Hotel or apartment

I am travelling to Tokyo with my 16 year old son and my 13 year old nephew this summer. Am wondering if we should stay in a hotel (center city, like the Prince Park Tower) or should we rent an apartment? Advantages of apartment are having a washer and dryer and being able to prepare some of our meals. But, location is not as favorable. Would really appreciate someone elses opinion on this. Thanks.

How long are you actually staying in Tokyo? eg for a week I'm sure you could manage without needing laundry facilities, and the benefit of travelling to somewhere like Tokyo is to experience the local restaurants etc.
Hotels have bar fridges, and all department stores have wonderful food halls in their basements, so breakfast is easy to manage.
Its not a holiday to be preparing meals, esp for teenage boys. It might be for them, but not for you.
Eating out in Tokyo does not need to be expensive, and is a wonderful experience.
Enjoy!

We will be in Tokyo for five days, then on to Hiroshima and Kyoto. You are probably right that preparing meals is not much of a vacation for the adult--appreciate that thought! We want to see as much as possible while leaving ourselves enough time to not be completely worn out.

The best solution might be to find a hotel with coin laundry facilities. I have noticed that is becoming more and more common to see them at fairly decent hotels (for example, the Royal Park Shiodome Tower or the Hotel Ryumeikan). The more expensive the hotel, the less likely they are to have a coin laundry, but it's not something you only find at inexpensive business hotel chains like Toyoko Inn any more. You do have to search, though, as most of the "better" hotels still don't have them. Instead they offer laundry service that is quite expensive.

There are also neighborhood coin laundries in many areas of Tokyo, but they can be difficult to find, and if you can get a coin laundry room in your hotel it's a whole lot easier.

We stayed at Shiba Park hotel which was surprisingly good for the price, it had laundry facilities at the time.