Whats the best to buy?

[andy03071981]

I know that this isn't really a computer question but me and my girlfriend are going to buy a games console. I would just like to ask peoples advise on what's best to buy.

I can't decide between a playstation 3 and an xbox 360.

I haven't got a clue which one to go for.

What are the benefits and downfalls of both? (excluding aesthetics and price)

[Rik]

Sorry, Andy, my idea of a game is Solitaire.

[Glenn]

I've just brought a PS3 Slim 250gb, it has a Bluray drive, and can be used as a media centre to stream films and music. I believe it also has Iplayer support.

[Rik]

I'll move this to Gaming where it should get a bigger response.

[Baz]

well just going from what my son has had over the years id say PS3.never had any bother with them.good build loads of games for them and as Glenn said has blu-ray player. even for a console the blu-ray player is good, combined with a good tv the quality is excellent

[Steve]

If its for games I'd go for the xbox 360,my sons (15,16,19)very rarely use the PS3 I think its largely down to the game catalogue and of course the xbox live. I use the PS3 for its multimedia abilities

[Supanova]

There are far more developers for the xbox. PS3 games are expensive to develop so lots of games are simply ports from xbox games.

I'm not a console fan, but if I was I would be in the Xbox camp.

[psp83]

xbox 360.

community is much better than ps3 i find,  media extender for your pc, stream stuff from your pc/nas drives, rent movies, download games for points and money, sky player, facebook, twitter, last.fm, zune

cheaper than ps3.

only downfall, no bluray.

[Baz]

you can get online with the PS3 too if thats what you want, and if you're fussy about who you buy from, Xbox is microshaft isnt it. 

All I can say about the 360 is I know at least 5 people,one mate twice, who have had quite a bit of bother with them overheating/packing in etc.  Dont mean to put you off its your choice in the end.  can you not go to some friends who own one or the other and have a go on each for yourself.

[Steve]

I would agree, both our Xbox 360s have been for repair,one after 2 years and the other twice in the same period.

[Glenn]

The Times has a comparison from 2 years ago.

[Glenn]

As far as I know, but please correct me if I'm wrong, both the current Xbox and the original PS3's suffer from heat related failures.

The xbox has a RROD (Red Ring of Death) failure while the PS3 has a YLOD (Yellow Light of Death). If outside the warranty, MS charge approximately £65 ($107) to fix the problem, Sony, charge £128, but the repairs only come with a 3 month warranty.

[Technical Ben]

Yep, both suffer from heat problems. AFAIK the newer models (exactly the same look, just slightly different inside) should be ok now. My Xbox was repaired free one day outside the normal 2 years warranty. Thankfully MS were forced to extend it to 3 years as it was a manufactures fault.

However, I would say the Xbox is better for more family orientated games. The PS3 game catalogue is mainly First Person Shooters. Although it does have a lot of racing games. PS3 has Buzz and other "game show" like games. But the Xbox has 100 v 1 as an online quiz game. So I suppose we need to ask, what games would you be interested in?

So it's a close call really. Just look on Play.com or similar to see what games you want, and what box they come on. Also think about if you will be watching Bluray on the PS3, or Sky on the Xbox. I also found the Xbox to be cheaper than the PS3 with games hardware and extras.

[Niall]

Personally I'd say PS3 as I've had no end of problems with Xbox 360 death, plus the games for the Xbox 360 that are coming out now, are pretty much as far it's it's going to get. I don't really know much about the PS3 though, so the same could apply there I suppose.

[Gary]

I would say PS3 my old Phat style one with a 160GB hard drive is brilliant and as far as games they are catching up, the PS3 has blue ray drive, is more reliable, I have a great collection of games, Assains creed II Modern warfare 2 Uncharted amongst thieves II the list goes on and it has wifi built in, the failure rate of PS3's comapred to xboxes is vastly different. I'm Glad i got it over the 360

[Myst]

Both are good machines with different pro's and cons, PS3 has Blue Ray and wireless out of the box, the 360 has imo better choice of games and more of them., also a better online experience.

As with any games console etc you will always get the various camps in favour of their choice, as has always been the case since the Speccy / C64 days

Whichever you decide on, you won't go far wrong.

[Fox]

as has always been the case since the Speccy / C64 days

C64....bah....Trash 80 FTW

I don't own either but have friends that do. My mate with the xbox has got through about 5 of 'em in 3 and a bit years (most repaired/exchanged under warranty), the one with the PS3 has had no problems at all, and I must admit that it makes a pretty good upscaling DVD/Blu-ray player (at least as good as a £150-£200 stand alone Blu-Ray player). If I was spending my own money it would be a PS3 for me, I already own several PCs and thats all an XBox is - a cut down PC.

[Niall]

This is my main problem. I want a console as I like playing sports games on consoles, as to me it's more of the way it should be. FPS games should be on a PC, although the way they shafted people with Modern warfare 2 for the PC, makes you wonder what they're playing at.

I liked my Xbox and Xbox360, although they ruined football games with extremely poor AI and tackling so I looked for other games. I started playing Fable, which was great fun. Then the console died and Microsoft expected me to pay £70 to repair it because it was over a year old, even though I'd only used it for less than 15 hours. My first Xbox 360 lasted about 30 hours. Not bad really is it? 2 consoles costing £160 each only lasting for about a working week.

Strange why people are anti Xbox 360. I find it astonishing that people are willing to get them repaired over and over, and buy more when they keep failing, to replace them with more fundamentally flawed hardware. Yes the Xbox360 can be fun and has some fun games, but the amount of stress involved when a console dies, plus the 14 day wait for it to be returned patched up or completely new (but damaged in my case), is totally outrageous. The best part is when they altered the new hardware so the red ring of death only covered certain things. My second Xbox died in exactly the same way as the first, but because it didn't show a red ring of death they said I had to pay for it to be repaired. Kiss my rear, I'll get another console when they next lot come out, and only when they prove them to be stable and worth the money.

I nearly got a PS3 for christmas, but got a guitar instead. The only way that's breaking is if my house falls on it

[Gary]

This is my main problem. I want a console as I like playing sports games on consoles, as to me it's more of the way it should be. FPS games should be on a PC, although the way they shafted people with Modern warfare 2 for the PC, makes you wonder what they're playing at.

I liked my Xbox and Xbox360, although they ruined football games with extremely poor AI and tackling so I looked for other games. I started playing Fable, which was great fun. Then the console died and Microsoft expected me to pay £70 to repair it because it was over a year old, even though I'd only used it for less than 15 hours. My first Xbox 360 lasted about 30 hours. Not bad really is it? 2 consoles costing £160 each only lasting for about a working week.

Strange why people are anti Xbox 360. I find it astonishing that people are willing to get them repaired over and over, and buy more when they keep failing, to replace them with more fundamentally flawed hardware. Yes the Xbox360 can be fun and has some fun games, but the amount of stress involved when a console dies, plus the 14 day wait for it to be returned patched up or completely new (but damaged in my case), is totally outrageous. The best part is when they altered the new hardware so the red ring of death only covered certain things. My second Xbox died in exactly the same way as the first, but because it didn't show a red ring of death they said I had to pay for it to be repaired. Kiss my rear, I'll get another console when they next lot come out, and only when they prove them to be stable and worth the money.

I nearly got a PS3 for Christmas, but got a guitar instead. The only way that's breaking is if my house falls on it

PS3 Breakdowns are low on the scale compared with xbox Niall, not sure what the new cut price slim is like but my older phat one has been great and its a year and a half old and gets hammered, but you can't complain they charge you because you only used your xbox for 15 hours, its not the mileage  its the time that's the key here, Thats like saying the panel went on my TV after the warranty ran out why should I pay for it, I only used it for 100 hours, although if I had two xboxes fail on me I would be fed up.

[Niall]

Actually I disagree. In my case the Xbox360 was under a year old. It was a replacement for the last failed unit and I'd only used it for about 15 hours as I said, but more importantly it was a brand new unit, not a refurbished one. They wouldn't repair it because it was over a year since I purchased the first console that died. I only found out about the red ring of death thing whilst talking to some woman on the Microsoft "support" line.

Basically first console you get is protected, which is fine, but if you have a replacement they won't do a thing to help you if it's outside the period of the first purchase. They're basically changing what they say they'll do slightly, which results in you buying a highly unreliable piece of hardware at which point they cease to care.

If you're going to release cr*p products you should be responsible for them. How they're allowed to use this "after a year" rubbish is beyond me.

Oh I forgot to add, this was before they changed the warranty to 3 years. Even though it was in effect when I called them, it didn't cover the first Xbox360 as that only had a 1 year warranty when it was bought.

[Inkblot]

Don't play consoles myself and never had an Xbox in the family but we have had a succession of playstations over the years and son just got PS3 at Christmas so he is happy - but far and away the biggest hit in our household has been the Wii, both kids play it and even the wife joins in on occasion (Quite often actually!). The games are more family orientated and the ones we have are  very 'cutesy' but there is a big fun-factor there too!

If it's purely a choice between Xbox or PS3 then that is obviously of no interest to you but if you've yet to try a Wii it might be worth a quick look

[Sebby]

I had this dilemma a year or so ago. I went for the PS3 because it's a Blu-ray player too. Xbox is HD-DVD, and that's a dead technology.

[Niall]

Apparently Microsoft are releasing a blu ray player for the Xbox 360 now. I've only been told this by word of mouth, so haven't checked (as I don't really care )

[vitriol]

Really Niall?  That would be cool.

Back on topic.

You really can't fail with either, both are great machines, but I feel the 360 has the better games catalogue.  Both have excellent media sharing capabilities and online services, although I think Xbox Live is the better service (hey you get what you pay for.)

[Gary]

Really Niall?  That would be cool.

Back on topic.

You really can't fail with either, both are great machines, but I feel the 360 has the better games catalogue.  Both have excellent media sharing capabilities and online services, although I think Xbox Live is the better service (hey you get what you pay for.)

Playstation live is great considering its free, and you don't have to pay for a network adaptor as well, and playstation games are pretty much there now, xbox has some games as exclusive, PS3 has some like uncharted 2 amongst thieves which is a fantastic game, and the game producers have said its impossible to port to the xbox due the the sheer number of gigabytes and processing power needed, it uses 30% of the PS3 SPU and the sequel will use 100% considering how good Uncharted 2 was and how good the game play is, that means future PS3 games could look and play this good as the company is passing on their expertise to other third party developers, and you need blu-ray for all that information, in an idea world get both consoles but for sheer reliability and the way the PS3 is shaping up now I would go PS3.