Xbox 360 vs. PS3

[Kzach]

Assuming you haven't been overly marketed by 360fans, i reckon your change of heart is based on a fair assessment. I do remember you being all excited by your new ps3.

I hadn't done much research beyond looking at the hardware. On paper, it seemed that the PS3 was the better device. But I'm all about the user experience. Hence being a Mac fanboy. And from my, admittedly very limited, experience, the Xbox just *feels* like a much better device. It could be inferior in loads of very technical ways, but ultimately what matters to me is my perception of the device from the use I get out of it. If that perception is coloured by constant annoyance and frustration, like it was the with PS3, then I simply don't care about technical specs or paper facts.

From my own experience:
-PS3 price point was too high
-removing BC was not smart
+not being nickel and dimed for online gaming, etc
+using standard off the shelf drives
+more reliable hardware (at the time 360 RRoD was bad)

The 360 has:
+better Party system to get your group started
+better UI
+better integration of games into xbox platform (chat, party, messaging)
-nickel and diming for online play, rechargeable controllers, wifi adapter

The price was definitely another factor. I got the PS3 Slim 160GB for $276, which for here was actually a bargain (normally around $350). I got the Xbox 360 Slim 4GB for $148 (normally around $250).

Changing drives may be an issue in the future but then again I never intend on using it as a media device since I already have a 2TB WDTV Live setup for that.

As for the nickel and diming I'm not sure what you mean by that. I'm not really into online gaming so maybe there are charges I'm not aware of. I do know that Xbox Live is way better than PlayStation Network or "Vita", at least in my opinion.

I think the biggest difference and one that actually does genuinely piss me off, is the whole concept of Microsoft's "points" system. The PS system just charges you a dollar amount. Points systems are, by design, utterly evil and unethical. I honestly believe that they should be made illegal.

Isn't this post a few years late?

I was never into consoles. It's only just recently that I've taken stock and looked at my computer and thought, "The only reason I would upgrade this computer is if I needed to play a new game. That's not worth another $3000." So I figured since I just got a nice and shiny new TV that I may as well jump on the console bandwagon.

There are enough Xbox games that I have never played that I'll not ever want for something to play for several years to come. Plus I know where to buy games cheaply (and still legally), so the investment just made sense.

Don't worry, when the Xbox 720 (at least that's the name I've been seeing it referred to around the traps) comes out, I'll be one of the early adopters, so you'll have more contemporary threads from me then

 

[Kzach]

That's a good point. Maybe I was thrown by the "PS3 is pitiful" bit in the original post. Given the, ahem, strikingly similar capabilities of both systems, it seemed more in line with the fanboy clamoring that marked discussions earlier in this gen.

Sorry. A lot of my vitriol comes from being so disappointed by the PS3. The level of stuttering on some games was just horrible. On Mass Effect 2 it sometimes got to the point where I'd leapfrog a few metres between frames. And my total user experience was just negative from day one. Up until the day I decided I'd try and return it or sell it second-hand, I had been able to put these things aside in an effort to get to know the system but by the time I did decide, the collective issues I had were too much to put up with it any longer.

I'll admit that I have very little patience for technology. I have very high expectations of hardware and software and, quite frankly, believe that people in general have WAY too low expectations and accept FAR too much crud from devices and software to the point where it has become the norm to put out faulty devices and incomplete software because developers and manufacturers know that people will still buy it.

So it was with genuine surprise that after picking up the Xbox that it actually lived up to most of my expectations. Unpacking, setting it up, finally playing... everything was just so much better than the PS3 experience, from my point of view.

 

[drothgery]

The 360 has:
+better Party system to get your group started
+better UI
+better integration of games into xbox platform (chat, party, messaging)
-nickel and diming for online play, rechargeable controllers, wifi adapter

Over the 3+ years I've had both, the 360 has seen more usage. The wife likes it better.

FWIW, the wifi adapter has been bundled since the 360 slim came out.

MS apparently doesn't like it when people call the hypothetical next-gen Xbox the Xbox 720, but until a code name leaks or they announce the real name, they're stuck with it. They're the ones that gave the 2nd-gen Xbox a name that meant we couldn't call the 3rd-gen Xbox the Xbox 3.

For myself, I use my 360 a lot more than my PS3; the 360 is pretty much for western games, Netflix, and ESPN3, while the PS3 is Japanese games and a Blu-Ray player.

 

[Agamon]

Ah, I see the misunderstanding.

Sony produces PS-Current for 10 years. However, PS-Next comes out every 6 years from the release of PS-Previous.

Sony made PS1's for 10 years. 6 years in, they release the PS2
Sony made PS2's for 10 years (this is the last year). 6 years in, they release the PS3
When the PS3 is 6 years old, they will release the PS4. They will continue making PS3's concurrent with PS4's for 4 years.

So, they confused all the industry insiders, too? My confusion only comes because of what I've heard, and eveyone believed what Sony was saying is that the tech in the PS3 is so top end that it wouldn't need to be replaced for 10 years. Not that it would just be supported for 10 years.

Anyway, the point is moot, as this is all just a rumor, regardless of accuracy of this "source".

 

[drothgery]

So, they confused all the industry insiders, too? My confusion only comes because of what I've heard, and eveyone believed what Sony was saying is that the tech in the PS3 is so top end that it wouldn't need to be replaced for 10 years. Not that it would just be supported for 10 years.

No, but they did confuse a lot of them. A fair number of others pointed out at the time that Sony actually meant they'd be selling PS3s for ten years (like they'd done with PS1s and would do with PS2s), not that the PS3 would go ten years without a successor (even if they wanted to do that, Microsoft and Nintendo certainly wouldn't wait that long, and Sony would have to respond).

FWIW, MS is likely to do the same thing with the 360. Yes, they cancelled the original Xbox almost immediately when the 360 came out, but they were losing money on it; for a lot of reasons, the original Xbox was difficult to cost-reduce (both because of how the licensing for the CPU and GPU were set up, and because it had a hard drive that by 2005 was small but didn't cost significantly less to make than it had four years earlier -- or than a much larger drive would cost). I pretty much expect MS to consolidate the 360 models down to two SKUs (one with Kinect, one without, both with no hard drive, but probably more the 4GB of Flash).

 

[Argyle King]

Funny story about Red Ring of Death:

Perhaps it was bad karma, I'm not sure. I was the only people in my regular D&D group to own a 360. The rest had PS3s. While they had never played XBox, they all kept telling me how much of a piece of crap it was, and that my system would die soon.

2 months later? My XBox still worked perfectly fine. All (4) of their PS3s died. The one guy in the group had some sort of weird issue where he could still play Playstation 1 games on his PS3, but PS3 games wouldn't work.


@ Next Gen releases: Supposedly, Microsoft still plans to support the 360 for a few years even after the 720 is released. I'm unsure of Sony's plans.

 

[Janx]

So, they confused all the industry insiders, too? My confusion only comes because of what I've heard, and eveyone believed what Sony was saying is that the tech in the PS3 is so top end that it wouldn't need to be replaced for 10 years. Not that it would just be supported for 10 years.

Anyway, the point is moot, as this is all just a rumor, regardless of accuracy of this "source".

They confused a lot of consumers. Saying 10 years for PS3 is disingenuous.

Once the PS4 comes out, every serious gamer is going to buy one and not look back at a PS3.

That happens 6 years from launch of the PS3. It's like clockwork. It's documented and acknowledged by Sony.

If you thought the PS4 was going to come out much later than that as an interpretation of this "10 years" thing, you were part of the group of people who misunderstood the Sony release model. I'm not speculating on the Sony release model, it's part of the public record by Sony.

Do not feel bad or dumb about that. It's no worse than the countless articles about an iPhone 5 announcement this fall. When clearly Apple releases full iPhone revisions every other year and single speedbumps between those. Thus, there is a new iPhone revision every year, but the number only increments every 2 years. It's these kind of articles that confuse the consumer on what is a pretty simply thing.

 

[Kzach]

I pretty much expect MS to consolidate the 360 models down to two SKUs (one with Kinect, one without, both with no hard drive, but probably more the 4GB of Flash).

I'd probably not buy it if they went with 4GB of flash memory. Considering how cheap flash memory is, I'd expect a lot higher than that, 16GB at least. I'd also expect an SSD option; this is, after all, the next generation of device that will need to last 10 more years.

 

[Janx]

Also if note, the 360 can use upto 16GB of usb storage. So jack a thumb drive in there.

When my 360 fat got RRoD i bought a slim arcade and put my 20gb drive in it. Had to open the drive carrier, but the drive itself is pin compatible.

20gb has always been enough, until i Merged all the rock band music which downloads big chunks of data.

Basic game saves and profiles fit fine

 

[GreyLord]

That's interesting that you mention ME2. I didn't really have any stuttering on my ME2 except for one point. I did have an almost freeze though, it had inopportune save points where the game saves.

The Xbox360 has this same issue though...so I'm not certain...maybe just the Xbox and PS3 versions?

Xbox360 has RRoD which sort of puts me completely off of Xbox360...

Xbox definately has more game selection.

I actually prefer more of the PS3 games however.

I also play a LOT of PS1 and PS2 games (yes, I have a fat, I also have a slim and d/l'd many of the PS1 classics). Actually, when you include the PS1 games...it blows the Xbox360 out of the water for the quality of RPG's that you can get...Xenogears, FFVII and FFIX, Chrono Cross, Grandia, Suikoden, etc.

So, I'm more favored towards the PS3 still.

For Western RPGs though, most of what you can get on PS3 you can also get on Xbox360, and Xbox 360 has some RPG exclusives...as well as Gears of War (though no uncharted).