If youre buying video games will you get one of these two video game consoles for Christmas 2008? Playstation 3 starter kits and the Xbox 360 are two choices that you need to compare. The Xbox live is the best online gaming service and the control pad for the 360 is near perfection (That's why armed forces across the globe use it to control their ROV's and UAV's).
PS3 is by far the better value of the two. It has a blu-ray DVD drive (360 doesn't). Playstation network is free (Xbox live is currently $7 a month), it has built in wireless capabilities (if you want to go wireless on the xbox, you need to slash out $60 for the 360 wireless adapter).
You can surf the Internet just like you do on your home PC (the Xbox360 can't do this), the controller is rechargeable (another $20 for the rechargeable battery pack for the 360). To update the hard drive on the ps3 costs under $90 for a 320gb drive giving you masses of room (for the 360 on the other hand it costs $200 for a 120gb drive, thats more than double the price for only a little over a 3rd of the capacity).
The 360 is a great games machine, but it lacks of inbuilt features and the fact it's a super noisy console when it's on. X-Box has a lot of good 1st party games and an excellent back catalogue. Plus because it's been out longer you can get some real bargains pre-owned and on special offer. If you're only interested in gaming then the X-Box is far better value for money - if your interested in High Def movies and Audio ps3 wins. For PS3 the colors seem more vibrant and the games seem to run smoother.
However if most of the games you like are multi format then you'll probably get them a bit cheaper on 360 and they'll look exactly the same. PS3 audio wins: HD audio, loads more audio options. PS3 video wins: blu-ray and even your old DVD's look awesome played on it. X-box live is an awesome system with great features, it's easy to use and the marketplace is stacked with cool stuff BUT you have to pay a subscription. Sony don't have as many cool products on offer and the service is a bit more wobbly but at least it's free.
PS3 is wireless and you have to pay extra to make the xBox wireless. Xbox control pads win: the PS3 ones are garbage in comparison. PS3 future proofing wins: xbox pricing is in freefall and they're already advertising job posts for people to develop software for the next generation of their machine. I reckon that ps3 has another 7 years easily and the best is yet to come. Xbox 360 is at it's best now and I think there'll be a new console by 2011.
