XBOX 360 or Play station 3?

Which is which? If you are a serious gamer or an occasional gamer, which will you prefer to play your game?  We can see the battle between two big consoles and as long as both of the consoles have existed, many discussions, reviews, debates and war who makes the best console in terms in sales and quality.
                    

Makers of the console have different kind of approach in terms in sales and advertising their products. This also include on what is inside a gaming console. For some focus on their storage while the other one focus on the graphics and etc. With all these upgrade, it has advantages and disadvantages.

To be fair to Sony, the actual hardware was never really going to be in much doubt. And after your first few hours in the company of the PlayStation 3, you're likely to be impressed.

Several initial thoughts went through this reviewer's head. Firstly, the machine's really quite heavy. Secondly, aesthetically, it's really quite smart. And thirdly, and surprisingly, is that given the immense processing grunt under its glossy, buffed-up exterior, it's very quiet in operation. It certainly puts the Xbox 360 in the shade in that department.

When we switched on for the first time, following as simple a connection procedure as you'd expect with a games c

onsole, we signed up for the PlayStation Network and downloaded an advised, albeit not compulsory, update. This involved us getting the machine online, which was thankfully straightforward. A built-in wireless receiver or the Ethernet port at the back are your two choices, and we tried both, finding the machine adapted to either at breakneck speed.

The download and application of the upgrade took care of the first five minutes or so, but eventually we got to spend some time with the browser interface. This bears striking similarities to the one Sony employed with the PSP, and given that the two machines have a degree of interoperability, that's perhaps unsurprising.

It was interesting to note, going through the menu, just how Sony has made it easy to support elements you'd usually not expect it to be so welcoming of. The option for an OS install took us aback, and we were pleased to see the Folding@Home client built in too. But on top of that, the likes of keyboards, mice, Web-cams and such like - all of which can hook up via the assorted USB ports - are very easy to add.

Media support is well-rounded, too. That 60GB hard drive inside the machine can be filled with music files, for instance, and several codecs are supported. Likewise, there's Blu-ray and DVD playback. The former - the reason why the machine is so over deadline and so over budget - actually turns out to be a bit of a trump card. While we've not had the pleasure of many Blu-ray players, we're informed by colleagues who have that the PS3 is one of the finest, if not the very best, Blu-ray disc playback device on the market, to the point where many are picking up the PS3 for precisely that reason, rather than for its gaming prowess. It's aided - again, for the time being scoring a point over its Microsoft-produced rival - by the native inclusion of HDMI, meaning full 1080p output is well within the realms of the console (a new model of the Xbox 360 is expected to add this feature shortly).

The games, which ultimately will be the biggest influence in the rise or fall of the machine, we'll look at in a separate review. But there's little doubt that the PS3 is capable of some incredibly impressive-looking games. There's no obvious outright classic available as this review was written, nor a clear one on the horizon, but Sony's track record should ensure that the shortage isn't a long-term one. There's also, of course, Sony's equivalent to Xbox Live Arcade, whereby games can be bought and downloaded onto the console online. A free game was available at launch and you can expect lots more, for sub-£10 price tags, in the future.

But there are still problems here, and they break down into price, the competition and backwards compatibility. In reverse order, then, the European model has been compromised slightly and the hardware that allowed support for PSOne and PS2 games has been cut back. As a result, software emulation is doing more of the work, and it renders a massive chunk of the Playstation back catalogue incompatible at this point in time. Given the price premium Europeans are paying, we find this a complete and utter disgrace.

Furthermore, for the same money as the PlayStation 3 goes for, a gamer could pick up both a Wii and an Xbox 360, and arguably they'd get better value that way. £425 for a games console is, in the modern era, unacceptable, and ironically the only people who will initially get real value from it are the aforementioned Blu-ray player customers. Gamers aren't getting the best end of the deal.

So it all leads to point one: price. £425 is a massive price tag and one that, while the hardware may justify, the competition makes a mockery of. Sony is, infamously, making a heavy loss on each unit sold at the moment too, which may yet tie its hands for future price cuts, and that leaves the PlayStation 3 in a very weak place. The machine is genuinely excellent and in many ways it's better than the Xbox 360. But it's not got enough up its sleeve to justify a £150 price premium. (Source itreview.co.uk last 26/03/09)

The advantages are of course better gaming experience, better quality for the video but the disadvantages of having all this was the over heating problem. Xbox 360 already had their issue especially about the three red lights or the hardware malfunction  but so far Microsoft are fixing the issue already and provide three years warranty for the console service to make sure that they can help the customer. Especially now that Xbox 360 lowered their prices, like a 100$ off from the original the price. (For sure, this will be a big impact for Microsoft and good sales for the last quarter of 2009)

Share your thoughts