be to believe, Microsoft is telling gamers to buy a Nintendo Wii. At E3 today, Microsoft vice-chairman Peter Moore told the Reuters news service that the new Nintendo console is a smart buy this fall--as long as the system is accompanied by an Xbox 360, of course--especially in comparison to the Sony PlayStation 3.

In an interview, Moore, master of rhetorical questions, bluntly asked "Tell me, why would anyone pay $600 for a PS3?" And then followed this with the prediction that most gamers would buy two systems--a 360 and a Wii--for what Sony is asking for its next-gen console alone.

The comment mimics what thousands of gamers have been posting on net message boards and forums since Sony released the news that a top-of-the-line PS3 was going to cost a whopping $600 USD / $659 CDN on release day this November (a cheaper version lacking a few key goodies and a fair bit of hard-drive space will be sold for $500 USD / $549 CDN). Most have categorized this price as extremely high, especially in the absence of a killer launch game like a new Grand Theft Auto.

Like Moore, many have suggested that gamers would be best off buying an full featured Xbox 360, currently going for a maximum of $399 USD or $499 CDN, and a Wii, estimated to cost somewhere between $199 and $249 US (although final pricing has yet to be revealed). That way, gamers would get the high-tech, high-definition performance of the 360 combined with the unique, motion-sensing controllers of the Wii--as well as access to a host of downloadable retro games available for both--all for about the same price as a single PS3.

Sony is obviously betting the farm on what it deems to be superior technology in the PS3, and the hope that gamers will flock to such amenities as a built-in wi-fi adapter and the system's standard Blu-Ray DVD drive for high-definition movies. Both Microsoft and Nintendo are taking very different approaches, going with cheaper, more affordable hardware, and, in the case of the latter, experimenting with radical new ways of controlling games.