PS3 or Xbox 360 - which should I buy?

[HotStuff]

Right, I know I was very firmly in the xbox camp, I have now heard lots of good things about the ps3. Ps3 is newer technology, free online play, no RROD issues and great games coming out. Will it have better steering wheel support as discussed by Tetsuo? Internet browsing/multimedia also better as Killcrazy says.

Apparently sony are quite happy to allow microsoft to lead the console race for the moment, but are confident the PS3 will blow xbox 360 out of the water in the next year or so.

Yes there is more games for xbox 360, hence more people on line probably, but some games require PAL-60 support on TV and I aint sure my CRT tv supports this. No, I haven't got a HD tv yet.

Please give me your thoughts, based on experience would be most welcome!

 

[Tetsuo_Shima]

I'm 99.9% certain that PS3 will have better steering wheel support, as Playstations have always done since Gran Turismo took the videogame racing world by storm. If I had a PS3 (which I will have in the future when Gran Turismo 5 and Final Fantasy 13 come out) I would buy this in the blink of an eye, never mind the 200 quid price tag. It's easily worth it. It's along the lines of buying an 8800GTX for your PC - if you want the best, here it is. Plus, you can use it with your PC (and PS2 if you have one) as well.

However, that's just the steering wheel. Overall, the X360 certainly seems to have the PS3 firmly under its thumb just now, and with GTA4 and Fable 2 coming out in a few months I'm still happy I've got one.

Incidentally, whilst PS3's online service is free, £35 a year (£3 a month, what's that?) for a much better service is definitely the better option. Although recently it had some troubles (which D was pretty vocal about), before then I had some great times on PGR3, BF2 and Chromehounds which were well worth the money.
I like the sound of the web browsing and multimedia aspectsof the PS3, though, which would be pretty handy for me. The only other thing I wish for is better backwards compatibility, I want to be able to play FFXII in upscaled HD instead of the mess of pixels which is PS2 through HDTV.

Well, we really aren't helping you much with all these different plus points and negative points I think the most important factor in this maybe should be that quite a lot of THN members own 360s (sorry Cooka ) and that can certainly improve your experience of it.

 

[Ronin Storm]

Yes there is more games for xbox 360, hence more people on line probably, but some games require PAL-60 support on TV and I aint sure my CRT tv supports this. No, I haven't got a HD tv yet.

I have no TV at all. I have a widescreen 20" monitor instead, with dual DVI and D-sub inputs. I then bought the X360 to D-sub connector and now run both my 360 and a PC through the same monitor. This allows me to play games (on the 360) or watch movies with weird codecs (on the PC) as takes my fancy without needing any TV license (for a TV I never watched) in near-HD quality. I'd prefer a larger monitor but mine cost around £200 and is excellent quality and I can't afford an upgrade to that at the moment.

So, if you're not looking to lay out for an HDTV anytime soon and yet you'd like the picture quality improvements and to avoid all problems with PAL frequencies I can highly recommend the monitor route as a cheaper alternative.

Of course, it's entirely possible that that PS3 supports this too.

 

[BiG D]

It really comes down to what you want to do with it. If you care about Bluray, you might as well choose the PS3.

If you're going to primarily use the console for games, the 360 is currently the leader (and will likely stay that way for quite some time.)

The third choice, of course, is to just skip them altogether. I still don't think they're worth it unless there's a game you absolutely have to have...

 

[BiG D]

oh, also one other thing to make a note of (as we were just talking about internet connections in the shoutbox...) The 360 doesn't have built-in wireless, which is bullshit. Their addon thing is like $120. Which is even more bullshit. You'll either want to go with a wired connection if possible, or do what elD and I have done and throw new firmware on a wireless router and hook the 360 up to that...

 

[thatbloke]

Also, the 40GB ps3 has NO backwards compatibility whatsoever if i remember correctly, (or its capacity to do so is greatly reduced compared to the now discontinued 60GB model) and to be honest i prefer the ease at which xbox live is integrated into the games. If i want to play a game with someone i can set up a game and be playing in about 5 presses of a button, and within like 30 seconds I can be playing online with a friend in a private voice chat room for just the two of us.

I like my driving games too so a steering wheel is something I would consider myself but not until I have expanded my games library a bit...

 

[Gombol]

360, more games, and ive had no problems with the x-box/360

every PS i had broke after 4 weeks..so ive skipped the PS3 till its REALLY cheap..

 

[HotStuff]

Guys thanks for all this information, it does make the choice more confused. Tetsuo, you are obviously a person who appreciates a quality product and yes that G25 looks bloody awsome. The fact that it is compatiable with both PC and PS3 justifies the £200 price tag. I do really fancy some online driving games as an alternative fps.

As for the HD tv issue, Ronin I would like to play my games console while I park my ass on the couch. I currently have a 36" quality CRT tv. I have emailed the manufacturers to ask if it supports PAL-60. If it doesn't, I think this will put me off xbox360 - I will not be forced to upgrading my tv now-I will do it when I am ready. Are all PS3 games PAL-50(standard UK transmission) or is there a similar issue with Xbox360?

BigD, I am not bothered about the bluray player, but it does look like bluray is going to win format battle(think another thread necessary to discuss this one).

I am not bothered about multimedia/internet access, am happy to use my pc for this. Not bothered about wireless connection either, in fact I prefer to wire.

The xbox online service sounds to be of better quality and are more people on it. The ps3 is clearly still in it's infancy but is it going to overtake?

Please continue to discuss...

 

[Iron_fist]

If your TV has a scart input it is almost certainly PAL-50 capable as (as i mentioned before) all DVDs are output at PAL-50\NTSC-60 depending on the region.
It should also be noted that if you're looking at the PS3, Blu-Ray spec 1.1 has been released so it would be worth looking at if the Blu-Ray drive has upgradeable firmware to allow for future updates (spec 2.0 with it's built in online extras comes to mind)

 

[MadGinga]

As for the HD tv issue, Ronin I would like to play my games console while I park my ass on the couch. I currently have a 36" quality CRT tv. I have emailed the manufacturers to ask if it supports PAL-60. If it doesn't, I think this will put me off xbox360 - I will not be forced to upgrading my tv now-I will do it when I am ready.

Hey Hotstuff,

I had a similar issue with my TV, when i first got it, way back when the original xbox was but 3(ish) years old (about 3-4 yrs ago) i got myself a big fat 28" CRT TV cheapo from Asda (yes, i know, not a great idea) and when i tried to play burnout 3 on it at pal-60 it threw a wobbly.

So when i got a 360 and ended up with a pal-60 only games i was a bit bummed (halo 3 and Gears of War) so i fiddled around with the settings on my tv and amazingly it actually did support pal-60.

I suggest you poke a round your TVs settings as if you bought it in the last 3-4 yrs (and its a decent make, well better than Sanyo) it probably has support for pal-60, it may not just be turned on.

Hope this helps, it certainly made my day when i found my tv did pal-60

 

[AcidK]

Personally I would recommend a PS3 over an Xbox 360 for many reasons.

Yes, the Xbox 360 is currently superior in the gaming front and has better processing support for the console in general. And yes, PS3's version of Xbox live has not been currently released yet.

However, have you looked at Home, the PS3's answer to Xbox Live? It's like a whole new game entirely! Not to mention PS3's already boast Blu-Ray disk usage (Xbox 360's have to buy extra drives for HD-DVD support and Blu-Ray disk is currently the leading competitor out of the two). PS3's backward compatability is not that good and I would never suggest using a PS3 to play PS2 games (PS2 runs PS2 gmes far better than a PS3 can, besides you wouldn't need to go backwards, it just isn't the same...)

PS3's also have a seperate processing unit dedicated to graphics support, thereby allowing future games to be more graphical than Xbox 360 in terms of overall graphics. Xbox 360 can only support the up-most graphics on single objects at a time, making the processing speeds slower (and some games can even lag).

In terms of reliability, there has never been a problem with my PS3, not a single crash or freeze-up. This has not even happened to friends I have with their PS3's. Xbox 360's (or at least the first editions of them) had the undeniably Microsoft-ish ability to crash, break and even melt through floors and there are countless people I know with Xbox 360's whom complain about its ability to only play for 6 hours before crashing in a blue-screen style (this time in the form of a red button).

Games coming for the PS3 in future would compete with Xbox 360's current and future game titles, with the ability to play Soul Calibre 4 with Darth Vader (drool) and, of course, Final Fantasy 13. Car games for the PS3 are currently naff and the Xbox 360 does out-do the PS3 in that respect, but future game titles such as Gran Tourismo, Need For Speed and the soon-to-be-released Wipeout HD.

- AK

 

[Ronin Storm]

Games coming for the PS3 in future would compete with Xbox 360's current and future game titles, with the ability to play Soul Calibre 4 with Darth Vader (drool) and, of course, Final Fantasy 13.

Not to nay-say your comments but a number of PS3 exclusives have gone cross-platform in the light of the delayed release of the PS3. Soul Calibre 4, for example, is available on X360 and PS3. This is a trend I expect to see continuing as development costs for AAA titles continue to increase. One report I read a month or so ago (no link, sorry) indicated that one mainstream developer was finding it relatively easy to build a game that would port across different platforms. If that turns out to be the case more generally then I expect platform exclusivity to stop being a major reason for choosing a console.

That said, I've seen early trailers for FFXIII and they did make me wonder about buying a PS3 just for that...

(Still much too expensive, though.)

 

[BiG D]

However, have you looked at Home, the PS3's answer to Xbox Live? It's like a whole new game entirely!
...
Games coming for the PS3 in future would compete with Xbox 360's current and future game titles, with the ability to play Soul Calibre 4 with Darth Vader (drool) and, of course, Final Fantasy 13.

Home has been delayed how many times now? (Rumours saying that it's still pre-pre-alpha and there was no way it was going to hit its 2007 release, let alone a 2008 one...) Even if Home fixes all of the problems with the PS3 online stuff (things like having to quit your game if someone sends you a message. Seriously, how is that practical,) it's still a long way off.

You can talk about future releases all you want, but it means nothing. If we had had this discussion early in 2007, you would've been telling me that Lair was going to be the xbox killer. We now know that that couldn't be further from the truth. As it stands, the platform has no solid games worth buying it for, and I wouldn't risk my money on it until it does.

Quite simply, the platform isn't ready yet. I'm sure that someday it will be able to compete, but until then you're just buying a really big paperweight...

 

[thatbloke]

As it stands, the platform has no solid games worth buying it for, and I wouldn't risk my money on it until it does.

There is ONE game that was recently released that is PS3-exclusive and actually worth playing.... and that is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. It's bloody amazing. It's like Tomb raider, only WAY WAY better.

And the woman in it is hot.

The acting in this game is superb... I think that developers have finally realised that decent voice acting makes a character, and these characters are all perfectly believeable.

And all this from only about an hour of playing it...


But only one game really isnt worth it... and the other problem is that because Home is taking so long, the games may well need software changes to support it correctly - if that is so, do you really think that a developer that has released perhaps a dozen titles will make them ALL compatible with Home?

I think not. Home may end up getting a release this year, but it will be 2 years before games that really take advantage of it are out there.

 

[AcidK]

Drake's Fortune and Virtual Fighter 5, both VERY good games (VF5 is a shit-load better than Tekken, although SC4 will out-do it)

I already knew that SC4 will be cross-platform, however there is one major difference. PS3 players get to use Darth Vader, Xbox360 players get to use Yoda.

 

[Ronin Storm]

PS3 players get to use Darth Vader, Xbox360 players get to use Yoda.

What a cheat! I thought that both platforms could use both!

 

[thatbloke]

Drake's Fortune and Virtual Fighter 5, both VERY good games (VF5 is a shit-load better than Tekken, although SC4 will out-do it)

I already knew that SC4 will be cross-platform, however there is one major difference. PS3 players get to use Darth Vader, Xbox360 players get to use Yoda.

What a cheat! I thought that both platforms could use both!

We all know that Yoday will kick anyone's ass anytime he chooses. therefore X360 = teh win

 

[AcidK]

Rofl, get with it, Darth Vader ftw baby! (I have always been more affiliated with the dark side in every sw game I played in)

 

[HotStuff]

Guys thanks for this detailed response to my original post. I have decided that the PS3 is the better option for various reasons.

a) better hardware
b) better prospect for future
c) can use as internet browser
d) better support for steering wheel games
e) Blu-ray has obviously now won format war
f) costs nothing for online gaming

Sorry if I have offended any Xbox 360 owners

Now, it's just a case of when I decide to purchase.

 

[Ronin Storm]

I hope it works out well for you, HotStuff!