The simmering battle for the console games market will explode over the next six weeks as the big players vie for a space in your living room with next-generation machines.

On December 8, Nintendo launches its new system, the Wii (pronounced “we”), with an innovative motion-sensitive controller that it hopes will revolutionise game playing. The long-anticipated Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) goes on sale in the US and Japan this month and in Britain next March, while Microsoft hopes that you will plump for its Xbox 360, already in the shops.

The stakes are high, particularly in the UK. Our games market is the third largest in the world. Around £1.7 billion of games were sold in Britain last year, almost as much as the £1.9 billion we spent on music.

That is why manufacturers are willing to invest so heavily in development and marketing. None of the big three will disclose how much they spent on their machines but Sony says it spent about £850m for the processing chip alone and a chunk of its recent 94% fall in profits was attributed to the costs of the PS3.

What makes these machines so costly for makers, and so exciting for us, is that they are not merely games consoles but full-blown multimedia systems built for a digital home. They will connect to an MP3 player, a handheld games player and — with an Xbox 360 — your home computer.

What’s more, Microsoft and Sony are gearing up for the high definition (HD) era. Their respective consoles offer HD-calibre games and embrace one of the two new HD disc formats aiming to replace DVD. PlayStation 3 features a Blu-ray player, while this Christmas Microsoft will sell an HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360.

Each console offers WiFi features (£60 extra on the Xbox) and an online games service. Owners with broadband can play with friends all over the world, download classic games and take new titles for a trial spin.

Once you’ve seen one of these consoles running on an HD-ready screen you’ll not want to go back to the standard version. With so much colour and detail, current-generation games can seem, well, dull. To help you choose, we got all three consoles together for a superconsole shakedown.

Nintendo Wii
Price: £180
Available: December 8

Nintendo has binned the standard gaming control pad and replaced it with a wireless remote control and a neat sensor that tracks its every movement. Switch on the flying game Wing Island, hold the oblong remote like a paper plane, and it suddenly makes sense. Tilt or swing the controller and the plane on-screen will swoop or turn.

Once your brain adjusts, its all gloriously intuitive. The Wii is at its best when it breaks down the barrier between what you see and what you do. This is ideal for family-friendly games: swinging a golf club or bowling a 10-pin ball when playing the supplied Wii Sports will come naturally, and is a real hoot. Whacking a virtual tennis ball with the lightweight controller isn’t quite like the real thing, but feels closer than prodding a joypad’s buttons.

The Wii remote picks up even subtle movements, but for more complex games you must connect it to the supplied “nunchuck” module. You then use a stick to move your hero, and the main remote to swing a sword or aim a gun. This can be thrilling, but sometimes you feel the features are used for their own sake. As you struggle to aim at a goblin, you almost wish you were back on the old joypad.

The other problem with the Wii is its standard-definition- only graphics. Nintendo’s tiny whisper-quiet console wasn’t built to compete with the HD visuals of the PS3 or Xbox 360. Even its best-looking games resemble products of the previous console generation. While it has online gaming, a decent internet browser and great personalisation features plus a vast library of classic games to download, this is no multimedia powerhouse. Does it matter? Maybe not. The Wii is unobtrusively tiny and modestly priced. If it has one real weakness it is that it risks becoming a novelty console: big on short-term fun and low on long-term gameplay. But having spent a day playing key launch titles the novelty hasn’t worn off.