back to article Xbox 360 Elite games console

Apart from a sneaky bit of Xbox 360 gaming at lunchtimes in the Register Hardware offices, we've always been fairly hardcore PlayStation fans, having grown up with the Sony console series since its 1995 launch. Could Microsoft's new machine, the Xbox 360 Elite, persuade us to change allegience? Well, yes, it could... Microsoft …

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  1. dan

    Pollution Comparison

    Really wish game consol comparisons would include a pollution rating (in two areas):

    1. Noise pollution. The XBox 360 makes more noise your average hair dryer. What is the PS3 like?

    2. Energy usage/Energy saving: If running the Xbox during winter you can quite comfortably turn off your central heating. What is the PS3 like?

  2. Si

    Why does the PS3 win on the GPU comparison?

    I've got both systems and I've not seen anything on the PS3 that can touch the top tier 360 games like Gears of War and Bioshock. If you ask me the 360 should be the "winner" when it comes to comparing the GPUs.

    I could certainly see an argument for the Cell CPU in the PS3 being superior, although comments from Ubisoft devs suggest the 360 version of Assassin's Creed will have larger crowds thanks to the symmetrical processors, and a dev on the Splinter Cell team claims the AI would be virtually impossible to achieve on the PS3. Only time will tell on that one I think.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Controller power winner

    Does the ability to charge the PS3 controller via USB make it the winner in that regard? I don't know about anyone else but I know that if I had a PS3 I would contanstly forget to recharge the damn controller and eventually it would run out of juice on me in the middle of a game. At least with the X360 controller, if that happens you can just slap a new pair of batteries in and carry on.

    Six of one, half a dozen of the other tbh.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its not all about CPU and GPU 'grunt'

    Lets face it, the comparatively puny Wii is outselling both the PS3 and 360. Why? Using the comparison methods used by Scott, here, it sucks, big time.

    Could it be that bigger, flashier and more 'realistic' graphics don't, actually, improve gameplay or user experience that much? Could it be that people are getting bored with shooter after shooter, in more and more gory detail?

    Could it, indeed, be that the thing that is most important in a games console is the way the user interacts with it and not how fast its processor is, or how big its hard-drive is?

  5. Tom

    Nevr in all my life!

    If you include the fact you have to pay another £110 for the Xbox HD:DVD, that makes it more expensive for comparable features. Also if you include the 360's power supply into the measurements (PS3 is internal) It's larger in both size and mass. Don't forget that the PS3 is running the cell broadband engine as well, which will really shine when devolpers get used to the system. Face it XBOX, you can't polish a turd!

  6. Swineherd

    Re: Comparison Table

    It doesn't point out that you can buy rechargeable batteries via USB for the 360, for about 20 quid.

    Why does a slot win over a tray? In my years using slots and trays, I've seen far more scratches from slots.

    PS3 may have blu-ray integrated, but does that make it better? Hardly, the HD-DVD/Blu-ray war hasn't exactly been decided. If blu-ray goes the way of beta, is the PS3 still better? Uh-uh. Sounds like Microsoft have done the right thing by their customers and offered the choice. If blu-ray becomes dominant, I see no reason why they couldn't then bring out a blu-ray player for the 360. If HD-DVD becomes dominant... PS3 owners are screwed. Goodo Microsoft!

    Wireless networking card for 360 - 40 quid in the right places.

    So you add on the bits and pieces that Microsoft have chosen to make optional (other than the HD-DVD player, which is still a sensible choice to keep separate while the war rages), and you still come out with a console cheaper than the PS3, with a huge number more games available, and a far superior online service.

    Why the hell would anyone buy a PS3?

    I mean, come on, seriously.

  7. Scott Snowden, Reviews Editor (Written by Reg staff)

    Responses...

    Firstly...in responses to Si...

    "I've got both systems and I've not seen anything on the PS3 that can touch the top tier 360 games like Gears of War and Bioshock."

    Si...have you even played Resistance: Fall of Man..?? It's as good as Gears of War in terms of graphics. And have you seen the trailers for MSG4..??

    Next...

    "Does the ability to charge the PS3 controller via USB make it the winner in that regard?" Yes. Yes it does. 'Cause funnily enough I don't have to buy more batteries to do this...

    "Lets face it, the comparatively puny Wii is outselling both the PS3 and 360. Why? Using the comparison methods used by Scott, here, it sucks, big time."

    The Wii is an entirely different kind of games console aimed at an entirely different market. Don't you think? Therefore it's not really appropriate to include that analysis in a head to head contest between two much more similar consoles.

    I agree with you..."that is most important in a games console is the way the user interacts with it" and for PS3 and Xbox users...that means lots of graphics and complex gameplay. It's different for Wii users because the games are different. I don't really think you thought that through very well.

  8. Scott Snowden, Reviews Editor (Written by Reg staff)

    ...additional...

    Rechargeable batteries. OK...good point. *But*...that's still an additional outlay if you don't possess any.

  9. R

    It's enough for me

    Through my PS3 I play - in full 1080p by the way, which the 360 is STILL incapable of - Motorstorm, mainly, with a bit of StardustHD for instant gaming gratification.

    Oh, when I get fed up of gaming, I get to enjoy 1080p blu-ray (currently outselling HD-DVD almost 3:1 by the way)

    Oh, when I get fed up of watching blu-ray, I stream my MP4 library through the PS3's inbuilt wireless.

    No messy 'extras', just all-in, £400 goodness.

    Keep your 360s chaps - if I want to play PC games, I'll use my PC for that.

  10. Ryan Barrett

    Poor hands...

    ..if you think that the PS3 controller is more comfortable than the 360 controller.

    The 360 controller fits your hands better, plus the triggers and sticks are both much better. After playing for a couple of hours, you really feel the difference in quality here.

    Where it misses out is on the button positioning, which is poor as it's not even slightly symmetrical. However the exact same goes for the PS3 pad.

    What you might want to mark the 360 down on is allowing games such as Ghost Recon Advance Warfigher to be release, which criminally omit controller configuration options. Makes the game almost unplayable for at least 10% of gamers (try aiming with your wrong thumb).

  11. AndyB

    Re: Responses

    "The Wii is an entirely different kind of games console aimed at an entirely different market. Don't you think? Therefore it's not really appropriate to include that analysis in a head to head contest between two much more similar consoles."

    No, not really. Its a games console, it plays games. Its control system allows a more immersive experience that its rivals with their twiddle-thumb controllers, but it can still play the same sort of games that the PS3 and 360 are suited to.

    "I agree with you..."that is most important in a games console is the way the user interacts with it" and for PS3 and Xbox users...that means lots of graphics and complex gameplay. It's different for Wii users because the games are different. I don't really think you thought that through very well."

    I thought it through very well, thank you very much. Yes, SOME Wii games are different because the simple control systems on the PS3 and 360 mean they are not capable of running games of that sort. On the other hand the Wii is quite capable of playing FPS 'shooters', and making it a much more immersive experience than with the PS3's or 360's 'traditional' controllers. Really shoot at the screen, swing your sword, hit your opponent. You can have as powerful cpu as you like, with the most eye-wateringly stunning hight-res graphics, but if you are driving it with a PS3 or 360 controller (which, lets face it, haven't changed much since the PS1), you are just playing with the game, you aren't part of it.

  12. Mark

    Re: It's enough for me

    So much misinformation flies about this here interweb!

    'Through my PS3 I play - in full 1080p by the way, which the 360 is STILL incapable of - Motorstorm, mainly, with a bit of StardustHD for instant gaming gratification.'

    The 360 has been capable of 1080p since around the time the PS3 was launched. It was done in a firmware update. By the way, the PS3 only does 1080p on certain games and even then it struggles. 720p is the sweet spot for this gen of games consoles which is a good job really as that's all most peoples flat screens are capable of displaying!

    'Keep your 360s chaps - if I want to play PC games, I'll use my PC for that.'

    The 360 is host to quite a few PC games because:

    a. It's relatively easy to port games.

    b. There's some great PC games which deserve more of a casual audience.

    But most of the outstanding games aren't on the PC (Halo 3 being the most obvious example) or are available on the 360 way before they are ported to the PC (like Gears of War).

    The 360 is a great console which no amount of Sony fanboy ranting is going to change. The PS3 has a long way to go before it gets into it's stride...

  13. Chris Harrison

    Comparisons are ill thought out

    PS3 wins on graphics card - even though it has half the memory. This fact alone is causing developers problems at the moment and means that most PS3 ports are weaker than on the XBox. And linked to this point, if the processors are equal, then how come EAs latest Madden only runs at half the frame speed on the PS3?

    The PS3 controller wins on weight? Actually it feels like a cheap piece of plastic next to the rumbling XBox 360 controller. The weight is a good thing see?

    And on the other hand I'm not sure you can give the weight advantage to the XBOX considering the brick I've got heating up half my living room.

  14. madgunde

    XBox Live Gold

    Why no mention of the fact that you have to pay $50US/year to play online, something that the PS3 offers for free? That should be on the chart, and after only a year or two, pushes the price of owning a 360 over the cost of owning a PS3.

    I also agree that the PS3 should have rightfully got the edge on size and weight. It's not like you can play the 360 without it's power supply, so if you want to move it around, you have to factor in the power brick's the space and weight. Not to mention the inconvenience of having an external power supply. The PS3 uses just a regular power cable like any other AV device or PC.

    Also no mention about having to use expensive proprietary storage options on the 360, while the PS3 supports standard USB hard drives and can be user upgraded with standard SATA hard drives up to 320GB. 360 is stuck at a maximum of 120GB.

    The 360 also only supports Microsoft's webcam, the PS3 supports any old standard USB camera.

    Seems to me if the comparison table were a bit more thorough, it should be a draw, or the PS3 should have a slight edge.

  15. David

    Turn off the controller?

    The PS3 controllers do switch of when the system is shut down. Besides anyone who owns a PS3 will tell you how long the battery lasts in the controller. I completed R:FOM and charged the controller once. If it does die (you get reminders on screen when its running low) you plug it in with the USB and play on.

    You don’t have to run to the shop or raid you GFs Rabbit to continue.

    The co-op mode in gears of war is messy and crowded, no matter how big the TV screen. Fall of man co-op is much better executed. That said I haven’t had a chance to fully appreciate GOW as ive only played it for 2 hours or so, so I cannot really comment on the game play but I love Resistance.

    The PS3 online features can only improve, its only released a few months in the UK after all. The xbox has had years to mature. Give the PS3 a chance; see how they compare in a year or so.

    If you have a HD TV you are going to buy a HD movie sooner or later. Its the future. If HD-DVD turns out the winner ill buy a player from Argos, if its Blu-Ray then im all set.

    As for me... Ill keep my PS3 for the time being.

  16. Neural9

    Xbox360 IS GOLD

    Consoles have changed. No mention of Media Centre capabilities here which is real key factor for many 360 owners. I'm not booting linux or converting my entire divx collection to a PS3 compatible format and then copying it to the 60gb hard disk. I mean, come on - (as Sonsaku Hakufu puts it "Kihon!!!"). I have 3 xboxs knocking around the house - to stream my tv to, watch movies in the lounge or bedroom and make sure I can watch stargate while I'm slaving away in the kitchen (erm, not).

    There is no comparrision at the moment - but I think the key is here "at the moment". EVn if it will be a really long moment. The PS3 is a lovely machine. It's quieter and shinier even if that does bring on some issues. However, I wouldn't recommend a PS3 to anyone because it just doesn't have the scope for playing that the 360 does currently. I think this is the flaw that Sony will be coping with for a few years to come yet - the 360 is just years ahead in maturation.

    And yes, I was one of the gimps that bought a PS3 on launch day. It's proping open my kitchen door at the moment. Honestly.

  17. Alistair MacRae

    What is this?

    The Graphics cards comparison just brcause the ps3 has a higher clock frequency? It’s not better. The ATI card has double the pipelines and it’s been benchmarked as faster but you listed the win to the ps3.

    You also listed the PS3 controller winning for a rechargeable battery too

    This is a non removable battery. You need to throw the whole thing away and buy a new pad. This should surely be a PS3 loss

    And also you could list memory band width of the ps3 which is less than a 12th of the bandwidth of the xbox360

  18. Barry

    360 size/weight includes PSU?

    FYI: You have to take into account the massive size of the 360 PSU when comparing to the PS3.

    I have to say (owning both 360 & PS3) that the build-quality and resilience of the PS3 are far superior to the 360. I'm on my 2nd 360, and I still can't get Forza 2 to work without crashing due to 'dirty disc' (nb: it isn't) every 10mins. Whereas, the PS3 will happily run Folding@Home 24/7 with no hint of an error.

    360 owners have been waiting for HDMI, and now for the smaller-fab'd (and therefore, less heat) CPUs.

    PS3 owners are simply waiting for more games.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Why does the PS3 win on the GPU comparison?

    "a dev on the Splinter Cell team claims the AI would be virtually impossible to achieve on the PS3."

    Correction:

    "a dev on the Splinter Cell team claims *THEIR* AI system would be virtually impossible to achieve on the PS3 without a major rewrite."

    The Cells SPUs are pretty general purpose (compared to what some people think anyway), and advanced AI is most defiantly possible using them.

    If you design an AI system for the x360, it won't work well on a PS3, if you design an AI system for the PS3, it probably won't work that well on the x360. They're two different systems. Devs who claim they can't do this/that are usually meaning their engine doesn't move over that well.

  20. marc

    The PS3 can now record TV

    The PS3 will be getting PVR like facilities. Will this get added to the XBox 360? I'd like to think so... but somehow I think Microsoft would rather we all bought Vista Media Centre PCs for that.

  21. William Bronze badge

    What a poor review.

    Especially the winner/loser section. What on earth was that about. Here, have a bit of sarcasm

    Number of screws.

    Xbox 360 - 43 .... PS3 - 21 ..... Winner Xbox360

    Distance flung

    Xbox 360 - 12 ft .... PS3 - 11ft .... Winner PS3

    Number of fanbois

    Xbox 360 - Millions .... PS3 - Millions .... Winner DRAW

    Multinational dedicated to enforce THEIR standards on others

    Microsoft - Yes ..... Sony - Yes .... Loser EVERYONE

    Number of annoying schoolboys playing online FTW woot !!!1!!one

    XBOX 360 - Millions .... PS3 - Handful .... Winner PS3

    Loses money on each and every console sold

    Microsoft - Yes .... Sony - Yes .... Losers - The shareholders

    Blah, blah, blah you get the idea...

  22. Matthew Pinches

    why

    yes the ps3 has native 1080p, but with the 1080p standard having a maximum of 30fps thats not that great for gaming, where as most 360 games running 720p at 60 fps looks a whole lot smoother.

    Also who is actually playing their ps3 on a 1080p plasma! burn in of the ps3 menu would look great on thatshiny screen in the middle of your lounge.

    The games on the PS3 do look better, but they suck, gran touriso HD looks better than forza 2, but it's a friggin' demo so who cares. If the games suck, then the gaming console sux,

  23. Jon Brindley

    Shock! Horror!

    Who'd have thought that a review of the 360 Elite would turn into a debate about whether the 360 or the PS is better?

  24. andy

    Shock! Horror!

    "Who'd have thought that a review of the 360 Elite would turn into a debate about whether the 360 or the PS is better?"

    Who could possibly think it wouldn't?? Games consoles have the most rabid fanboys around!

  25. Naiirita

    Blu-ray

    one thing not mentioned that is a big deal is the fact that PS3 disk are blu ray, while XBOX 360 is just regular dvd, and they have no intention of changing.

  26. Ian

    Worst review EVER.

    Can't even be arsed to disect it entirely, however it was pretty obvious The Reg. was incapable of fairly reviewing the 360 - the "Everything PS3" and "Everything Wii" images that have been on just about every Reg page for weeks now, without an equal "Everything 360" link demonstrate where The Reg's biases are.

    The Cell is often touted as a masterpiece of hardware when the old 360 vs PS3 debate comes up, and quite honestly yes, the Cell is a masterpiece of hardware, at least, for certain applications - sadly gaming isn't one of them. Cell excels in applications where you know you're going to be using each SPU fully, constantly and for extended periods of time such as if you're doing something heavily brute force like data crunching, however whilst games do have periods of massive data processing requirements, they come in bursts and aren't predicatable. You'll end up with a lot of additional overhead dividing up data to be passed to each SPU in a game, because you need to do this frequently, whereas in say a scientific data crunching role, you can divide the data up once (because you already have the data, it wont change randomly depending on user actions as in a game) and send it on it's way in each SPU as required to be processed away. The multi-processing overhead issue is merely exagerated by the fact that not each SPU is capable of dealing with all data due to their limited role setup. The 360 has 3 cores, capable of dealing with any data, and so is much more suited to the gaming role than the PS3 when it comes to processing, 3 generic cores + one GPU is absolutely the ideal amount of processing units you need for a game. Arguably the best reason for the PS3 to have the Cell processor is for Folding@Home, it's just a shame that a games console be best suited to something other than actually playing games. As with BluRay, the reason the PS3 has Cell, is not for games, but to bring down the price of the technologies to be used elsewhere.

    The comparison chart is also heavily flawed in other areas with the GPU being most prominent, I thought after the whole AMD Athlon XP vs PIII/P4 era we were well past the point of believing mhz is the only measure of how capable a piece of hardware is. It is worrying that The Reg would make such a flawed and ignorant comparison and casts serious doubt on the competence of The Reg's hardware reviews or even the reliability of their technical articles in general. It is well documented and has been demonstrated on countless occasions that the capability of the 360 GPU is far above that of the PS3's and for me that's a bitter pill to swallow, because frankly I hate ATI and much prefer nVidia - I'd never purchase or build any kinda of PC/laptop with an ATI card.

    Others have covered the other points already here, specifically the controllers. It's often been noted that the lightness of the PS3 controller is actually a major disadvantage, and the reason it is so light is because of lack of rumble features. Rechargeable batteries for the 360 wireless controllers are a mere £9.99, are replaceable unlike the PS3s and also there exists a play and charge kit, which allows you to continue playing and charging at the same time using wires for £12.99.

    There are a lot of good points about the review however, the plethora of top games for the 360 is a major advantage over the PS3, and this is going to become even more of an issue upto and including Christmas, the PS3's masterpieces arent out until next year for the most part. There were at least some parts of the review that went in the 360's favour, whether this was an attempt to not seem biased when you quite clearly are or not is a different question, but frankly I agree the wireless adapted not coming with the 360, or at very least with the elite is pretty stupid and furthermore, the cost of the wireless adapter is outright extortionate - there's no excuse for the cost of it. I'd argue that the cost of XBox live gold is too much for what you get, however I prefer the fact that it at least costs something over the PS3's free service if not only because it costing at least something goes a long way to keeping the riff raff out and it is a much better, much more polished service at the end of the day except for the lack of dedicated servers, which should exist for any pay-for service. Frankly, I also think the Elite should've included the HD-DVD drive.

    I'm not one to write the PS3 off entirely, I'll likely get one eventually when the price drops to the sub-£300 mark, at which point I'm guessing all the decent games for it will be out too and so suggests that that would be the sweetest time to buy.

    The only thing I'd ask is that The Reg in future ensures their reviews are checked over by multiple people with alternative biases and affiliations before being posted, so that we can cut through the outright inaccuracies and actually hope to get some reviews that are fair and sensible?

  27. Mitchell Jones

    PS3

    You can get Tversity to stream basically whatever to your ps3. The PS3 could have a longer usb cord but its really not needed since you can just plug it in while folding and don't have to worry about that burn-in. MGS4 will show what the ps3 can do. Even with the PS2 when they made God of War 2 it used 90%something of the ps2's processing power after 6 or 7 years. So i think that the war will be decided in 08.

  28. Shaun

    1080p

    To the person that said 1080p was not supported by the 360, Virtua Tennis 3 is in 1080p, as is Splinter Cell: DA

  29. OrsonX

    Elite.. but no in-built HD or wifi!!

    I've so far been disinterested in both the 360 and the PS3 due to their astronomical (for a games machine) price and the lack of ANY interesting titles. However, the price is now slowly falling and Halo3 is on the event horizon. Having owned a PS1 and PS2 I'm now ready for a change, and am particularly drawn to the 360s online capabilities. I was also excited at the possibility of an upgraded 360, closer in spec to the PS3... with an in-built HD drive and wifi... it is therefore REALLY disappointing to read that the 'upgrade' merely consist of painting the thing black! Maybe I'll wait for GranTourismo HD on the PS3?

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    PSP

    Small remote screen

    PS3 - PSP, 360 - No / winner PS3

    User Upgradable Hard-drive

    PS3 - Yes, 360 - No / winner PS3

    Media Centre Connection

    PS3 - DNLA compliant, 360 - WHS compliant / draw

    Online

    PS3 - free but immature, 360 - pay for the good stuff / draw or referee's video-vote "360 on a technicality"

    Looks like B&O CD player from the 80s

    PS3 - teh winnarrr!!1

  31. Devil's Refugee

    There's another version coming next year !!

    There's a new Xbox 360 coming in 2008 with a smaller core processer (45nm instead of 60nm) which is supposed to address the 'red ring of death' problem and overheating (although MS have gone some way to recognise this now and offer a 3yr warranty)

    I own all 3 'next-gen' consoles now (including the new Elite). Personally, I play each one because all have something different to offer. At the end of the day, I'd rather have the immersion in the gameplay than the effort go into the graphics. Look at the Wii, I never thought I'd have so much fun with something so simplistic as Wii Sports (even better when half p*ssed with a few mates).

    I'm currently playing Bioshock on the X360 and Oblivion on the PS3. Don't care which is supposed to be shifting pixels around faster, they both feel the same to me. Can't compare apples with oranges in terms of hardware facts, it was like comparing IBM PPC processor with Intel. Just step off the pedestal guys and enjoy the games.

    Plus I'm covered for the HD format wars also since I have the HD-DVD add on !

  32. Dax Farrer

    Its the games stupid ...

    Relative specs are all very well but, as always, consoles will succeed or fail based on the quality of the games available.

    The news that Blizzard are doing a port of WoW to the Xbox360 should be a real wakeup call. At last, something thats worth playing !

  33. Mark Rendle

    Comparison

    I'll tell you what, though: the Amiga was /way/ better than the Atari ST.

  34. This post has been deleted by its author

  35. OrsonX

    Halo3

    ...one day you will be able to buy Halo3 'pre-owned' in Blockbuster, that'll be second-hand then

    [wrong thread I know, but you have to be quick!]

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Don't I feel like a mug!

    OK, so I bought the new black version after already owning one 360 primarily for the HDMI and larger hard drive. However, when I went to hook it up I ran into a problem. Now all my components play their audio through my amplifier, it's just they way I prefer things. I don't use the internal speakers of my TV at all and they are usually muted.

    Unfortunately my (not so cheap) amp has HDMI but doesn't support HDMI audio switching, meaning it will switch the video only. I'm reliant therefore on hooking up any devices via another audio solution, usually optical.

    The problem? No optical audio out on a 360. So I went to plug in the component cable (which has optical audio out) which I was going to only use the audio for. Unfortunately, due to the positioning of the AV and HDMI ports you can't fit both the cables in at the same time.

    So now i've reverted back to using component cables with my nice new HDMI ready 360. I suppose I really should have looked into this a little more before impulsively diving in and purchasing but it really never crossed my mind that i'd encounter this problem.

    I could revert to using my internal TV speakers for the 360 sound but why should I when i've invested so much money in a surround system. I could upgrade my amp to one which supports HDMI audio switching but i've already spent £600 on my current one and really don't want to invest further going down that route.

    I'd also previously bought an xtremeHD HDMI switcher which didn't solve the problem and doesn't work with my PS3 anyway.

  37. Ben W

    I Know I 'm a broken record But......

    PS3 Vs. XBOX 360 Elite or other, is wrong......

    Now comparing the PS3 to the XBOX 360 and HD DVD player as a collective would be fair PS3 £400 --- XBOX £430

    Which means PS3 wins on price, as soon enough dvds will go the way of the VHS.

    1080 interpolated is not 1080 polated, its is of course better.

    For those of you who are unaware why, look it up!

    The PS3 does not have a rumble function but in all fairness that was just a pointless gimmick that lacks the proper physical impact of an actual explosion on screen! unless of course when a mine detonates 3 foot from you all that happens is your hands shake a bit?????????

    What it does have is a tilt facility though not yet utilised fully, that will offer a definate variation on game play which the 360 does not have.

    The ability to stream video from your PS3 HDD to your PSP and remotely controll your PS3 from anywhere over the internet perhaps to start it downloading a demo for when you arrive home?? Comon'.

    Sony have the pedigree wouldn't count them out just yet!

  38. Ben W

    Yes I know!!

    I said interpolated and polated instead of interlaced and progressive but you get the gist!?

  39. Mark B

    Comparison (part two)

    Mark Rendle: "I'll tell you what, though: the Amiga was /way/ better than the Atari ST."

    I agree. But are you unfairly comparing the later 2mb Amiga 1200 with the earlier 512kb ST?

    Just think, if Commodore had got their act together in the early '90s, they could've really cleaned up on the home computing / gaming front, and we wouldn't be having to put up with all these Sony/Microsoft corporate fanboys ;)

    I shudder to think how much I spent on my A1200 though - in one year adding a CD-ROM, 66mhz 68060 accelerator, 2gb hard drive, 16mb RAM. I then sold it all less than a year later and bought a 233mhz Pentium II PC for over £1000... a move which I instantly regretted. Sigh.

    I've had all sorts of computer and gaming stuff since then, PC's, Macs, handhelds, consoles.... the most recent being an Xbox 360 which I sold less than a month later as I couldn't stand the racket it made when you put a game disk in - I was hoping the Elite would eliminate the noise issues but no dice it seems. I spent the proceeds on upgrading my PC and now have a 8800GTS which eats every game for breakfast.

    There was something quite pleasant about sitting on my sofa with a wireless controller whilst playing Oblivion though. Perhaps I'll wait for the 360 Elite Mk II or III?

  40. Clay Garland

    Lots of fanboys in here.

    I have a 360. I love Gears or War, Forza, PGR3's alright. But let's cut the bullshit. The PS3 is far more powerful than the 360. The problem is, that with the head start that microsoft got by rushing essentially undertested consoles out the door, in addition to the stupid easy API for the 360, has encouraged developers do develop for it first and the PS3 second. There have been very few games developed from the ground up for the PS3, resistance is one, and it is a stunner. Most of the PS3 games, unfortunately, are PC or 360 ports, based on DX, with sloppy code slapped on to make them run on the PS3. Those games are not optimized for the cell processor and thus run rather sluggishly. All things being equal, and looking at this from a power standpoint alone, the PS3 mops the floor with the 360.

  41. Iain

    A couple of things.

    Firstly, "R" is not playing Motorstorm at 1080p, no matter what they think. Because the game runs at 720p just like Resistance does, and the PS3 (unlike the 360) cannot upscale games, so you need your TV to support 720p as well as 1080i, or you'll be playing at standard-def.

    Secondly, the GPU in the PS3 is widely accepted to be slower than the 360's one, due to the number of pipelines. No biggie, the PS3's CPU is a bit better to compensate. But still wrong.

    Finally, Devil's Refugee doesn't need to wait until 2008 for the 45nm die shrink to turn up - they've just started rolling off the manufacturing lines and onto the boats. However, it's not yet easy to spot them. If you're dead set on one, check the manufacturing date on your prospective machine in a month or two - there's a little flap on the box to see it. Mind you, they also have HDMI ports onboard the 'Premium' ones, so that's another mark against paying the extra for the Elite just yet.

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