As long as consoles have existed, discussions, debates, arguments, fights, and all out WARS have taken place over who makes the best video game units. In this article I will talk about the ps3 v.s the 360. I also suggest that before you make up your mind to buy any one of these that you read this article.I will talk about the major differences between the two major consoles, the ps3 and xbox 360.
Price:
Both the consoles have gone through a price change prior to last year. The XBOX 360 Premium received a simple $50 price drop, and is now $349.99. The Core version was replaced by the Arcade version, which is the same as before but includes a 256MB memory card, a wireless controller, and some XBLA games on a disc. That version is $279.99. Finally, there is the Elite Edition which is exactly like the Premium, but is black and has a 100GB more hard drive space for an extra $100
The Playstation 3's price situation is a bit murkier, as models have been dropped, new ones introduced, prices were dropped to clear out old models, features were left out on some new models, and so on. We started with the 60GB and 20GB versions, and both of those have since been dropped completely. We now have a 40GB model for $399 and an 80 GB model for $499. Besides the hard drive size, the 40GB model lacks flash card readers, 2 USB ports, SACD playback, and Playstation 2 compatibility
So now you can get a PS3's ‘lower' model for just $50 more than the XBOX 360's ‘middle' model. You can't really look at it that way though, since what sets the Premium XBOX 360 apart from the Arcade is mainly the 20GB hard drive. And the ‘low end' PS3 still doubles that (and aside from that, it is VERY easy to upgrade the hard drive on a PS3). Comparing the 80GB to the Elite, the PS3 is again $50 more, but this time the XBOX 360 has the bigger hard drive. I have always said that hard drive space on the XBOX 360 is pretty much irrelevant, but future firmware updates are changing that. With the ability to download XBOX 1 games, you are probably only going to be able to fit 2 or 3 of them on your Premium, depending on how many demos you have installed.
So after all that, who wins the price war? It's still the XBOX 360, not just because the respective models are $50 cheaper, but all versions of the XBOX 360 come bundled with some games now. The Elite and Premium versions come with Marvel Ultimate Alliance (yawn), Hexic HD (meh), and Forza Motorsport 2 (yey!). While the 80GB PS3 comes with MotorStorm, the 40GB only includes a copy of Spiderman 3 The Movie on Blu-Ray.
Performance:
Here's a tough one. On paper, the Playstation 3's Cell engine is more capable than XBOX 360's triple-core Xenon CPU. However the XBOX 360 is much easier to develop for. In other words, a lot of the Cell's power is going to waste. Although that is expected to change eventually, as always seems to happen with Sony's consoles (compare early PS2 games to current games, and the same goes for PS1). The full potential of the ps3 has not been utilized yet. Another indication that the PS3 is harder to develop for is the fact that almost all multiplatform games arrive weeks - if not months - after their 360 versions. Inspite of this the ps3 is expected to come out on performance.
Graphics:
This is a sticky subject for a lot of fanboys. A very common argument in most flame wars is that the Playstation 3 simply "has better graphics". I'm not sure where that argument came from; Sony obviously did a good job of marketing the system. However, the argument is entirely false. The Xenos GPU on the XBOX 360 is superior the RSX on the PS3. This is one thing that didn't change in the past year.
Xenos simply has more power - higher fillrate, higher pixel processing power, higher vertex processing power, and better memory architecture. If you look at multiplatform games and contrast the graphics on the two consoles, XBOX 360 almost always leads. Whether they use a higher resolution or higher quality antialiasing, games often look better and/or play smoother on the 360. Again, we have to consider that Cell has the potential to help with graphics on the Playstation 3. As developers become more familiar with the platform, they are going to come up with new tricks to help games run smoother, and allow them to look better. However, one year after its introduction we aren't seeing huge leaps (or even baby steps) towards this, except on a couple exclusive titles.
