Since late 2006, there has been a constant war of the gaming systems. The three giants, of course, are Microsoft’s Xbox 360, the Nintendo Wii and Sony’s PlayStation 3. I’m going to take this opportunity to nerd out and gush over the PS3, explaining why it’s clearly the best system of the three, now more than ever.

First, let’s look at the accepted formats of these systems and their various media compatibility. The Nintendo Wii plays Wii- and GameCube-formatted games and that’s it. While there are people who claim a Wii can be altered in order to play DVDs and CDs, the stock, out-of-the-box Wii cannot. This is quite sad considering I can remember listening to audio CDs on my PSOne.

The Wii is backward-compatible with GameCube games, but you have to use GameCube controllers in order for this function to work. That shouldn’t be a big deal; if you have GameCube games, you probably have GameCube controllers. Lastly, the Wii uses an optical disc that holds 4.7 GB of data, 8.54 GB if dual layer. This is equivalent to the information capacity of a standard DVD.

The Xbox 360 currently supports almost half of the original Xbox games, after the user downloads and installs the necessary software. This amount is allegedly final, and no more original Xbox titles will be made backward-compatible with the 360. It also plays DVDs and CDs.

As far as format is concerned, the Xbox 360 used to offer an add-on that allowed compatibility with HD DVDs, which hold 15 GB, 30 GB if dual layer. This sounds much better than the Wii, but HD DVD has been a virtually dead technology since 2008 when Warner Bros., Best Buy, Netflix, Walmart and others abandoned HD DVD and began supporting the Blu-ray format. Microsoft discontinued the add-on shortly after, and its games employ a DVD format that’s pretty much the same as the Wii.

All this, of course, is only achievable if you can avoid the infamous Red Ring of Death, the term given to the red flashing circle that appears around the 360’s power button when the system is broken. In April, a survey was released by No Fuss Reviews which polled 500,000 gamers on their experience with the three systems, and 42 percent claimed their Xbox 360 had to be repaired or replaced.

This is quite dismal compared to PlayStation 3’s 8 percent and Wii’s less than 1 percent. To make matters even worse, 55 percent of the Xbox users who experienced these problems had it happen at least one more time.

Now let’s look at the PlayStation 3. The games come on Blu-ray discs, which hold 25 GB — 50 GB if dual layer — and the system also plays Blu-ray movies as well as regular DVDs and CDs. With such a large increase in disc storage capacity, Sony claimed just this year that the PS3 still hasn’t even reached its full potential of quality as a gaming system. Andrew House, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, said, “It is unlikely that any developer has fully utilized the full potential of PS3 yet, but they are getting much closer everyday.”

In the realm of backward-compatibility, the PS3 is admittedly not the best. Some versions of the console support PS2 titles, but the newer versions do not. All models support original PlayStation titles with the aid of acquired software. Sony also allows for the purchasing of original PlayStation games for digital download through its online store.

But PlayStation 3’s edge doesn’t stop at having the most advanced game format. Its controllers contain a Lithium ion battery that can be charged simply by plugging a USB cable from the controller to the console, allowing the user to play even while the controller is charging. In my personal experience, I haven’t had to change this battery in any of my four controllers during the three years I’ve owned a PS3. This clearly trumps the AA batteries that the Wii and Xbox 360 use. Although you can charge these, they die much faster and prevent the user from playing while the batteries charge.

When it comes to online gaming, Xbox 360 is the only system that charges for accounts. PlayStation 3 and Wii have always been free, while Microsoft recently upped Xbox Live’s yearly subscription fee to $59.99.

The PlayStation 3 also offers the most options for storage space, with 20, 40, 60, 80, 120, 160, 250 and 320 GB hard drives available. The Xbox 360 supports hard drives of 20, 60, 120, or 250 GB and the Wii can only have a significant amount of memory through the use of external SD cards.

One clear advantage that the Wii has had all these years is its unique and physical gaming experience. This feature is probably the reason Wiis have sold more than 30 million more units than PS3s or Xbox 360s, as it tends to be more family-friendly and socially involved. However, with the recent addition of Kinect for Xbox 360 and PlayStation Move, the Wii doesn’t have the edge it once did. Both of these accessories offer a similar gaming experience to that of the Wii, and both have received generally positive reviews, with PlayStation Move averaging a slightly higher score than that of Kinect.

With all these details weighed out, it’s hard for me to understand why anyone would pick the Xbox 360 or Wii over the PlayStation 3. The only reasonable justification I could see is for console specific games. If you’re one of those people who need “Halo” or “Mario Kart” injected into your system at least twice a day, then I can’t argue with you. That’s perfectly understandable. Otherwise, the PS3 is clearly the logical choice and the reigning champion of today’s gaming world.