I've been having trouble deciding on which one of those to get because it seems like most games are released on both of them now. What are the worthwhile exclusives on both consoles? I wish someone would do a side-by-side comparison. I know PS3 has inFamous, God of War and Metal Gear (but only inFamous interests me) and 360 has Halo. I heard the 360 version of Bayonetta was better at release, but that a patch was released for the PS3 version that fixed its problems.

Any comments? For a long time I was set on a PS3 but now I'm leaning towards the box.

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	honestgamer - August 07, 2010 (11:32 PM) Xbox 360 - PS3 (first party) Fable II - White Knight Chronicles Fable III - Heavy Rain Gears of War - Uncharted Gears of War 2 - Uncharted 2 Gears of War 3 - God of War 3 Halo 3 - Resistance: Fall of Man Halo 3: O.D.S.T. - Resistance 2 Halo Reach - InFAMOUS Forza Motorsport 2 - Gran Turismo 5 Forza Motorsport 3 - Mod Nation Racers Halo Wars - Little Big Planet Kameo: Elements of Power - Little Big Planet 2 Viva Pinata - Heavenly Sword Perfect Dark Zero - Folklore Project Gotham Racing 3 - Hot Shots Golf: Out of Bounds Project Gotham Racing 4 - Lair LIPS - InFAMOUS 2 Lost Odyssey - Motorstorm Blue Dragon - Motorstorm 2 ??? - Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time ??? - Gran Turismo 5 Prologue I'm probably missing titles from both, but they're pretty evenly matched aside from the Xbox 360's reliance on the Halo/Gears combo that a lot of gamers don't even see as a weakness. The above should make that pretty clear. Xbox 360 - PS3 (third party) Bullet Witch - Demon's Souls Infinite Undiscovery - 3D Dot Game Heroes The Last Remnant - Disgaea 3 Magna Carta 2 - Ar Tonelico 3 Project Sylpheed - Metal Gear Solid 4 Deathsmiles - Valkyria Chronicles Again, you can make a decent argument that the systems are about evenly matched, though for me the PS3 has a pretty clear advantage in both cases. I just really like what the PS3 is doing for gaming more than what the Xbox is doing, at least for now... which is a problem, given that Xbox 360 output seems to have slowed to a crawl. The writing is on the wall. We'll see a new Xbox at E3. Sony I'm not so sure about. Still seem to be going strong with a focus on this generation. Anyway, it's hardly a clearcut choice. Hope the above helps. Others can add to both lists, I'm sure. I mostly was going by the titles I've heard about or own (just about everything listed above, as I support both systems).
	radicaldreamer - August 07, 2010 (11:47 PM) Yeah, it's really hard, especially since most of the titltes that I am actually interested in are on both consoles.
	EmP - August 08, 2010 (03:14 AM) My dislike of the PS3 has simmered in recent years, but I'd still advocate the 360 simply because of the Indie section it offers.
	zigfried - August 08, 2010 (07:28 AM) Also of note: The PS3 can play any import, but at this time doesn't have many imports worth playing. That will probably change someday, although probably in a few years. The Xbox can only play two imports: Mushihimesama Futari and Espgaluda 2. Both are worth playing, but there are unlikely to be any more in the future. //Zig
	asherdeus - August 08, 2010 (07:55 AM) If you want to play first-person shooters, buy an Xbox. If you want to play Bluray movies, buy a PS3. Everything else is the same.
	Genj - August 08, 2010 (08:13 AM) One thing you may want to consider is that a lot of games this gen are multiplatform, and quite a few of them end up running slightly better on 360 (Resident Evil 5, Fallout 3, Red Dead Redemption to name a few), but there are notable exceptions like Final Fantasy XIII and Darksiders. Also to add to Venter's list, the 360 also has Dead Rising and Tales of Vesperia (outside of Japan). Also I don't know why Venter listed both Gran Turismo 5 and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. The latter is basically an extended demo of the former.
	zippdementia - August 08, 2010 (10:11 AM) While this may have no bearing on your decision, Rad, the big decider between the two for me was that I liked the ergonomics of the PS3 better. The controller feels better in my hand, the menu layout is more user-friendly, there aren't an influx of ads, and the system is waaaay quieter. The other big thing was that I don't have to pay for monthly net service through the PS3 in order to play online.
	honestgamer - August 08, 2010 (11:19 AM) Yeah, but it's worth it. Xbox Live is worlds beyond the PSN online scene. There's really no comparison. I'm more of an offline gamer and that's one reason I get as much out of my PS3 as I do, but I pay the yearly fee for Xbox Live and go online occasionally. Every time I do, I remember why the service is worth as much as it is. The only down side to Xbox Live is the same thing as one of its many upsides: there are a lot of people. A lot of people means that you'll run into a lot of whiny junior high kids determined to prove that they should be allowed to swim in the big boys' pool.
	Suskie - August 08, 2010 (01:20 PM) I want to repeat what Ben said for emphasis: The list of Xbox 360 exclusives really does expand if you're not into PC gaming. I think I've overstated my love for the Mass Effect series already, but as far as I'm concerned, they alone sell the console. Xbox 360 is clearly the console you want if you're into shooters. I don't if I'd say that PS3 specializes in anything specific, but there's a lot of terrific genre stuff like Uncharted 2, LittleBigPlanet and Infamous (the latter of which easily tops its Xbox 360 counterpart, Crackdown). In terms of JRPGs, Xbox 360 seems like the platform of choice for more traditional games, while PS3 has more experimental stuff like Valkyria Chronicles. So, I mean, we can't make this decision for you. It's all based on what you're looking for. I do want to strike back at what Zipp said, though, and say that the PS3 pad is easily the worst, most uncomfortable mainstream controller I've ever used. It's tiny and awkwardly shaped, and the PS3 rendition adds these awful triggers that absolutely murder my fingers. I can't play an action-heavy PS3 game for more than an hour without getting cramps. But then, on the other hand, PS3 supports Bluray, which looks like it could become the standard within the next few years. I'm considering buying one just for that, and I've played all the PS3 games I'm interested in.
	zippdementia - August 08, 2010 (01:43 PM) Suskie just has dysfunctional hands. I guess the most accurate thing you can say about any controller is that its comfort level changes from person to person. The Xbox controller gives ME cramps, so we could argue this back and forth all day without any clear winner. Exception: I don't think anyone liked the gamecube controllers.
	Genj - August 08, 2010 (02:09 PM) I'd have to mirror what Suskie said about the controllers. I can't even imagine playing a game like Read Dead Redemption with the PS3 triggers.
	honestgamer - August 08, 2010 (02:38 PM) I don't think 'dysfunctional' is the right word, Zipp. More like 'large,' and that puts Suskie in the American majority. That's one reason Microsoft made the controllers as large as they do. In the right hands, the Xbox 360 controller melts right into your grip. Even though I have relatively small hands, I find it to be a ridiculously comfortable controller unless I'm playing a game that is intended to be played with the d-pad. I've heard people say "The PS3 controller sucks because it doesn't weigh enough," which to me is a silly claim to make, but the argument about the trigger buttons is spot-on. Those cramp my hands up if I play for a few hours. I'm constantly aware that I'm holding a controller while playing a game that makes heavy use of those buttons.
	fleinn - August 08, 2010 (02:54 PM) *shrug* ..if you're eyeing any of the exclusives, then that should probably guide your choice. If not, the ps3 has better codec support for.. anything from a mac to a digital camera of some sort. That's a nice thing. With the video-editor and the photo-album, they have a couple of very easy to use tools that work and are quick to use. ..then there's the media-server, but not so easy to set up. And we're into techno-mage territory very quickly all of a sudden, where anything else really is for specially interested people. The 360 doesn't have that part for the advertised features, and that's a plus. It's also extremely hackable, which is a different plus for the techno freaks. ..And even if I personally dislike the menu-system and the presentation, the functions you get with the messaging and so on do work. There's the chat of course (with the subscription, like the voice messages). But joining groups, or the persistent lobbies.. this doesn't actually work very differently from the stilted mess you have on the ps3. The difference is that all the games you get on the 360 will be exactly the same, as mandated by xboxlive guidelines. On the ps3, it's up to the people who implement the interfaces and program the games. So you get things like text-chat and group lobbies turning up very neatly in games like LittleBigPlanet, and have a very clever lobby/friend invite function in WipEout HD, or suddenly local play with different profiles in Hustle Kings. So that's.. nice. But it's not consistent. Same with Home - you can launch any game from there.. but you can't bring your friends with you from a room there, or something like that, so it's completely pointless if you want to play games.. A lot of things are like that on the ps3. Pointless if you actually use it. And you don't get that particular problem on the 360. The 360 also has some semi-official iPod support, so you can drop your tunes from the ipod to the 360 painlessly, with directory support to some extent. You can play soundtracks during all games directly from the pod as well. That's not possible on the ps3 - instead you need to copy things over, then hope the game at all supports the soundtrack function, things like that. So basically, that's something that won't actually work for the most part. ...Still.. have to say, even though a lot of the exclusives on the ps3 are most interesting for the techno-mage worship, with the spu-usage, tricks in scene layers that can't be done elsewhere, animation complexity, reduction of complex functions performed in high level assembly instead of high level language code or from hardware optimised function-calls, that kind of thing.. and even if that's the first reason why I have been playing all of the exclusives so far... some of these games are very unique and extremely well crafted. I mean, you can say what you will about Sony in general - but good god do they spend a lot of money on the details when they've actually decided to do something. You have soundtracks made by the composer on Firefly, fully produced with an orchestra and then run through a professional team experienced with setting up the soundtracks practically (Uncharted 2). Sony has localisation teams that are very good - so selected titles have full translations for a huge amount of languages. Things like that add a lot to the games. On the other hand, they've managed to blow it so many times now with their aftermarket "support" that you really only have.. Uncharted 2, WipeoutHD, flOw, Valkyria Chronicles and Heavy Rain as the titles you have to have played. GT5 soon, of course.. but all the technically astounding titles are either for specially interested (Heavenly Sword, Lair, Uncharted, inFamous - extremely neat games in their own ways. But you won't have missed something essential in filmatic arcade games by not playing them.. not in the way that not playing The Dig, Sam and Max or DOTT would in point and click games. Or Xcom, Homeworld or Jagged Alliances would in strategy games.).. or for people who are looking for technical and graphically astounding things first (such as Killzone 2 - impossible graphics and animation. MAG - bunch of players. But either game suffer horribly from the aftermarket patching. I.e., tweaks to guns and mechanics until the game is broken - but no expansion of the clan-support, or better support for clan-play, or better stats and recording servers. Sony basically said fuck you to all of us, believing that if they just made the m16 and the "Saw" the most powerful weapons, then they'd sell a million copies. So they're technically impressive games, but not very well made games otherwise). There's also the thing about where you live. If you have an xbox, it doesn't really matter where you live. You get the same things, and the marketplace is as full (or empty) regardless of country. And if there are any problems, there's a torrent. On the ps3, it's usually the same store content... eventually, and at least for the large titles - but some countries don't even have a PSN store. And the small content can be cut away completely. You can sign up to a different country, obviously, but no one knows when Sony will start to crack down on that. And if they do, you're stuck - virtual purchases will be gone, and you've got no way to really use them again. Proxies exist, but Sony have been very consciously implementing ways to prevent that from working. Also, only the US and Britain have a Video-store so far. And there's been no word on expansions, even though we were promised that months ago. Basically, it's just not on Sony's agenda to really make their online marketplace very big. That's also what we're seeing with the lack of ps2 titles, and the sporadic ps1 titles - they have the contacts, they know exactly what they're supposed to do - but the Playstation people aren't able to sell the idea of pushing a full ps1 library, and they're not serious enough about making a backcatalogue available, you know, "forever", either on blu-ray or online. Same happens with Firstplay, and trailers, commercials, tv content - they're stuck with the idea that english-speaking entertainment isn't very popular in Europe, and still want to translate pop-songs before publishing them - like they did in the 60s - apparently.. If there are any exceptions to that, it's because the chiefs on the teams are inordinately cool people who respond to your requests personally (like with Vidzone). But generally, instead they're more than happy to sponsor remakes into their new platforms, even when they use the old code, essentially. So the same game can be published over and over again, and it's seen as a favour to the gamers if even one game is ported, even when the open emulator they've actually leveraged code from of course runs any of the roms. Seems they've learned from Microsoft on that one, at least. Unfortunately, it's the wrong lesson. So truth is that there are very good reasons to avoid the ps3 completely. If you just want a game-console to play Bad Company 2 on with friends - then the xbox is a much, much cheaper alternative (even if the batteries need to be changed, new controllers have to be bought to get wireless, the soundcard is trash, any of the proprietary hdd drives are expensive as heck, the hdmi connection thing is a joke..). And of course on most multiplatform titles, you don't have a 5.1 surround mix anyway, you don't have 1080p output or enough detail to really benefit from a low-response monitor on the Nvidia style filters (that favour straight cutoffs instead of smoothing). And then it really doesn't matter - because you'll get an equally good or better result on your somewhat old TV with the xbox. But.. if you have a surround setup, and a reasonably expensive hdmi/1080p tv, know why blu-ray movies are great, and frequently watch high quality rips in h.264 formats, that kind of thing - then the ps3 is a good choice all of a sudden. For movies, at least. And for those few games where you actually have 1080p modes (flOw, WipeoutHD) or enough subtle detail in 720p modes (Heavenly Sword, Uncharted 2) that show off your setup favourably. Beyond that, there's two things with the ps3.. as always..: Promise and potential. ..basically.. I know that the network tech possible to do on the ps3's bus-solution is superior to anything made so far. And that we're not going to see anything near that for at least a couple of years when the first mature CUDA and OpenCL boards turn up - and games are specifically optimised for them. And that even then, the ps3 as it is today will still be top of the line. I know that - but when almost nothing on the system really makes that very obvious. And we continually see Sony shooting themselves in the foot at least once every month.. either actually making bad technical choices, or not understanding what's necessary to support the solution they've spent a lot of money developing.. So don't bank on Sony somehow finally waking up and figuring out what to aim for. Because they won't do it. We'll get a few more interesting titles. The Last Guardian, and GT5 - both of which will probably be awesome. LBP2, Killzone 3? SOCOM4? Don't have much anticipation for those, to be frank. But beyond that? Interesting tech-demos, and a few very cool indie-projects? I mean..Sony is sponsoring full development of indie-projects - flow and Flower as well as the upcoming Journey from thatgamecompany are games like that. Other titles are self-published, but enjoy tech-support from very competent folks. Whether it's how to incorporate functions, or just leveraging software libraries. And you get very good quality on those games that way. This isn't like the xbox indie scene, that generously allow people to sell their games (for a cut to MS) on the market place no matter how sucky it is. But regardless.. point is there's a few things Sony did with the ps3 in terms of filmatic action-games. The library is full of titles that put together has very neat new things when it comes to inserting film-art into games - in a way that nothing mainstream does. DICE approached that with Mirror's Edge, but there's nothing else really made outside that space. You have the next game from the people who made Heavenly Sword - that's going multiplat too - so two of those games multiplatform. The rest outside ps3 exclusives don't have that. They also have new animation tech and node-detection. Some 3rd party titles use spus in neat ways as well. Batman, the Saboteur, MGS4 off the top of my head. And... well, all of this is interesting stuff (if you're a nerd, and have a religious appreciation for film-art in animation and interactive entertainment). But overall, it's not worth buying a ps3 just for a games-console. Then you should get a 360 arcade.. ..of course... then again, if the choice is between an "Elite Ultimate Super Monster Edition" with flames on the deck, and a slim ps3. Then the price is actually the same, or the ps3 will be cheaper very quickly - and you get more stuff along with the ps3.. so then it's more difficult. Then you could probably weigh the online interface against the other, and take a good look at any ps3 exclusives you might want to play. Imo, anyway. ..can't believe I wrote all that stuff..
	zippdementia - August 08, 2010 (03:17 PM) In case it wasn't blatantly obvious, I was joking about the dysfunctional hands thing.
	zigfried - August 08, 2010 (03:44 PM) The PS3 controller is a pain if you actually plan to use analog controls. I understand why the original Dualshock was designed that way (because people were used to a digital controller) but the PS2 and PS3 versions really should have been better designed. Microsoft wisely followed Sega's lead. //Zig
	espiga - August 08, 2010 (04:12 PM) The Xbox can only play two imports: Mushihimesama Futari and Espgaluda 2. Both are worth playing, but there are unlikely to be any more in the future. I've actually heard that the Xbox 360 port of Deathsmiles II is going to be region-free as well.
	zigfried - August 08, 2010 (04:20 PM) It's already out, and it's not region-free. //Zig
	espiga - August 08, 2010 (04:23 PM) This makes me sad.
	EmP - August 08, 2010 (04:50 PM) Fear not! They ported Deathsmiles in the end, so there's hope the second will meet the same fate. Hopefully.
	Suskie - August 08, 2010 (05:57 PM) I'd have to mirror what Suskie said about the controllers. I can't even imagine playing a game like Read Dead Redemption with the PS3 triggers. I haven't played RDR on PS3, but it seems like a lot of PS3 developers have figured out that the triggers suck and try to work around them. Almost all of the shooters I've played for PS3 (including Call of Duty) use R1 for firing, which isn't great, but certainly beats the alternative. On the other hand, I'm still having nightmares about having to holding R2 to run everywhere in Prototype. *shudder* Debating this subject may be pointless, but I do think it's worthwhile to be brought up since it can really make or break the experience. Unfortunately, until RD feels both controllers in his hands, there's not a lot we can do.
	bloomer - August 09, 2010 (06:44 AM) I liked the GameCube controller fine. It's worth pointing out the PS3 is a particularly good BluRay player. It decodes the new lossless sound formats onboard and can send them to any amplifier. You would be surprised how much trouble these formats have caused for amplifier manufacturers, who have been reluctant to add decoders for them. This ends up being moot unless you have a great sound system, but it's still a big technical point in favour of the PS3 doubling as your BluRay player.
	zippdementia - August 09, 2010 (06:51 AM) Bloomer has dysfunctional hands.