Nintendo has proved with the Wii that it is more about the gameplay experience than technology or online play.
Actually, they did put a major chunk of technology before gameplay with the Wii. The motion control was definitely not refined when they shoved it out and banked on it to gimmick themselves apart from the other two machines (it worked, they sold units and the competition suddenly felt they needed motion control R&D teams). You don't need the latest graphics/sound tech to create great gameplay, but you definitely do need reliable and versatile input design. I very strongly believe the Wii's motion control design is neither.
I dig Nintendo and if we were discussing, say, the Gamecube, any gameboy system, SNES or NES era I'd follow you. I just think people really...really throw on blinders with their rose colored glasses when discussing Nintendo and the Wii (and the N64 to a degree).
I'm sorry. I ranted. Now I am gonna try to be helpful to the original topic.
If you can only afford one machine this generation:
-PS3 has bluray, but if you run a media server prepare for it to cock block some content. Have the choice between wired or wireless lan connectivity. Sleakest UI out of the three IMO.
-360 doesn't have bluray (they banked on HD DVD), acts as a hub for my media server with no issues and has the larger online community. Older models don't do wireless (dunno if they built it into the new models...wireless isn't the optimal way to play games anyways). There is also, of course, the failure rate. My first gen pooped out after a year. My current machine has been going strong for about 3-4 years now.
-Library wise, outside of a few exclusives, the third parties automatically dev for both PS3 and 360 for major titles. This includes downloadable content (arcade titles, demos and add-ons)
-If playing with others does matter to you, ask your gamer friends which one they play on for online. In my neck of the woods almost everyone has a 360 XBLA account, so that's what I wind up playing online the most. It might be different for your group though.
-Wii...no DVD support. Not nearly as much third party support as the other two, which leaves Nintendo dev'd titles open to being the strongest. The pack in games (Wii Sports), however, are highly addictive. Some people have gone so far as to not buy any other games for it just because of the pack in. You can also dig into the Gamecube library since it is backwards compatible. Online is really poorly implemented, just in UI navigation flaming hoops alone. They do have a backstock of classic console titles to download, but lack a lot of the new downloadable games the other two systems have.
-All three do Netflix.
-All three have motion control tech. I can't compare and contrast the 360 or PS3's version. I can only tell you that I hear a lot more about the cool stuff the Kinect is doing over the other two. Take that with a grain of salt.
-Don't underestimate trying all three out in the store if you can't make a decision.
-Most important if gaming is the #1 thing you're buying this thing for: look at the library. All said and done, none of these machines are much use to you if they are not playing games YOU want to play.
The ultimate set up is to, of course, buy all three since their strengths/weaknesses do fill in gaps. In my house the 360 is the primary new game machine, PS3 is the BluRay and PS3 exclusive game machine and Wii is the Wii Bowling/Gamecube/Nintendo exclusive game/Netflix machine.
PLONK! There's my 2 cents.
