PS 3 or XBox?

[Jobydrone]

Thank you so much for that comprehensive review of both systems. I have been debating on getting a gaming system and this has brought up some very good points... but I'm torn between PS3 and Wii.. what are you thoughts on Wii?

My pleasure Kenny, you must know over the years how much I enjoy talking and writing about video games.

The PS3 and Wii are so different it is really not fair to compare the two.  I love my Wii and it is extremely fun for my whole family. You know this is a "crossover" device if my wife is actually willing to play it: she despises video games but will really enjoy a game of bowling from Wii Sports or the mini games on Wii Fit. Nintendo really nailed the ability to capture an audience that doesn't normally enjoy video games or finds the the average Playstation controller intimidating with all the buttons, sticks and triggers. Of the three systems it is hands down the most fun to pull out at parties and is extremely enjoyable to play with other people. It's true I don't play the Wii nearly as much as my other systems, but if you count the amount of time my wife and daughter spend playing it, then the Wii is probably on and being played in my house as much as either of the other two. And as I said, there are some games I truly love on that system and that you won't ever play on any other console:  Wii Punch Out, Super Mario Galaxy, Zelda Twilight Princess, Okami, House of the Dead, Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles, Williams Pinball Classics, many more. The Wii has more than 300 classic console games available for purchase and download through their system. These games cover a variety of systems including the original NES, Genesis, Super Nintendo, N64, and also has a wide variety of original game content available for purchase and download called "Wii Ware". The many complaints about lack of hard drive storage was recently addressed through the use of portable SD memory cards to transfer purchases onto.  

The most recent advance people are talking about for the Wii just hit stores this week:  Wii Motion Plus is being packaged with a Tiger Woods golf game and a Tennis game. IT is an attachment that clicks onto the end of the "Wii-mote" and allows for true 1:1 movement capture from the controller.  It will allow, for example, that lightsaber game that everyone has been dreaming about to finally become a reality, where you can swing your remote around and the character on screen with the saber will perform exactly the same motions you are.  This device has alot of potential and it will be very interesting to see how Nintendo and other third party publishers take advantage of it in the future.

I I know I don't really know you Kenny and I don't want to presume anything, but after reading your posts here for the past three years or so, I actually do feel like I have a sense of your personality, likes and dislikes, etc.  From what I can tell it seems to me that you and your family would really enjoy the Wii more than the PS3.  You don't strike me as the kind of person that has a ton of time or desire to dedicate to hardcore gaming, and I think you would get more pleasure from having group fun with your friends with Wii games like Wii Sports, Rock Band for Wii, and similar stuff like that.

[golum113]

 :starwars: I'm old fashion i will go for PS3 if you have family then a wii it  you re   best bet   ;D

[golum113]

I have all three major consoles (Wii PS3 and Xbox360) and for the past two and a half years I rarely fired up anything but the 360.  That being said I've recently been playing the PS3 and Wii more since the release of Infamous, Punch Out and Wii Fit and I have been enjoying those systems more. There are very few benefits to either PS3 or 360 that the other system doesn't have as well.  Here's some exclusive benefits that I can think of off the top of my head:

Sony PS3:

Blue Ray capability (this is the big one if you want to own and collect a high definition movie library and don't want to shell out 200 bucks for a dedicated Blue Ray player.)

Free multiplayer on line gaming (Xbox costs around 50 bucks or more a year to be able to play games on line)

Enormous, robust library of backwards compatible PS and PS2 games if you can find an older model (they are still pretty easy to find)

Easily upgradeable, cheap memory if you want or need more hard drive storage (and you might sooner than you think considering the rise in popularity of downloading full games and storing them on the system with no physical media.  Xbox uses proprietary technology that is very expensive for their hard drives)

WIFI access out of the box (XBOX charges $100 for the wireless network adapter though there are some third party alternatives that are a little cheaper)

Motion sensitivity/accelerometer built into the controller, Xbox does not have this feature.

Free avatar based social networking system if you're into that kind of thing (Playstation Home)

Early access to free game demos as soon as they are released to the public.  Xbox makes it's users wait two weeks or more for many high profile new demos unless they pay for the Xbox Live "gold" service.

Xbox 360:

Huge, robust on line community through Xbox Live Gold if you don't mind paying a subscription fee for it

Very easy user interface and setup.  Many people find the Sony cross media bar unwieldy, and system configuration unnecessarily confusing.

Xbox games play right out of the box, Sony requires an installation process that takes five minutes or more for most games.  Devil May Cry 4 had a half hour install for PS3!  Xbox 360 now has an option to install games directly on the hard drive from the disc which supposedly optimizes gameplay and load times but I haven't noticed any appreciable difference running installed games.

Very few system updates, and when they do update, generally twice a year, it's not a painful process.  Sony has what seems like constant system updates that can sometimes take fifteen minutes or more.

Gigantic on line store with a large library of high definition movies available for rental, exclusive games via Xbox Live Arcade and some free content as well (the Guild being the best example of free exclusive content, thanks Kenny!)  Sony also has this feature but they are playing "catch-up" content wise.

Xbox has the ability to setup the functionality to stream music and video content from your PC/Laptop through the Xbox to your TV.  This is a fantastic feature that allows me to watch almost any video I have on my computer directly on the TV I have my console attached to.  I have no idea if this works with Macs or if it's just PCs.  PS3 supposedly has this feature as well but I have not been able to figure out how to set it up, and I have tried.

Conclusions:

As you can see it is really difficult to place a value judgement on which system is "better" than the other.  It is going to be different for every user, depending on their needs and what they plan to do with their consoles.  I believe that for most people the choice ultimately boils down to two things:

1.  Price

PS3 is more expensive but this is somewhat misleading.  With the Xbox 360 if you want full on line multiplayer gaming, wireless connectivity, and anything more than 20GB hard drive space, you are going to be paying as much as or more than what the PS3 costs with all those features included right out of the box.  You can get a core system Xbox 360 that plays all the games released in stores on disc without a hard drive for $199 dollars.  If you don't plan on going on line much or downloading games from the Microsoft store, this is a very appealing price.  If you decide later on to upgrade to a hard drive, wireless networking, etc, you can choose to but it will cost you an arm and a leg.  There has been a long rumored PS3 price drop, probably coming before this holiday season, but no one knows if this is actually happening, when, and how much it will be.  $299 would be a great price point that would move systems but I doubt they will go that low.

2.  Games

Each system has a pretty significant catalog of exclusive games.  Some examples are:

PS3:  Metal Gear Solid 4, Killzone 2, Grand Turismo Prologue/GT5 later this year, Infamous, Ratchet and Clank series, Uncharted Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 2 later this year, Resistance and Resistance 2, White Knight Chronicles, Lair, Final Fantasy 14 (MMO) at some point in the distant future, DC Universe on line (MMO) sometime in the future.

360:  Halo 3 and upcoming sequels, Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 later this year, Splinter Cell Conviction, Viva Pinata series, Forza, Gears of War series, Grand Theft Auto 4 addons and downloadable content.

See anything you like in those lists?  You should choose that system then because those games are unlikely to appear on the competing console ever.

Hope this post helps you decide.  Happy gaming!

wow i like how you research you re console my hat goes out to you

[Feathers]

The worthies of the family (i.e. my wife and children) have decided we're getting a 360 for Christmas as a family present. The questions are:

New or Pre-owned(!) (i.e. new or old model hardware)?

4Gb or 250Gb?

Given that I've never touched a gaming console, this isn't really my area of speciality. For instance, if a 4Gb unit works, what is the purpose of 250Gb?

Any help in understanding the differences would be appreciated.

[billybob476]

I have the 20 gig and I am hurting for the 250 GB. My 360 has become a mig part of my home theatre setup. With regard to drive space, all your save games end up on the hard drive. Also any games or videos you buy/download from XBox Live are stored on the drive. Finally, to make games run faster you can "install" them to the hard drive. I've found with big games like Fallout or Mass Effect etc you are much better off installing them. Load times are much faster then reading off the disc.

Additionally, the new model 360 Slim runs much quieter (the optical drive on the old models is quite loud, another reason I install games to the drive). It also has integrated wifi (the older model will need a wifi dongle which here in Canada they charge over 100 dollars for).

Also with regard to pre-owned, you are more likely to come across the red ring of death. MS will cover the repair but it is frustrating. I am of the understanding that the new slim models don't suffer from this issue.

[Feathers]

I'd heard of the noise issues (thanks Dangelus :)) and I'd seen that WiFi was now integrated but didn't really have a clue as to the necessity of it.

I'm not clear whether any of the streaming services that the US guys get (for example) are available over here or whether any of the games that the kids play will really gerate much saved game data. Mind you, I should probably cater for the games I might play...

[billybob476]

The game marketplace has a lot of casual type games that the kids might enjoy. In that case you are downloading entire (albeit small-ish) games to the local drive. Also regarding games you might play, a lot of them tend to have downloadable content and game patches which you'd want to download.

We just got netflix in Canada, I believe the UK is the next place they will be expanding into.

[Feathers]

The game marketplace has a lot of casual type games that the kids might enjoy. In that case you are downloading entire (albeit small-ish) games to the local drive. Also regarding games you might play, a lot of them tend to have downloadable content and game patches which you'd want to download.

We just got netflix in Canada, I believe the UK is the next place they will be expanding into.

You're not saying anything here that will persuade me to buy the cheaper ones, Joe. Are you trying to push me into poverty? ;)

It's all valuable stuff actually as we'd only contemplated games on disc at the moment. Assuming the UK has the same online/downloadable content, that may push me over the edge.

If Netflix arrives...

How necessary is WiFi? Wouldn't a wired connection give a faster data rate?

[billybob476]

Wired is better for sure, just generally people don't have a router near their tv :)

[Jobydrone]

Definitely avoid pre-owned, you are more likely than not buying someone else's problem.   Everything I've heard about the new slim systems is that they are superior to the 1st gen models.  

The new 4G systems use internal flash memory I believe, not enough to store purchases from the Xbox Live Arcade or run installed disc based games.  You'll need a hard drive, not included with those systems, to do that.  I agree with Billybob about the hard drive space, I also have am old 20g hard drive and always have to delete stuff I've purchased (you can download them again for free if you want, Microsoft remembers everything your account has purchased).  Like Billybob said, many games perform better when installed, and with my 20g drive I can only have one (disc based game) installed at a time.

Enjoy!

[Feathers]

I don't have a router near the TV any more but with a bit of re-engineering it's fairly easy to do.

Are the new models seemingly immune from the 'red rings' then? From all I hear, they could be worth it for that alone.

Given that my kids are 5, 7 and 10, I guess they have their gaming life ahead of them. Catering for the future probably dictates a lot of drive space by the sound of it.

(When I said I'd never touched a console, that wasn't quite true. We do have a batteres PS1)

[Jobydrone]

The new models are absolutely guaranteed to never red ring, but that's only because they now flash green when they fail  :roflmao

[billybob476]

As I understand it with the original models, the consoles would get hot, the main board would warp a bit and separate the heat sink from the CPU ever so slightly, then it would overheat. I haven't heard about the new ones having the issue. I kind of want mine to die so I can upgrade it haha.

[QuadShot]

billybob...:) Me too...well, sort of!

[Jobydrone]

I know what you mean, the slim 360 is so appealing, but I've been through four or five Xbox 360s due to hardware failure (I've literally lost count) so I am not spending a dime that I don't have to on another Microsoft product.

If you believe Microsoft's PR hype, they actually addressed the red ring issue before the release of the slim model with their new "falcon motherboard", whatever that means, which is the model I currently own and haven't had any problems with for a couple years now.