Poll: Best console from the previous generation

[thejboy88]

Title says it all. I would like to know what you personally hold as your favourite from the three main consoles released during the previous generation of gaming. The contenders being the PS3, the Nintendo Wii and the XBOX 360. Please give reasons as to why you chose what you chose.

And before anyone asks, I won't be included PC's in this as PC's aren't consoles, though do not take that to mean that I look down on PC gaming in any way, because I don't.

 

[BrotherRool]

I've never really been much of a multiplayer user, so I can't answer whether Xbox Live really is better in a worthwhile way compared to the PSN (particularly in a 'costs money' way). And I would definitely have been more for the PS3 before the horribly laggy PSN store update.

...but I'm still going for the PS3. Reliability is a small fact, although neither of the two rival consoles were great at reliability last generation. What the PS3 had that the 360 didn't, was games that really pushed boundaries. The 360 had a lot of really successful shooter exclusives, Fable which was always completely boring to me and then a handful of purchased 3rd party exclusives that the publishers eventually found ways to circumvent (Mass Effect 1, Bioshock).

Whereas the PS3 had games like Little Big Planet, Heavy Rain, Valkyria Chronicles, Journey, The Last of Us, Demons Souls, Afrika, Tokyo Jungle. They might not all be consistently good, but they were trying new ideas and taking chances. But of the thing about taking chances is that sometimes they don't pay off.

To this day, one of the things I regret most about the gaming world is that Quantic Dream (Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls) are stuck with David Cage as a writer as well as a developer. Because those games were doing things better than The Walking Dead long before The Walking Dead existed. Heavy Rain gets a lot of stick for it's control scheme, but it's legitimately a work of genius. It's never going to be for everybody and the people looking for a Silent Hill or Civilisation V experience were always going to be disappointed, but never before or since has a game so effectively managed to connect button presses to the emotional feel of doing something. It's really hard to describe, but when you're climbing over a barbed wire fence in Heavy Rain, the button presses feel like the button presses you'd use to climb over a barbed wire fence.

One of my dream games would be Heavy Rain but with The Walking Dead's writing team.

When you combine that with some really solid and incredibly fun games like inFamous 2, Uncharted 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4, you have a winning console.

 

[J Tyran]

Going to go with the 360 particularly the final revision, based purely on hardware and not games because games are down to corporate self protection rather than a product of the consoles. The PS3 was just so disappointing, it was incredibly unbalanced. It had a theoretically fast CPU (as fast as some Sandy Bridge core series CPUs) that no-one could really get the most out of except that didn't matter as games had moved away and where heavily GPU bound instead, then it tied that into a tiny amount of inflexible DRAM with a tiny amount of graphics memory unlike the unified memory on the 360.

The 360 was better balanced as it used a trimmed down power PC/Cell architecture CPU that was powerful but balanced it with a GPU that matched the PS3s RSX chip and they didn't really bottleneck each other as much as we saw with the PS3, its memory was more flexible and used unified GDDR long before the PS4 did and the eDRAM gave it a further boost in performance. They then fixed the early reliability woes with an APU in the final revisions, something which again we see this generation. As someone that likes hardware and builds PCs the 360s balanced approach is far better than the PS3s ZOMG look at our CPU approach, hardware should always suit its task and gaming is no different and the consumer paid a large premium for a useless CPU.

Games are probably another story as Sony had a more diverse line up but I don't count games as neither console had anything that couldn't/wouldn't have played as well on any equivalent or better system, they are not down to the "console" at all.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I'm voting PS3. Free online and better exclusives. Also some amazing collections and HD re-releases.

 

[Evonisia]

Few people will have both so I imagine a lot of it will come down to which one you owned.

I own a 360, Wii and PS3 but I used my 360 the most because it had the stronger start (sans RRoD) with some shooter exclusives and the PS3 got better later on, causing me to get one this year.

The Wii is the anomalous result. If you enjoyed using the Wii Mote/Nunchuck I imagine you wouldn't feel bad putting it as your favourite. For me it's the 360 because of how I spent my Seventh Generation and for console multiplayer shooters it was the champion. Halo, Gears 3 and if you wanted the best Call of Duty experience it was 360 or die. Also fuck the PS3's interface, I somehow struggle to use it more than the 360's.

 

[pspman45]

PS3 had better exclusive titles in my opinion, I did enjoy a lot of the 360 exclusives, but they were pretty much all shooters, and the PS3 had an exclusive for like almost every genre available

 

[DrOswald]

None of the consoles really stood out as the best for me. PS3 was my winner, but not because I love it. It had a blu-ray player so it was always connected to the main TV. They all paled in comparison to the PC, honestly.

 

[Poetic Nova]

Bleh, I was hoping this was about 6th gen of consoles >.>
While I own both a PS3 and X360, I just can't care as much for those as I do for my Gamecube. However if I had to choose, the PS3 would be a clear winner: better exclusives, no monthly fee for staying online and it has a Blue-Ray player.

 

[Nimzabaat]

"Best" and "favourite" aren't really the same thing. The PS3 had the "best" hardware of the three, but it's lackluster gaming catalogue made it my least "favourite".

 

[Steve Waltz]

It's easy to say PS3 considering that they had free online gameplay. However, since the PS4 doesn't have that feature I'd say the PS4 and Xbox One are on the same level at the moment.

 

[Andy Shandy]

The 360 had Alan Wake, Condemned, Viva Pinata and Lost Odyssey (amongst others), the other consoles didn't. Therefore 360 wins for me.

 

[necromanzer52]

My first thought on seeing the thread title was "The ps2, clearly". Then a realisation was made, and now I feel sad.

Back on topic, I went with the 360 as it was cheaper, and most of the games I was interested in from that gen were on both 360 & ps3. Though I will admit that by the end, ps3 and wii both had better exclusive libraries.

 

[MysticSlayer]

I have to go with the Wii. It was disappointing, but it still gave us some incredible games like Super Mario Galaxy and Xenoblade Chronicles. Most of my favorite games on the other consoles were also on PC, which is where I ended up playing a vast majority of them.

 

[Lilikins]

PS3 for one simple reason, I got the PS3 years ago at the same time my brother got his first xbox 360.
He had two red rings of death and is on his third xbox 360 allthough he takes exceptionally good care of his systems. (Mind you, I take care of my systems aswell but nevertheless..) My PS3 is still chugging along like a champ.

Up to this point its only problem that is now getting noticable (since last November ) is that it cant always read discs, yet I found after putting in a laser clean disc and standing it upright it reads discs about 95% of the time.

On the Wii I cant comment because I dont know anyone who has one to be quite frank.

Soooooo, out of reasons of stability and long life, PS3 gets my vote.

(And mind you this was a difficult choice seeing as my bro had Viva Pinata for xbox 360... <3 that game, many hours were spent lovingly taking care of those little pinatas after I got home in a...not.. so.. sober.. state.)

 

[duwenbasden]

Wii because I only have the Wii, and I've clocked more gaming hours on my mobile devices (WM / Android) than it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

If it wasn't for Mass Effect and The Orange Box I'd chuck my 360 right now. I barely even turn it on anymore.

So yeah, PS3. Slow start, but when the system finally got rolling it was terrific. Too bad they fucked up the Playstation Store.

 

[RealRT]

PS3. Better exclusives, more reliable hardware, free multiplayer.

 

[Maximum Bert]

If we are just going consoles as in the console and nothing attached I would probably go with the Wii as its the only one out of the big 3 that I bought that didnt have a hissy fit and die on me. Taking everything into account I would go with the PS3 it had better games (once it actually started going) and a free online which they should have kept except they have seen people will pay again willingly for something they have already payed for and then make themselves think they are getting value for money (great con by Microsoft btw gotta give em credit for that). Also its a Blu Ray player which is handy.

Theres still quite a few games coming out for PS3 that I want none for the 360 or Wii though. Im not happy with the build quality of the PS3 though and especially the 360 I have been very disappointed by both last gen the 360 is also the absolute worst console in history for reliability or at least mainstream console I dont know anyone who bought one near launch that has not had to replace it at least once thats a 100% failure rate on 16 different consoles.

 

[The White Hunter]

...

Nintendo DS. Best exclusives, very affordable, utterly vast variety of titles.

 

[Arina Love]

For me it's PS3 hands down, system was disappointment but once it got ball rolling PS3 quickly became my main platform to play games on. In addition 3 of my most anticipated games are exclusive to PS3! Tales of Xillia 2 , Tales of Zestiria and Persona 5. PS3 just keeps on giving while my x360 hasn't been turned on for years!