Xbox360 vs PS3 - A Game Developer's View

Soldato
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a new comparision now that both systems are out

cannot link to article as it has hardware store

Being a video game developer (I develop for both, Playstation 3 and XBOX 360) people ask me almost daily which platform I think is better. These are my personal feelings, in no way does this reflect my employer.

Short answer: XBOX 360.

Long answer: Price, performance, visual quality, game selection and online support. I think the XBOX 360 wins in every category.

Price: This is obvious; the XBOX 360 core is only $299. The PS3 is around $499 for the 20GB version. It comes with a hard drive, but you don’t need a hard drive to enjoy a lot of great games on the 360 so I think it’s fair to compare both core systems.

Performance: On paper, the PS3 is more powerful. In reality, it’s quite inferior to the 360. Without getting into too many details, the three general-purpose CPU’s the xbox360 has are currently FAR easier to take advantage of than the SPU’s on the PS3. I suspect a few years down the road some high budget, first party PS3 exclusive titles will come out that really take advantage of the SPU’s and do things the XBOX 360 can’t, but I don’t think the console is worth buying based on this speculation (for some it will be though, we'll have to wait and see how these games turn out).

Graphics: The XBOX 360 is a clear winner. The GPU is more powerful. It has more powerful fillrate, and far more pixel and vertex processing horsepower. Part of the reason is their choice of memory, and architecture of pixel and vertex procesing. I can’t get into details but the same vertex shader will run much slower on the PS3 than the XBOX 360. The 360 also has a clever new way rendering high definition anti aliased back buffers. To accomplish the same effect on PS3 is prohibitively expensive. For this reason I think many games will have no choice but to run in non-HD resolutions on the PS3 version, use a lower quality anti aliasing technique, or do back buffer upscaling. The end result in all cases is going to be noticeably worse image quality.

Game Selection: The XBOX 360 has a huge head start here. 1 year is an eternity in gaming. Almost all multi-platform developers have made the XBOX 360 their primary platform due to timing of release-to-market, this means the games will look and perform better on the 360. The PS3 versions will be ports of the 360 versions. (The opposite was true for XBOX 1 vs. PS2). The XBOX 360 is also far faster to develop for due to better development tools (massively popular Visual Studio .NET vs. proprietary, buggy PS3 compiler and debugger), better documentation, and easier architecture (3 general purpose CPU’s vs. 8 specialized processors that require DMA). Timing has also caused all next-gen middleware developers to make XBOX 360 their primary platform, and they will ‘add ps3 support’ as needed. This support will probably be inferior to the XBOX 360’s due to manpower and more importantly, demand. It’s this catch-22 now that will continue to drive the 360 forward and hold PS3 back.

The other obvious point here is that right now the Xbox360 already has a very impressive line-up of titles on store shelves; the ps3 just launched, and has virtually nothing of interest. Also, many 360 games are already discounted ($35 for Fight Night 3 on Amazon). PS3 games are all full price since it just launched.





Live: Microsoft’s online support with XBOX1 was phenomenal. They built in-house experience, user base, facilities, $$ commitment from executive level (since it proved successful), and most importantly, feedback from 100,000s of XBOX Live subscribers. Playstation 2’s online support sucked. They are now playing catch-up, trying to emulate Xbox’s model. But they had their hands tied just trying to make the PS3 work, it was incredibly ambitious (blu-ray etc.). I haven’t seen it yet, but I seriously doubt the quality will be anywhere to the level of XBOX 360.

HD Content: The PS3 comes with one built in (blu-ray). The XBOX 360 offers HD-DVD as an add-on for $200. You probably don’t care about HD-DVD right now. But you will soon (The quality between DVD and HD is comparable to VHS vs DVD, if you have the right TV) so I suggest paying attention to the war that’s begun. There are two formats: HD-DVD and BLU-RAY. Basically if you rent a BLU-RAY DVD from Bockbuster, it won’t play in your XBOX 360 HD-DVD, and vice versa with the PS3. The implications of this format war would require another article on its own. But as far as the consoles are concerned, the XBOX 360 wins because the DVD player is a separate unit. Playing movies is very taxing on the DVD reader, and let’s face it. In 3 years when your PS3 DVD drive goes out due to playing lots of movies (PS2 was notoriously bad about this) you will have to go buy another PS3. With the 360, you’ll just chuck your HD-DVD player, and go buy another one at the store. In 3 years standalone units wlil probably only cost about $99-150. Another point for the XBOX 360, is that I don’t know who will win the format-war, so I would rather wait with purchase of a HD player. The PS3 doesn’t give you this option.

PS3 controversy: Shootings, Wallmart fights, $15,000 Ebay sales etc. My advice is ignore it. It will pass soon.
 
KennyBhoy said:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17655145 ....But maybe this thread will get more of a response to it....Tis and interesting read :)

Wonder if his employer is M$ ;)
It does appear somewhat biased, I'm sure there's plenty of fact there, but he's near enough making out the PS3 is just a shinier PS2.
He skated over the Blu-ray issue as well, how does he know the lens will die?
Speculation to hide the fact that the PS3 has potentially a better media type than the XBox 360 maybe?
 
mcwildcard said:
It does appear somewhat biased, I'm sure there's plenty of fact there, but he's near enough making out the PS3 is just a shinier PS2.
He skated over the Blu-ray issue as well, how does he know the lens will die?
Speculation to hide the fact that the PS3 has potentially a better media type than the XBox 360 maybe?

tell me about it, getting tired of reading these purported unbiased reviews and opinions now. They're just that opinions, and no more honest than a MS/Sony advertising campaign.
 
possibly a bit biased, but it is from the horses mouth so to speak, and there is plenty of fact in there. Maybe a good one to feed to the sony fanboys who think its 10 times better than the 360 (there are loads of them). In actuality there is little in it.

The blue ray thing is his opinion, which is the same as mine.
Wait untill someone has won the war, by which time stand alone players will be cheap anyway, and better than the included ones.
So I dont think thats biased really, it isn't relevent in games right now, as they all fit on dvd's fine, by the time it is there will be a new xbox on the way probably, sony will have to wait a lot longer!
 
I haven’t seen it yet, but I seriously doubt the quality will be anywhere to the level of XBOX 360

That doesn't fill me with confidence.

PS3 has only been out a few days and all the "360 will be better than PS3" threads have already started in force.

Why tie yourself to one console? I have a 360 now, and maybe in a year or so when the PS3 drops in price I'll get one as well. Hell I might even splash out on a Wii too. ;)
 
well i usually end up with all 3 consoles.

atm i am very happy with my 360, when PS3 sorts its price out and the games get good, then i will be time to buy one. not before.
 
I reckon it'll turn out that both systems are equally decent, each will have it's strengths and weaknesses. I myself am a big Sony fan and have no urge to ever buy a 360, but I'd never claim that it's a rubbish system, I simply think that the PS3 is better equipped for longevity.
Of course it's no fun for the fanboys conceding that both systems are equally good, it's an age old circle that will never be broken, from 'NES vs Master System' to present day and onwards.
 
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