Well actually the red rings of death thing is really happening anymore now that Microsoft has made the console better. And this change happened in July, 2007. The only way of it happening like it used to is if your 360 is cluttered. I've played mine one day before for at least 10 hours and it was barely heated.
Personally I like the 360 better. It has far better games and graphics, and features. To me Wii will never be like the N64 which I still play to this day. While N64 didn't have the biggest library of games, it did have some of the best.
So I would highly suggest a Xbox 360.