Should I buy an Xbox360 or PS3

[Aragorn]

I own all three current gen consoles. It really all depends on the kind of games you like to play because of platform exclusives.

In terms of just straight-up generalization, Xbox 360 is this console generation's winner. And this is coming from a PS fan.

Xbox Live is also the best of the three consoles' online play setups, even though it costs money.

 

[The Evil Dead]

Have they released a X-box 360 yet that will not red ring of death?

Yes, mine. I bought my Xbox 360 in the fall of 2006, and it's conquered Oblivion, Gears of War, Bioshock, Mass Effect, Call of Duty 4 and now Grand Theft Auto IV without a red ring.

....but I think it's a magic Xbox 360 though, pretty much everyone else I know has had to send theirs into the shop.

 

[Aragorn]

I have an original 360 that doesn't turn red. Of course, I don't play it that much, so it doesn't get too warm.

 

[Saturn0660]

Well, i bought a 360... I love it.. Wife loves rockband i'm of course playing GTAIV she's good to go...

 

[clint g]

Personally I am much happier with my 360 purchase than my PS3 purchase. Whats my PS3 used as? A glorified, expensive PS2. The only game for the system that remotly interests me right now is Persona 3 FES and that's actually a PS2 game

 

[Delsaber]

^ And from the sound of things, you're one of the lucky few who got a PS3 with backwards compatibility. New customers won't be so lucky unless they're willing to purchase a used model.

I hear that Persona 3 upscales beautifully on the PS3. Hopefully I'll get to see it someday. It's pretty good looking on the PS2 already, though. Yay for good art design!

 

[The Fatman]

I'm going to second others who've said it all comes down to which exclusive games you want to play. Personally, I really don't care for FPS-type games and racers, so that pretty much rules out all of X360's "big-name" exclusives sans Mass Effect and the forthcoming Ninja Gaiden 2. Both of which I would like to play, but not enough to drive me to buy the hardware.

Now, the PS3 on the other hand... Metal Gear Solid 4, Kingdom Hearts 3, Final Fantasy XIII (and Final Fantasy Vs. XIII), God of War 4... I would be willing to pay $500 just to play any of those titles ALONE. all 4? I'm sold, unquestioningly.

 

[Starbreaker]

Online Friends: X-BOX 360
Real Friends: Wii
No Friends: PS3

 

[Jim Steele]

Speaking purely on their merits as gaming systems (standalone players ftw), the 360 has it hands down on the strength of its game library.

Also, online play may be free on the PS3 but Xbox Live is a vastly superior service which is integrated into the 360's OS. It's a very slick, unified, uniform system that just works. £40 for a year isn't too expensive either and you can buy "pay as you go" cards, so you don't have to subscribe or anything.

The PC/360/Wii combination has given me by far the best 18 months I've ever had in 20 years of gaming, and long may it continue. If money was no object I'd have a PS3 aswell but sadly it's game library does not yet justify is ridiculous price tag.

 

[clint g]

The PC/360/Wii combination has given me by far the best 18 months I've ever had in 20 years of gaming, and long may it continue. If money was no object I'd have a PS3 aswell but sadly it's game library does not yet justify is ridiculous price tag.

And that is the key issue. I bought the PS3 myself not too long ago because I had come into some excess cash and figured "why not?" The problem is that there is nothing worth playing thats a PS3 title. Sure it definitely has alot of potential, but then you might as well wait until that potential actually comes out before getting the system.

 

[Mistral]

XBOX Live has a multitude of features and it seems that down-loadable content hits Xbox first for all of the multi-console games. The reason is that the PS3 is a royal bitch to program for(my buddy programs for a gaming co. and hates putting together code for the PS3). The extrapolation of that is a weaker library due to extended creation times. As far as PSN equaling Live by summer's end-fat chance. It took Gates and Co. quite a while to smooth out Live-Sony isn't pulling any rabbits out any time soon. Latest Rumor Mole says no BR for Xbox but the Netflix deal looks good. As for RROD-it happens sometimes to the older models but you won't be buying one of those. And if its Rockband you want-Xbox magazine includes a few exclusive songs on their demo disc every other month or so. And there's always something in the Marketplace, it seems. Plus all those delicious demos you can download - I prefer tasting b4 buying, y'know?

 

[Garrett]

^ And from the sound of things, you're one of the lucky few who got a PS3 with backwards compatibility. New customers won't be so lucky unless they're willing to purchase a used model.

Neither of the two latest models have hardware backwards compatibility, but the 80gb model does have software emulation. You can check whether a PS1/PS2 games is supported here. I haven't done an exhaustive search, but all of the PS2 games I have are playable on the 80gb PS3.

Personally, I've been quite happy with the 360, so far, despite having a RRoD. The game selection is quite a bit better at this point, unless there are some PS3 exclusives you have to have. Like another person said, the system has also been out long enough that you can pick up a quite a few decent games for pretty cheap.

My PS3 mainly gets used as a Blu-Ray player and a PS2 for a number of games I skipped over last generation. To be fair, if I didn't have a 360, it would be getting more play time for a number of multi-platform games like Oblivion and GTA IV.

 

[Daedalus12]

Online Friends: X-BOX 360
Real Friends: Wii
No Friends: PS3

What if you have all 3.

 

[Starbreaker]

And hang out on a Star Trek message board? Just insert your own joke.

 

[Daedalus12]

And hang out on a Star Trek message board? Just insert your own joke.

The person doesn't hang out on the Trek board nor does she even like Star Trek. What you think I was talking about me?

 

[HellRaiser]

Currently Xbox 360s are on a partial 65nm chipset, which seems to have significantly decreased failure rates. The chipset I mentioned in my earlier post that has strong rumors behind it was in reference to the Jasper chipset which is supposed put all the processors in the 360 on a 65nm process (previously 90nm). Processors manufactured at smaller levels mean less heat, and even fewer RRoDs.