yet another PS3 vs 360 comparison

PS3

• Free Online
• Superior lineup post 2007
• More Powerful hardware
• Hardware is better value for money
• Reliable hardware
• Better first/second party
• superior form of rumble will eventually be included + limited motion sensing
• 2 generations of backwards compatibility (limited)
• exclusive games are unlikely to be ported to the end up on the PC
• Greater support from japanese developers
• has a stronger worldwide presence than the 360

360

• Better online functionality
• Superior lineup for 2007
• Lower barrier to entry (premium is still a great fully functional console)
• Superior games selection on XBLA
• generally superior multiplatform games
• Rumble included as standard from day 1
• steals away a lot of the PS3's "exclusives"
• 1 Generation of backwards compatibility
• greater support from western developers
• Head start has allowed it to establish a total of 10 million sales
• Has a true "killer app" in the form of Halo 3 (stronger than any franchise on the PS3)

you say ps3 has a superior line up post 07 but MS hasn't even revealed a line up for 08 yet, thats why at e3 07 the focused on games for 07, so what does anybody really know? nothing.cwalters

and for all we know, they could be holding back their first party line up to compete in 08, they may have something up their sleeve, but who really knows

[QUOTE="cwalters"]you say ps3 has a superior line up post 07 but MS hasn't even revealed a line up for 08 yet, thats why at e3 07 the focused on games for 07, so what does anybody really know? nothing.cwalters

and for all we know, they could be holding back their first party line up to compete in 08, they may have something up their sleeve, but who really knows

you say ps3 has a superior line up post 07 but MS hasn't even revealed a line up for 08 yet, thats why at e3 07 the focused on games for 07, so what does anybody really know? nothing.cwalters

There was halo wars, fable 2, alan wake and banjo kazooie. i think too human is coming out as well (although i wouldn't hold my breath). also X07 is not being held. I'm just going based on what we know so far

nice unbiased comparrason but i dont think its really necessary because there has been loads of these threadspro-nathan-07

i thought it'd be nice to have one that didnt demonstrate a clear preference for one of the consoles in the comparison

PS3

• Free Online
• Superior lineup post 2007
• More Powerful hardware
• Hardware is better value for money
• Reliable hardware
• Better first/second party
• superior form of rumble will eventually be included + limited motion sensing
• 2 generations of backwards compatibility (limited)
• exclusive games are unlikely to be ported to the end up on the PC
• Greater support from japanese developers
• has a stronger worldwide presence than the 360

360

• Better online functionality
• Superior lineup for 2007
• Lower barrier to entry (premium is still a great fully functional console)
• Superior games selection on XBLA
• generally superior multiplatform games
• Rumble included as standard from day 1
• steals away a lot of the PS3's "exclusives"
• 1 Generation of backwards compatibility
• greater support from western developers
• Head start has allowed it to establish a total of 10 million sales
• Has a true "killer app" in the form of Halo 3 (stronger than any franchise on the PS3)

There you go, i've tried to be as fair as possible. Although i'm going with the PS3 this gen i still recognise that the 360 is a very good console. Please tell me if i've left anything outNorthlandMan

It's a very good list but...

PS3

-agonizingly constant third party delays (esp, primarily from Ubisoft...now you know why we hate them)
-poor performance from third parties on Xbox-to-PS ports (excluding lead platform PS3 games and some of the better multiplat PS3 games)
-far smaller game demo lineup on PSN when compared directly to XBL.
-does have HD functionality (a value statement doesn't quite cut it...this is an excellent feature)

360

-better online feature set, not better functionality. They're essentially equivalent in functionality, but Xbox Live has a broader feature set, such as 100% mics in every game, messaging, cross-game invites, Gamercard, Gamerscore.
-equivalent lineup for 2007, if not slightly edged in PS3's favor
-backwards compatiblity is, at the current moment more limited than the Playstation 3's without the emotion chip. The Playstation 3's with the emotion chip have indisputably better BC than the Xbox 360.
-While Halo 3 will be huge, GT5 and Final Fantasy will easily rival it. This, including the mega-hit third-party franchises such as Resident Evil and GTA which are multi-platform.

i thought it'd be nice to have one that didnt demonstrate a clear preference for one of the consoles in the comparisonNorthlandMan

And I think you succeeded. Nice list man.

I agree with most of that but the fact that u say the ps3 is more powerful when they are pretty much equal.Hear me out the ps3 has a much better proccessor but the 360 has a much better graphics card and more memory/ram to work with,all in all they have there strengths and weaknesses they are pretty much equal it all depends on the developer and how they decide to utlize the hardware.atmk

Let me dispel your misconceptions.

First of all the Playstation 3 has the same amount of RAM as the Xbox 360. The only differences are as follows:

The Playstation 3 has two seperate pools of RAM, meaning dedicated RAM, main RAM and video RAM. The video RAM is 256MB GDDR3 while the main RAM is 256MB XDR. XDR RAM is higher bandwidth and presumably lower latency than GDDR3 and is therefore faster. GDDR3 is also used in the Xbox 360 as unified RAM for a total of 512 MB. However, dedicated video RAM is faster than unified RAM, and, therefore, the Playstation 3 has both faster main and video RAM than the Xbox 360, which, for all intensive purposes, will split 256 and 256 evenly between video and main memory pools.

The unified memory is therefore almost a moot point in the argument, only coming into play in describing a Playstation 3 memory advantage.

The only issue is that the Playstation 3, theoretically, reserves a higher amount of memory for the operating system. However, this amount is currently unknown and is being reduced aggressively via firmware update. Seeing as the memory is inherently faster in the first place, and the maximum discrepency would probably be 25MB or something, it's not an issue of superiority.

The graphics cards are essentially equal with the Xbox 360 edging slightly ahead. The 360 GPU is "slightly better" than the Playstation 3 GPU according to Brian Hastings of Insomniac, but the Playstation 3 takes the cake overall due to having a far more powerful CPU.

I'm sure you've heard about the unified shaders and the eDRAM in the Xbox 360 GPU, but these don't really amount to all that much because dedicated shaders can perform more ops per second (meaning RSX ops=/=unified shader ops). The eDRAM framebuffer is also not providing what it was promised to do seeing as games like Forza 2 Motorsport only have 2x fullscreen anti-aliasing whereas the eDRAM is supposed to provide "cost free" 4x anti-aliasing. Clearly, it is not a magnitude of advantage. Additionally, few games are using it effectively to administer AA.

I think they're mostly equivalent, though the unified shaders (seeing as there are more of them, about negating the ops/second advantage of dedicated shaders) should theoretically provide greater efficiency. That's really not something to scream about. The Playstation 3 is, basically, more powerful.

bravo, very good list, not biased

though some cows and lemmings will always find something wrong with itragek1ll589

they always do :)

I tried to stay away from criticising the consoles though, instead just listing their advantages as i perceive them. This was to prevent any overlap (one system's disadvantages are often the others advantages) but also because the list would have been HUGE otherwise

Let me dispel your misconceptions.

Redfingers

I didn't understand a lot of that but you seem to be saying what i've always suspected to be true. The 360 has a slightly better GPU and the PS3 has a significantly better CPU. HOWEVER developers find it very difficult to work with the PS3 because the architecture is so complex.

My understanding is that the PS3 is capable of more (as demonstrated by the likes of WKS and Killzone 2) but is often hindered from doing so by the trend for multiplatform games and its late start in the console race.

I've heard fanboys of both denominations try and skew the "facts" wildly in their favour but as far as i'm aware my suspicions aren't too far from the truth.

you forgot to add that most of 360 exclusives end up on the PC. and most exclusives that are coming out for the 360 are also on the pc. unless its only console exclusive. in thta case only ES, LO, and mass effect are console exclusive, vs the rest of the games that are not.

[QUOTE="atmk"]I agree with most of that but the fact that u say the ps3 is more powerful when they are pretty much equal.Hear me out the ps3 has a much better proccessor but the 360 has a much better graphics card and more memory/ram to work with,all in all they have there strengths and weaknesses they are pretty much equal it all depends on the developer and how they decide to utlize the hardware.Redfingers

Let me dispel your misconceptions.

First of all the Playstation 3 has the same amount of RAM as the Xbox 360. The only differences are as follows:

The Playstation 3 has two seperate pools of RAM, meaning dedicated RAM, main RAM and video RAM. The video RAM is 256MB GDDR3 while the main RAM is 256MB XDR. XDR RAM is higher bandwidth and presumably lower latency than GDDR3 and is therefore faster. GDDR3 is also used in the Xbox 360 as unified RAM for a total of 512 MB. However, dedicated video RAM is faster than unified RAM, and, therefore, the Playstation 3 has both faster main and video RAM than the Xbox 360, which, for all intensive purposes, will split 256 and 256 evenly between video and main memory pools.

The unified memory is therefore almost a moot point in the argument, only coming into play in describing a Playstation 3 memory advantage.

The only issue is that the Playstation 3, theoretically, reserves a higher amount of memory for the operating system. However, this amount is currently unknown and is being reduced aggressively via firmware update. Seeing as the memory is inherently faster in the first place, and the maximum discrepency would probably be 25MB or something, it's not an issue of superiority.

The graphics cards are essentially equal with the Xbox 360 edging slightly ahead. The 360 GPU is "slightly better" than the Playstation 3 GPU according to Brian Hastings of Insomniac, but the Playstation 3 takes the cake overall due to having a far more powerful CPU.

I'm sure you've heard about the unified shaders and the eDRAM in the Xbox 360 GPU, but these don't really amount to all that much because dedicated shaders can perform more ops per second (meaning RSX ops=/=unified shader ops). The eDRAM framebuffer is also not providing what it was promised to do seeing as games like Forza 2 Motorsport only have 2x fullscreen anti-aliasing whereas the eDRAM is supposed to provide "cost free" 4x anti-aliasing. Clearly, it is not a magnitude of advantage. Additionally, few games are using it effectively to administer AA.

I think they're mostly equivalent, though the unified shaders (seeing as there are more of them, about negating the ops/second advantage of dedicated shaders) should theoretically provide greater efficiency. That's really not something to scream about. The Playstation 3 is, basically, more powerful.

And yet again your trying to make it so the ps3 sounds more powerful the 360's gpu is not just a little more powerful it is a good amount more powerful and unified ram is faster than split.