How to decide between a PS3 and a XBOX, a step by step guide
1) Ignore the majority of plebs who infect these thread and try and turn it into a fanboi war,
a) Go here for the major releases on PS3:
http://uk.ps3.ign.com/index/reviews.html
b) then go here for the major releases on xbox:
http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/index/reviews.html
c) note which platform has the most games you want to play
2) Compare the major points between the consoles
PS3:
- Has the ability to play dtv if you buy the addon
- Free online play
- Many features you may want come as standard (wifi, bluray etc...)
- Sony have a history of supporting consoles long after they are into their next itteration (psp, ps2 etc..)
- Reliable and quiet console
- arguable inferior controller (the analogue sticks are a bit more cumbersome to use for example doing diagonals on PES 2008 after running in a straight line seemed to be less accurate, but the dpad is far superior to the xbox. It has the sixaxis jobby but to be honest so far i have only seen it utilised as a gimmick)
- Streams most types of media from a pc or nas
- Supports 7.1 LPCM sound
- Supports linux extending its capabilities
- You can add a bigger hdd without voiding your warranty
- No customization in terms of hacking afaik, but i may be wrong someone will probably correct me
- Older versions have backward compatibility, newer ones i am not sure they do
Xbox:
- Arguably better controller (analogue sticks are better and bigger feel make it more comfortable for people with larger hands but the dpad is god awful and i personally feel some of the arcade games suffer because of it. That said you can use the analogue sticks for most games but the deadspot irritates me immensly personally)
- larger game library with more "exclusives", bear in mind a lot of the 300+ they quote are complete rubbish and most of the main releases come to PC so essentially are only timed exclusives (Halo, GoW etc..) but there are some gems in the rough which may take your fancy so back to the game list above
- You can stream media over the network to the 360 simply using a media player plugin (no need to install anything on vista) and you can now play divx through a download plugin however it only seems to support wmv (and avi?) files for the major formats.
- Only does 5.1 DD
- I will probably be burned for this but it is far easier to hack a 360 so you can load your own drives, firmwares, ui's, backup discs and goodies if you are into customization. Obviously voids your warranty
- HDTV recording out of the box if it streamed to the xbox from a pc
- More complete online experience, xbox live is very much so integrated into the web so you can have a "better" community experience if you are into that sort of thing. Bear in mind though some games force you to use friends lists to play against other people
- There is backward compatibility but it is pretty awful, however you can buy a lot of the better games on re-release via xbox live
- Unreliable hardware
I'm sure i forgot some things but they are the main things for me