How do you measure attractiveness in your gaming platform? The sleek, ultramodern curvature of the casing? The choice of awesome must-play software? The keen, wallet-friendly pricing? High-defintion output and additional functionalities? Or does it all come down to what the spotty shop assistant convinced you is cool?

These matters and many more have been the concern of the Toronto-based BrandIntel research agency’s weekly “Next Gen Console Tracker” survey. And guess what? They’ve discovered that Nintendo’s Wii has the highest ‘positive sentiment’ rating of all three next-gen consoles. In other words it’s the one that North America is most talking about. It’s a close-run thing, though, and ‘sentiment’ is cooling off too...

This un-shocking revelation is the result of analysing a number of discussion criteria, such as general Appeal, Brand Image, Purchase Intent and overall Availability. The Wii scores the highest for Purchase Intent, but is well-below average for Availability (yeah, tell us about it). Similarly it leads the field for Price/Value and Brand Image but sits in the corner wearing a pointy hat with a big ‘D’ on it when matters of Graphics and, puzzlingly, Online Features are discussed. In overall terms, though, BrandIntel’s weekly survey gave Wii the highest overall Sentiment Average, slightly ahead of the 360, which scored well in Purchase Intent, Game Line-up and Graphics.

Meanwhile the poor old PS3 is struggling to make Joseph Q. Public say anything nice about it. Sony’s best is actually worst in all categories except Graphics, where it comes second to the 360 (?) and Hard Drive/Processor where it is actually tops. We’re not sure whether that’s what Sony wants the PS3 to be famous for, but that’s better than no positive ratings at all, we suppose. Unsurprisingly the PS3 garners the absolute lowest individual rating of all for Price/Value. What? No, surely not...?

So what does all this mean for us? Not a lot really, but it’s moderately interesting and we love stoking up those ‘my console is better than yours’ debates. Add fuel to the fire of your own arguments at www.brandintel.com/brandintel.aspx?pageid=industries_gaming_tracker