360/PS3 Comparisons

[Ashe]

Microsoft on Blu-ray for 360:
"As we have stated before, we have no plans to introduce a Blu-ray drive for Xbox 360."

Really, Microsoft, really? Is this something stated before the absolute failure of HDDVD or after Blu-ray sealed the industry as the new standard of media?

Because it that's current opinion, that sounds like an absolutely fucking stupid business decision to make. Even if their feeling is to try to derail Blu-ray by going to full digital media for their box instead, because I think that's more a situation of hurt pride and ego making that decision (as in "They are still our competitor even if their media won that war, so we'll just try a new tactic of giving no support to the drive despite everything else doing so and hope they fail at some point").

[Waffuru]

It's not a feature we get a ton of requests for. We really don't. When you ask people the list of things they want to see us spending time creating in Xbox, Blu-ray is way, way down on the list.
The second thing is, from a technical perspective, it doesn't help us in the core of what Xbox does, which is in gaming. We can't have publishers produce games on Blu-ray disc. Because then they won't play on the 28 million Xboxes we've already shipped. So it doesn't help us in the core gaming space.
The third thing, and this maps to all three of those, is that it costs a lot of money. And so the scenario is, OK, let me get this straight: I'm going to add something to the product that's going to raise the cost, which means the price goes up, consumers aren't asking for it, and by the way, my game developers can't use it.

That's the official quote from Robbie Bach.

And that earlier 'no blu-ray' is from 10/22/2009.

[Ashe]

That's the official quote from Robbie Bach.

And that earlier 'no blu-ray' is from 10/22/2009.

I disagree with the first part, however, I don't view the marketing research that they have access to, so I've really no choice but to assume its correct (I mean, its not like they want to convince themselves that they DON'T want to make money). But I guess the rest of it makes sense. It basically means they'd have to put out their next gen console now instead of 2015 (the date they said they intend the 360 to last until).

I feel that's a major advantage PS3 has.

[Kole T. Merr]

What it really will end up coming down to is which exclusives you want, whether or not you want a blu-ray player, and whether or not you plan on playing online.

If you want Halo, buy a 360. If you want inFamous, buy a PS3. If you want blu-ray, buy a PS3. If you don't care, buy a 360. If you want to play online for free, buy a PS3. If you want to pay $50 a year for online play, buy a 360.

[Orion]

I don't think the Blu-Ray player is a deal breaker. I've got a pretty decent collection of DVDs and I don't really want to start buying blu-ray versions of them all just because they look a little better or whatever. But yeah, like Teemer said, it comes down to what exclusives you want the most.

[Kaden]

I don't think the Blu-Ray player is a deal breaker

Really depends on the person. There are always people on forums who swear they bought a PS3 over a 360 just because of the Blu-Ray player. Yeah, I know, it's the internet, but some of them are probably telling the truth.

But yeah, Ashe, checking out the exclusives is probably the best way to go. I have both consoles, and enjoy games on both of them. I get more use out of my PS3, but that's because I have a really screwy audio/video set-up at my place (seriously... it's crazysauce up in here), not because of preference.

[Orion]

Really depends on the person.

Very true. I should've said, "In my case" ...

[Sage]

I have never felt cheated for not having a Blu Ray player.

That said, the consoles are almost the same price and the PS3 does have one, so you can't even argue that the 360 has better bang for the buck or w/e.

I think it's on you, really. Like everyone's been saying. What exclusives would you prefer? Do you even care about the exclusives?

I'm not sorry I chose a 360; I prefer the exclusives for it, and the fact I don't have to spend ages installing games. And I'm not even exaggerating. MGS4 might have been an exception, but we were able to watch an episode of the Simpsons in its entirety while we waited for this thing to actually let us play.

Uh... the 360 is only capable of 720p at most. I believe the PS3 is 1080p capable but not 100% on that. You might care about that; you might not. I have a 1080p tv and I can't honestly tell the difference between it and the PS3.

Everything else has really been said already. Both systems are pretty slick.

[Ashe]

From what I've read, God of War 3 will be the first game to actually take advantage of the 1080p ability.

[Waffuru]

There are already lots of games that are 1080p on PS3. I think the first 1080p game was Lair. MGS4, Katamari and Uncharted 2 are all 1080p off the top of my head.

The 360 can display some games in 1080i, but it was a software change and the games are all upconverted so it doesn't really improve over 720p, just allows for more compatibility with some older TVs that don't support 720 and only support 1080 for some stupid reason.

Both are good consoles, I'm a bigger fan of the PS3 myself. My 360 basically just plays Mass Effect, Fable and Culdcept Saga. I prefer the PS3 controller so multiplatform games usually I get on PS3. I also have trouble with my 360 a lot, I have to cycle the power a few times to get it to come on before I can play about half the time.. I also don't have XBL so I think that kills some of it. Though you can hack the 360 (if you hate warranties) to play pirated games which you can't do on the PS3.

Unless there is something that you really must play on 360 I would vote for PS3, it has free online play and better hardware. With the current generation's toolsets so focused on making it easy to code a game that will translate to both systems you aren't going to see a whole ton of games on only one console.

[Ashe]

Those toolsets are actually a bit of a downside though, since most people code first for the 360 (they had more practice with it till PS3 came out) and then "port" to PS3, so they tend to just ignore the way the Cell processor works and only use the primary core.

[Waffuru]

Well.. that's not really true anymore. The only thing you could really "port" when the PS3 first came out was the assets and developers were just not used to coding mutli-core. Now they've spent a huge amount of time/effort making it easy for their code to go PS3 to 360 and 360 to PS3.

It also wasn't so much that they had spent so much time practicing coding for 360, it's based on the DirectX toolset so it's the same thing we've been coding PC games with since 1995.

The result is that mutliplatform games will run basically the same for both consoles. Typically the 360 will have slightly higher framerates with lower anti-aliasing and/or fewer bloom effects. The differences will only be noticed with a side by side comparison and a fine tooth comb.

[Ashe]

Hmm... Well, whatever it was that I'd watched seemed as if it were current games that were just finally getting around to properly using the Cell processor to its full extent. That and I know the pipelines are different between systems, but I really doubt the average gamer would notice the difference there.

[Kaden]

Porting isn't really the problem anymore, like Waff said. The problem with multiplatform releases, right now, is that they're being written on the less powerful console and just dropped into the PS3. Of course you're not going to get the most out of the PS3 that way, and writing games the other way around just isn't practical at this point in time.

They've been developing the technology to allow games to up-spec when they have access to a multi-core processor. That's been worked on for a bit now. So you'll have games running smoother once they're better able to use all the extra cores in the Cell processor. Admittedly, the last time I read anything about that was last year.

My guess is that, eventually, multiplatform games will run smoother on the PS3 than the 360 (there's no way they'll just stop using the DX toolsets in favor of Sony's), but that "eventually" may or may not fall within the lifespan of this console generation. Until then, sadly, you're basically paying for hardware that's not really being used.

EDIT: Right, obviously none of that really applies to exclusives.

[Waffuru]

Eh, not entirely true. Lots of studios write their own toolsets, like Capcom's MT Framework, and compile cross platform from there. As the multi-core on PC becomes more popular it will also cause the DX and other tools to be updated with more focus on threading.

Both consoles are great and you'll probably have more games you want to play then you'll have money for on both. If you know a friend with one of the consoles it might be a good idea to pick that same one so you can borrow their old games. Or if you're into online play I think there are more XBLers around here then PSN.

[Ashe]

@Kaden: That was actually exactly what I was meaning when I said "porting", so I probably just badly explained it.

Yeah, unfortunately, I looked over my bills and income for this month, since I'm almost the only income at the moment and I've been out the last few days (which I REALLY wanted to work) due to some pains and wasn't sure if I'd have to go to the emergency room. So that hurt as well, financially. So since some of them are like 5-20$ on Steam, I'll prob play stuff there for a bit.

[Kaden]

As the multi-core on PC becomes more popular it will also cause the DX and other tools to be updated with more focus on threading.

That's part of the "eventually." Like I said, though, may or may not be relevant to this generation of consoles.

[Josh]

PS3 is a better investment.

Blu-ray is going to be the standard for HD content for the next 10 years, and the PS3 is "future-proof" in the sense that games are going to continue looking better and better on it than the Xbox360 and it will still have a good bit of life after the Xbox has been replaced by a new console much like the PS2 continued to sell after the new generation launch.