We have an xbox360 premium and a Nintendo Wii, we tried to buy a ps3 to sell it on ebay, but didn't have the energy to stand in line for 15 hours or whatever.
Some odd trivia.
Xbox360 is 1080p, doesn't force you to buy a hidef player if you don't want to, is cheaper than the premium ps3 if you do want to, lets you download files like HD trailers rental HD movies, and purchase HD television shows in the background letting you play other games meanwhile. Your friends list is universal between all games, meaning if you meet someone cool in one game, you can find them again in the next, or talk to them while you're playing one game and they're playing another. HDDVD movies look AWESOME btw, I was quite shocked. Silver package xbox live is FREE, gold costs 50 bucks a year I think. You can play your own music during games, this is especially nice on racing games and such. The xbox360 has twice as much RAM as the ps3 and more powerful dedicated CPUs. Its been pretty much accepted that for online play, the xbox360 is unsurpassed. Most HDDVD movies have been reviewed as looking better than their blueray counterparts. Microsoft makes 75 bucks per 360 sold, that means they can lower prices soon if they want to compete.
Nintendo Wii: 480i resolution (thats standard definition for those unaware). 480p if you can get the component cables that have been on backorder or being charged extremely high rates. Supposedly 480p is worth it. The Nintendo Wii is a gamecube cpu manufactured 20% smaller for less latency and it uses a full DVD instead of their proprietary mini-DVD, and of course the nunchuck controller. That means your graphics aren't going to be much better than gamecube, but the developers already know how to program for it. Most of the internet functions aren't ready yet, but hopefully will be soon. The Wii is not a next-gen console really, but the controllers "might" be next gen, we'll have to see how many uses people come up for it. The Wii is really a gamecube, thus Nintendo makes most of the money back as profit, god forbid the console war comes down to just price, Nintendo would win hands down due to their ability to lower the price to near gamecube levels.
PS3: Multiple cores, combined core power should be more powerful than the other next gen system, the xbox360, but with so many specialized cores, the ps3 apparantly can't just brute force things like the 360 can. The PS3's memory is twice as fast as the xbox360 (but half as much). PS3 has some very well liked exclusive games, though they've lost many over the past few months. Currently games are considered to look better on the 360, probably but not necessarily due to the 1 year leadtime devs have had, plus the ease of development for the 360. If you download something on the PS3, be prepared to wait, no background downloading, that means no playing games for 2 hours while you download that hd movie. PS3 internet service is completely free, but missing most of the features of xboxlive. Friends lists are per game, be prepared to either spend lots of time looking for friends each new game, or meeting lots of new people because you're too lazy to. Blueray is bigger than hddvd. PS3 costs almost twice as much as the 360 and Sony still loses 300 bucks for every PS3 sold. For those who pay attention to the stock market, Sony is close to depleting their cash reserves, while Microsoft has more than 10 billion in cash reserves. If you don't have 1080 or 720p, the blueray will look crappy and the games will be standard-def (http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/11/24/6078) which they can't or won't be fixing with a firmware update anytime soon.
Anyone ever shop at Suncoast or a similar DVD movie place, usually kept in malls? At ours here in Vegas, they have one HD section. One side says HDDVD, the other says Blueray. The HDDVD side is filled to the brim, with great movies like constantine, Serenity, V for Vendetta, Batman Begins, etc. On the other side, at least in our store, half the blueray side is also HDDVD because they ran out of room for hddvd. then theres about 30 or so bluerays sitting there.
Don't get me wrong, Sony owns Sony Pictures, and Sony Pictures has some great franchises like Spiderman. But Sony could care less about the ps3 as a gaming console, they're trying to win the format war. They lost with betamax, they lost with their version of laserdisc, they lost with minidiscs, they lost with UMDs. They don't want an open format controlled by a coalition of hardware manufacturers, they want a proprietary format that everyone else has to pay them royalties for.
I was pro-ps3 until all of Sony's debacles this year. Everyone remember the class action lawsuit against them for illegally installing software on our computers with their music cds that could allow a hacker to take control of your computer? Remember the battery recall?
How about some of the gem quotes from our good ol playstation taskmaster Ken Kutaragi
"Microsoft is trailing behind us, but they are not a threat. They are good at improving [on products], but we will be advancing to the next level with revolutionary technology...Microsoft shoots for the moon. Sony shoots for the sun."
"We want for consumers to think to themselves 'I will work more hours to buy one'. We want people to feel that they want it, irrespective of anything else...The PS3 will instill discipline in our children and adults alike. Everyone will know discipline."
"With the PS3, our intentions have been to create a machine with supercomputer calculation capabilities for home entertainment...You can experience the 4D world."
I read an interview where he suggested playstation fans would buy a piece of trash labeled playstation because its "PlayStation". I don't know, that seems a really low opinion of playstation fans, and it killed my interest in the system.
As a last comment, a lot of people are saying the 360 games look as good or better than the ps3 because of it having a year lead on the ps3, so wait a year and see which one is better. I'm sorry, but doesn't everyone realize in a year Microsoft will be showing off bits and pieces of its next gen console, and the year after that it will probably be out, presumably with features that blow the ps3 completely away?
Want to see some video comparisons of the 360 and the ps3? http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=0&cId=3155393
These are all my opinions of course, but I think Sony's PR machine has been misinforming a lot of people and others don't read every gaming site known to man so may just not know the full scoop. In other news, I have too much free time...
Richard M.
Grimfang"Whisper"Xaeraes