So it's been a while since I last blogged. In that time I've been getting acquainted with my 360 by getting all the exclusive must-haves that owning a PS3 couldn't afford me.

Since my last blog I've bought an played Mass Effect, Bioshock, Condemned, Halo 3, Saints Row, Crackdown, Kameo, PDZ3, Lost Planet Extreme Condition, Dead Rising and Ninja Gaiden 2 among others. But what I've found is that I'm starting to buy games that I've already played on PS3 for extra Achievements like CoD4, Condemned 2, F.E.A.R., Stuntman Ignition, The Orange Box etc.

On the PS3 version I had no incentive to play CoD4 on Veteran from start to finish but on 360 I made it my mission to get every achievement from New Squadron Record to Mile High Club which took at least 20 goes each. On PS3 I got bored after 3-4 tries. I'm going to go out on a limb and say Achievements is the greatest contributing factor for why most multiplatform releases sell better on M$'s bug ridden platform rather than Sony's feature-rich PS3.

The achievement system is ingenious however it seems some developers add them only cos they are required to leading to some blantantly simple achievements like the 1000 points you can get in 30 seconds in Avatar: The Burning Earth. Nonetheless, due to the popularty of Achievements, Sony has responded with their own ranking system.

I have yet to come across a PS3 game that supports trophies so don't know any nitty gritty details of how they work or whether they provide the same sort of incentive to play through games over and over as their 360 counterparts.

Of course similar incentive systems have existed since at least the PS2 days when Insomniac, ironically a Sony only developer, released Ratchet and Clank with it's Skill Points system.