I review games as part of my day job and my free PS3 collects dust as there are no compelling reasons to turn it on.

It's a paperweight, seriously. The Xbox 360, on the other hand, is a very good investment for the gamer.

The Wii is great if you generally play games in social settings.

stephensolo wrote:I review games as part of my day job and my free PS3 collects dust as there are no compelling reasons to turn it on.

It's a paperweight, seriously. The Xbox 360, on the other hand, is a very good investment for the gamer.

The Wii is great if you generally play games in social settings.

XBOX360 is a "good investment" *IF*
You have the falcon chipset (newer model lower risk of red ring death)
You don't have a PC that can play games
You don't plan on buying a PC that can play games
You don't plan on buying a PS3
You get a falcon w/ the 2 free games + HDMI port


98% of everything good-great on the 360 is better on the PC and $10 cheaper.

The PS3 is a chip architectural disaster, but devs are slowly getting the hang of it and sony is really finally starting to help them. The question is, too little too late? Failed sales numbers from the PS3's best game in 07, Uncharted suggest they need to start over.

In general the big scandal for "next gen HD gaming" systems is that for many games the PS3 and 360 do not even render them at 720p, never mind 1080p.

For instance Call of Duty 3 and Call of Duty 4 are rendered natively at 640p (COD3) and 600p(Cod4). Uber lame for 2 systems w/ HDMI out.

Of course MS pulls a bait and switch and puts "1080p" on the back of the box of every game, meaning the games are SCALED to 1080p but natively, they are not.

If you have a really nice HDTV, your TV can scale to 1080p. With a 1-1 pixel mapping TV these low res sub HD games at $60 a pop, you're basically getting half the resolution you should be getting and paying a premium for it.

My $100 graphics card on my PC can run these games at higher resolutions and get the same framerate. Sad that a 350-$500 console can't even get 720 at 60fps.

So much for future proof.

I don't want to get into a video-game flame war here, but the Xbox 360's greatest attribute is something you didn't mention: Xbox LIVE, its online network. Achievements are something gamers like, as is the XBOX LIVE marketplace.

Games which would otherwise become stale get some new life breathed into them with this feature.

There is a sect of gamers who prefer playing games on their computers. I don't think these consoles are designed for those people, yourself included.

Those who want to buy a good console (like the gentleman who started this post) and are looking for advice would do well to get the 360 instead of a Playsation 3. Such is my opinion.

very good points.

I really don't like the idea of playing 50 more a year to play online, I guess I'd rather just tack that extra 50 to the cost of the system. But, how is the online ps3 experience?

With talking to friends and reading online, it seems there is a consensus is that 360 is now and ps3 is the future. So if you want to play some great games now, get the xbox but if you don't mind waiting for good games to arrive, go for the ps3. But Hex, I get the feeling that you think that it may be already too deep in the hole. If that is the case would could possibly happen?

Oh, and the info about the resolution is very disconcerting.

I feel like I'm repeating myself in this thread but, for $400-500 I just wish that it was more of a sure thing that this investment will pay off in the long run. I kind of feel like I'm taking a gamble on a ps3. If the rug were to be pulled out from under (ala dreamcast), I would be livid and extremely disappointed.

Exclusives aren't all that important to me, (nor backwards compatibility) and it seems that both systems are getting great games. But is the 360 getting mostly the better versions?

I guess I'm just going on brand loyalty. I liked my ps2 better than my bulky original xbox. Even though I only play my OG xbox today, I miss the ps2 controller and the fact that the ps2 library is much deeper.

stephensolo wrote:I don't want to get into a video-game flame war here, but the Xbox 360's greatest attribute is something you didn't mention: Xbox LIVE, its online network. Achievements are something gamers like, as is the XBOX LIVE marketplace.

Games which would otherwise become stale get some new life breathed into them with this feature.

There is a sect of gamers who prefer playing games on their computers. I don't think these consoles are designed for those people, yourself included.

Those who want to buy a good console (like the gentleman who started this post) and are looking for advice would do well to get the 360 instead of a Playsation 3. Such is my opinion.

My opinion does not conflict w/ yours nor is there any flame war here, I don't recall any of us calling each other names.

That being said "achievement whores" are indeed alive and well, but they tend to be the most hardcore gamers. Similar to those would would strive for "flipping" the score of an arcade game (making 9999999 -> 000000)

So I would qualify that as something *some* gamers like. Additionally many of my XBOX360 owning friends have fizzled on achievements after being huge whores in the first 6 months.

Breathe new life? Sounds like you are quoting some bogus MS PR speak. They are basically points you get for reaching milestones in a game or doing hunt and gather stuff. Collect this many orbs, get that many headshots... and then you get.. POINTS! What do the points do? absolutely nothing.

The XBOX LIve marketplace, is really just a basic GUI where you can buy DLC or stuff like "skins" or "gamerpics" . Its an online store, PSN , steam, its not like MS has the online store thing cornered by any stretch.

Although MS unlike Sony, charges just to walk in the store, or if you don't want to pay them for a 'ticket' to the store, you can wait a week for the free stuff, but still not play online.

Speaking of online play, XBOXLIVe is 99% peer to peer. Meaning no dedicated servers, meaning laggy shitty user hosted nonsense that MS is charging you for. If you don't know any better, thats what MS hopes for it seems like it makes sense, pay to have a friends list. Users who don't realize that paying to play online games that don't even have dedicated servers is essentially rape. Friends list, matchmaking, peer to peer, even dedicated servers for FPS games has always been free, up until MS got involved.

Die hards say MS improved online gaming w/ XBOXlive and its "worth paying for". But an objective analysis shows less games, less players online, no dedicated servers, lower resolution, lower framerate, and sub par graphics when going into online modes for the vast majority of XBL games vs. pc counterparts.

Sony gives you the same online gaming, store interface, dlc and wasteful dood dads to buy ... for 'free'. While I would't call charging $9.99 for a game that lasts 30 minutes a bargain, its better than paying the same price for the game AND being charged for the privilege of being able to buy it.

Now it may sound like that is a lot of XBOX bashing, its really not. Its MS business model bashing. The XBOX360 without the pay to peer to peer play bullshit would be a way better value than the PS3 as long as you don't care about HD movies., if you get the faclon chipset, dont already have a PC etc..

If you judge the 360 in a vacuum, its an obvious good console. It has some great games on it, various genres covered and up until this year 99% of the ports were better than the PS3 versions. seems like a slam dunk yeah?

But its not a vacuum. ALL of their consoles are at risk for red rings, such a high risk that MS offered a 3 year warranty after initially denying there was a problem.

It only comes w/ a 20gig HDD and you can NOT get your own , you can only buy MS HDDs which are way overpriced, and the nightmare of transfering content... don't even get me started.

Backwards compatibility is lame, even big name games like Halo and Halo2 have BC issues that still exist, and the BC games from XBOX1 era is a small list.

Proprietary wireless, meaning you pay $10 extra for things like headsets because MS collects licensing fees for 3rd party use of its wireless.

Its a nasty ugly white box.

Dpad on the controller is a shitty mess.

XBOXlive is full of retarded racists calling everyone the N*** fag*** jew

XBOX support is a joke of contracted indians trying to upsell you when all you want is a white coffin for your red ring jones.

DVD player is louder than an aiport. ANd the quality of watching DVDs on the 360 has been tested and rated to about the same as a shitty wal mart $20 dvd player


So its not really about PS3 vs 360, because right now the PS3 is bunk for gaming. In a pure "which console has mo-betta games" the 360 wins in a landslide.

However if you look carefully at the 360, it becomes painfully obvious that its just smoke and mirrors, a conduit to MS's desire to make people pay for garbage that was free.

its like putting tap water into bottles and selling it. It rakes in the free cash nonstop, but its still just tap water in a plastic bottle, no matter how many racists buy it.

once I can track down a "'go pro' bundle w/ the falcon chip set I will probably buy mine, but I will never go back to XBOXLive gold again, I already got fooled once w/ their empty promises.

Johnny C wrote:

Chromodynamic wrote:It's too bad that Valve couldn't do a decent job of porting the Orange Box

EA handled the port, hey? It wasn't Valve's thing, they'd licensed it and EA fucked it up.

They may have handled the port but Mr. Newell seems to think it is entirely the PS3's fault, which I think is silly.

what is the online experience like for the ps3?

eephour wrote:what is the online experience like for the ps3?

like all others, it depends on the game. I've yet to be called a N*** fa*** jew on PSN, on XBL I would be called a N***Fa**** at least 1 time per session.

But that is probably due to the fact that way less people are on PSN and many of them do not use mics or don't know how to set one up. PSN works w/ ANY bluetooth headset, unfortunately like everything on the PS3 you have to manually configure it.

Basically PSN is

Warhawk - awesome game that just got an update, but everyone playing it is usually very good, reminds me of SOCOM in that just about every player can kill you or be killed by you.

Call of Duty 4 - same as XBOX and PC except the PC version has higher resolution

Resistance - big online community, constant maps coming etc..

But in general the number of people online gaming is

PC - vast majority - huge set of diverse games
XBL - small vocal minority - mostly Halo 3 and other FPS but has racing/sports etc..

PSN - relatively empty for many games, but strong specific game communities. If its not warhawk, RFOM or COD4 its probably going to be real empty

its almost exactly like last gen. PC had the vast majority, although last gen PS2 started first w/ SOCOM and prior to halo 2, SOCOM 2 was actually bigger (more people online) than all of XBL combined.

Then Halo 2 came out and that flipped.

This gen, sony fucked up and had no SOCOM at PSN launch, so other than RFOM there was almost nothing to bother with.

Also there are a few PS3 games that lack voice online, like COD3

Can you rip dvds to the ps3's hard drive?

I played the demo of the new Gran Turismo on the PS3 last night. Wow.

I cannot wait for this game to come out.