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Here are CNET's picks for the consoles to get this holiday season.
Jeff Bakalar
Jeff is CNET Editor at Large and a host for CNET video. He's regularly featured on CBS and CBSN. He founded the site's longest-running podcast, The 404 Show, which ran for 10 years. He's currently featured on Giant Bomb's Giant Beastcast podcast and has an unhealthy obsession with ice hockey and pinball.
There aren't a lot of games at launch, but the PlayStation 4 is $100 cheaper than the Xbox One, and it doubles as a good DVD/Blu-ray player with plenty of apps like Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu Plus.
Don't count the Xbox 360 out just yet. Sure, the Xbox One is now here, but the 360 costs half as much but still has a huge library of games. Be sure to pick up a model with a good game bundle (one to four games included).
The Xbox One promises to be the new hub of your living room (stop us if you've heard that one before) by incorporating live TV into the mix. Kinect 2.0 is designed to control all of your devices with just voice control, but we're still not sure if the Kinect will resonate this time around.
Like its closest competition, the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 should definitely be a consideration this holiday season. An impressive catalog of games coupled with the increasingly awesome PlayStation Plus perk system makes the PS3 a compelling entertainment machine.
It hasn't been an easy year for the Wii U, but the holiday season finally sees some solid software headed to the system. A new Mario and Donkey Kong game should help the platform, but we're not sure if it will actually move any consoles. That said, it's certainly good news for anyone looking for the cheapest machine among the newer systems.
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