TORONTO — The PlayStation 3 is sleek, powerful and expensive. The Nintendo Wii is fun, innovative and comes with a less daunting price tag. And the Xbox 360 has a one-year lead in the marketplace.

The next-generation video game console wars are about to begin in earnest with the release of the PS3 on Friday and the Wii on Sunday.

Both new consoles could be hard to find right off the bat, especially with hard-core gamers lining up to buy them. There were only limited pre-orders - in the wake of problems with Xbox 360 pre-orders a year ago - and supplies will be very tight at launch.

Spokesmen for both Sony and Nintendo preach patience. More consoles will be coming down the pipeline.

The PS3 will be especially hard to find. Sony expects 400,000 consoles in North America at launch, with only eight to 10 per cent of those - 32,000 to 40,000 - finding their way to Canada.

Sony hopes to have one million in North America by the end of the year, and a reported two million to 2.4 million worldwide when you add in Japan.

Nintendo plans to ship four million Wiis worldwide by the end of the year.

The PS3 is the most expensive of the new consoles, with the 20-gigabyte version costing $549 and the 60 gigabyte a hefty $659. Citing consumer and retailer feedback, Sony says there will be more of the 60-gigabyte version available at launch.

The Wii (pronounced "we") costs $279.

The 360 sells for $399 without a hard drive and $499 with a 20-gigabyte hard drive.

So what do you get?

Scene from 'Gears of War' for Microsoft's Xbox 360

The gaming graphics are gorgeous on both the PS3 and 360. "Gears of War" for the 360 is one of the best-looking games around, and "Resistance: Fall of Man" is pretty sharp on the PS3.

The Wii forgoes the high-definition world in favour of innovative game play with a motion-sensitive controller that can be used to handle everything from an on-screen fishing rod to a bow.

As the portable DS has shown, Nintendo has a knack for thinking outside the box. Look for the company to come up with new, interesting ways to use the Wii gadgetry.

And Nintendo showed its smarts by including a copy of the Wii "Sports" game with the console. Offering tennis, baseball, bowling, golf and boxing, the game is a ton of fun and a great advertisement for the Wii.

"The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess," the long-awaited new "Zelda" title, will be another incentive to buy the Wii. Nintendo plans 32 new titles within five weeks of the launch, with another 30 classic Nintendo games available to buy via download. Nintendo says its first-party games will sell for about $60.

Scene from 'The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess' for Nintendo Wii

Plus Nintendo believes that, as with the DS, the Wii's distinctive game play will attract non-traditional gamers to give their console a go.

"Our competition are both going down the same path," said Reggie Fils-Aime, president and CEO of Nintendo of America. "Prettier pictures, higher graphical horsepower. Very expensive.

"And in our view, that's not the way to grow the industry."

The white Wii is the smallest of the three consoles and offers a nifty interface on your TV that will allow you to surf the Net.

The PS3 comes with all the bells and whistles, including its powerful new IBM Cell processor, and can play Blu-ray high-definition movies right out of the box. The 360 has its own high-def DVD player - the rival HD DVD format - but it comes as a $199 accessory (including a high-def version of "King Kong" and a universal remote).

Scene from 'Resistance: Fall of Man' for Sony's PlayStation 3

The wireless PS3 controller has its own limited motion sensitivity. In "Resistance: Fall of Man," for example, when a creature wraps itself around your head you can shake it off by moving the controller.

The black console, which weighs in at five kilograms, is simple to hook up, especially if you can use an HDMI cable. The setup even provides onscreen diagrams on what cables to connect where.

The 60-gigabyte version offers Wi-Fi capability and can work off a router - although the smaller version still has the wireless controller. It also offers extra input-output slots for memory cards.

The PS3 also opens the door to a one-stop online gaming community and store, following the lead of Xbox, and allows for surfing the Internet.

Gamers with the portable PSP will find the PS3 menu familiar territory. Sony has plans to hook up the PSP with the PS3, which will eventually allow gamers to access material on the hard drive via Wi-Fi.

Sony says there will be more than 20 PS3 games through the holiday season, with most titles costing under $70.

Microsoft says it's happy with its position in the marketplace as the other consoles arrive. The company has already shipped some eight million 360 consoles worldwide and expects to hit 10 million by the end of the year.

"So far, so good," says Jeff Bell, Microsoft's vice-president of global marketing, interactive entertainment business.

"Obviously now the proof's going to be in the next 45 to 60 days. We fully anticipate and respect the work that PS3 and that the Wii are going to do. We're not done yet ourselves but feel fairly decent and fairly well positioned with a lot of momentum behind us."

The game "Gears of War" has helped drive that, with sales of 500,000 copies in its first week of release. Plus Microsoft likes the fact it is sandwiched between the PS3 and Wii in terms of price.

"All signs are that we are competitive and that we are correctly positioned," Bell said.

Matt Levitan, spokesman for Sony Computer Entertainment Canada, cites PlayStation's catalogue of games and "the sheer functionality" of the new console as pluses for his console. Sony also has lots of loyal followers - with more than 105 million PlayStation 2s in the worldwide marketplace, including four million in Canada.

"We've outsold both the Xbox and GameCube about two to one in Canada," said Levitan. "I don't think either one eclipsed two million.

"So there's a lot of loyalty, but at the same time gamers are fickle. They want to make sure if they're going to be taking a PS3, you're going to be able to give them software experiences down the road that will make it worthy.

"We don't want to just ride on the brand alone. We want to make sure that we have games and functions coming out that pushes our console ahead of the competition."

Xbox is already doing that, noting that its console is the only place gamers can go if they want to play "Gears of War" and "Halo 3."

Scene from 'NHL 2K7' for Sony's PlayStation 3

Canadian gamers who want next-generation hockey will have to turn to either Xbox ("NHL 07" and "NHL 2K7") or the PS3 ("NHL 2K7"). The Wii will not have a hockey game this year.

The cost of the new PS3 will no doubt scare a lot of consumers off.

Even Cliff Bleszinski, lead designer of "Gears of Wars" for Epic Games, questions the price.

"I do OK here, I can afford to pay my bills and go to a nice dinner once in a while - and I don't want to pay $600 for a video game console," he said in an recent interview in his office in Cary, N.C. "I don't care if it's got a fancy DVD player attached to it, I don't care if it's going to make my cup of coffee.

"I think PS3 will eventually be a great system, but in order for me to pay $600 for a video game system I need at least six to 10 maybe 12 games I can only get on that system, because my gut as a gamer says in order for me to spend $300 on a system, I need at least two to three games that I can only get on that system. So start doing the math."

PlayStation 3 is released Nov. 17, Nintendo Wii on Nov. 19.