even with blu-ray the difference isn't very noticable. The ps3 wins out in some areas slightly (hardware based), and the 360 has some advantages too (software/api based).
Disk format - what most people don't talk about blu-ray is how slow it is loading information, techinically it's not much of a difference from dvd-9 but there's really no advantage to that since to take advatage of more space you suffer from longer load times trying to load that "extra quality". Blu-ray does have an advantage in hd-cgi cut scenes, but if you pay attention to game development you've probably noticed they're being phased out for in-game engine cut scenes (like the MGS4 trailer).Â
Very small advantage ps3.
CPU - We hear alot about how uber powerful the cell is and it seems pretty impressive in theory, but we don't really know how well those theories are going to work in game development. We know that the cell is great for info processing like @-home, or HD video codecs, but how well is it going to run game physics, AI, triggers, ect which are quite different. Well nobody really knows, and even put the doubt in favor for the cell it's not really so overpowering that we're going to see any major differences in the two systems. The 360's cpu is 3 cores which according to Cliffy B (the guy who made GeOW) only scratched the surface of. Some people are reporting that he mostly only used 1 core for GeOW, but you must remember if all 3 cores are used doesn't mean it's going to run 3x faster, or better.
Very small advantage ps3
Ram - remember when I was talking about the "extra quality" for the disc format, well this is another portion where that extra quality can't easily be obtained. The ps3 splits up it's ram into 256 of XDR ram (faster ram), and 256 of the same ram the 360 uses. Well the advantage the ps3 has with the XDR ram is null since it's not in matched with the 256 ram which causes headaches if you try to use them together (I won't say it can't be done). Next is you have a limited amount of Ram in both machines anyway meaning even at optimal performance you can still only display 500 mb of information (I took some out for background apps which both systems run) meaning you can't really use that you would have to be extremely careful about loading many large type files into the system. To me it seems both consoles can get buy with 256 ram so I'm gonna go w/ no advantage for either on this one.
Tie
GPU - yea the 360 has not only better specs on the GPU, but also it has better software (APIs) to run he GPU. Sony has gotten a bit better about developing API's as compaired to the ps2, and ps1, but they are quite a bit behind. One advantage that sony has is that the cell SPE's can be programmed to run as graphics gpu, but don't expect them to be efficient. Despite that I still give a slight advantage to the 360 since I'm fairly confident that even with properly using the cell the 360 can produce better lighting, more verticies, better mapping.
Advantage 360 (throw in the cell and it's "slight advantage 360")
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I could go over the differences in how each systems parts interact with each other but it's very very complicated and it's not like anybody is going to read what I typed.
The ps3 has a slight power advantage over the 360 but it's so small that a game on the other system is likely to look better because of the developer over the differences in power.Â
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