Poll: Xbox 360 or Playstation 3, What was the better console?

[Tanis]

If I compare exclusives?
PS3, by a LANDSLIDE.

Many, many, of the 360 'exclusives' where either, eventually, brought over to the PC.
So, they aren't really 'system makers' anymore.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

360.

It wasn't pulling teeth when you wanted to play a game. You put it in and played. Not wait for-fucking-ever for it to install. Jesus christ, nothing is worse then going home to excitedly play a game, then wait a hour and a half for a fucking install. Fuck that.

Even then, local multiplayer was way superior on the Xbox. As was just doing simple shit. Ps3 is so ficky about a lot of things, and it just grinds my gears. Even worse is that the games you played on PS3 ran slower. Noticeably, for me at least, so much I couldn't play the same game on both systems unless it was Rockband. Even then, Rockband was easier on Ps3 then 360.

 

[Elfgore]

Even looking past the subjective opinions of exclusives, I'd still rate PS3 better. Free online and blu-ray built into the machine. Only downside is a one-time install of data, but that also let the PS3 not have to have multiple disks for games.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

PS3.

It had more exclusive titles, more lesser known titles that became bigger franchises (Demon's Souls to Dark Souls) and free online. Also had more JRPGs and the PS3's controller was better for fighting games due to the 360's awful D-Pad.

 

[Crazy Zaul]

For the actual console without taking online into account: 360 wins but PS3 is really pretty good too.
If including Xbox Live and PSN in consideration: 360 wins hands down no contest. Holy shit PSN is fucking terrible, its so slow to do even the most basic actions, it has the trophy syncing and the no name changing and the fact that if you set it to turn itself on and check for updates, even if there is an update it will just do nothing and turn off again.

 

[Zenja]

The console market has spoken and they want to pay to play online.

It's the reason why they can sell these consoles so cheap. Like with Playstation Sony makes minimal profit with PS4 sales(with PS3 they actually made a loss for years on end) so subscription services are a method to generate a healthier profit(minus the costs of server maintenance). It's a trade-off a company has to make in order to sell at a competitive rate(one that is apparently greatly succesful given PS4's massive sales figures).

It's a trend I see continuing though with games as well(particularly for AAA-games which development costs continue to balloon well over the 100 million). Companies trying to make a profit not(or not just) from the initial purchase but rather from DLC, microtransactions, season passes, subscription services etc.

If it's within an acceptable range(meaning companies don't overdo it and provide quality for what you pay for) I can kind of understand why they do it. Games are expensive to develop and companies need some insurance and longer-term source of income to not let their investment go to waste. Consumers won't accept consoles going over 350 bucks or games over 60 so it becomes a reality of business that companies try to search for additional sources of income to make the risk of investment worth it.

You can kind of compare it to airline tickets. That market is oversaturated which is obviously good for the consumer but it still costs a lot of money to keep those planes in the sky. Profit margins for airline tickets are incredibly slim so here they try to increase profit by selling additional stuff like leg and luggage space or better seats.

There may be something to them selling the console cheaper. Maybe. But I don't really see evidence of it, but consumers defending the companies they buy from is a known phenomenon. Especially, defending what they have spent money on already. I would think that the increase in consumers in the video game industry over the past ten years would make up for it. For example, something else that may help them with the cost of a console launch would be to have a launch library of games ready to go and not try to sell 'remastered' last gen games for the first 2-3 years of your console's lifespan. This generation of consoles has mostly sold on brand name recognition so far. People are buying Xbox Ones and PS4s simply to claim they have one and talk about the 4-5 games worth playing in their circle of friends. Most games for the console are either relaunches of last gen games or games that come out on both last gen and next gen consoles like Shadows of Mordor or Black Ops 3.

The problem is that I can go buy The Crew on PC today and have an online game with no subscription but have microtransactions in its place. Or I can get it on PS4/XB1 and pay $60 a year for the pleasure and have the same microtransactions staring me in the face. I can buy Black Ops 3 on PC and play online for free or buy it on consoles and pay for the pleasure. The online isn't any worse on PC even though it is free. I am pretty sure consoles still have matches migrate hosts mid match on like BlOps3, and if I am paying for online services, that should never happen.

When I look at the fact that the original Xbox introduced Xbox live and people paid, while the PS2 offered free online play. Then having free online play was a marketing pitch for the PS3 while Microsoft doubled down on Xbox live. Then RRoDs plagued the 360's early years and customers were happy to buy 2 or 3 of these malfunctioning consoles for the privilege of paying to play online, all the while shouting the PS3 was 'too expensive' at $600 despite being stable hardware and offering free online play. It just makes sense to launch your next console at $400 and make people pay to play online as that is clearly what the market wants. You do that and they will even buy you console 2 or 3 times if it malfunctions. It's just smart business. Look at what consumers buy and offer that. We're lucky they didn't decide to launch an unstable console so that we would buy 2 or 3 of them. Because many people proved they would. Either Halo is the best game ever made or consumers made some potentially poor purchasing choices last gen.

I don't mean to harp on Xbox or its fans but a consumer trend started last gen that I am against and see no reason to support. Personally, I think too many consumers think that if a company charges for something, the price is automatically justified because they wouldn't charge you money unless they had to. Already they have taken away expansions for nickel and dime DLCs. I think many DLCs out there today show that they do in fact dissect out parts of the game to sell as DLC. Wouldn't it be nice if a company just added content in a patch to be cool, like CDProjekt did with the Witcher 3 or... um... Blizzard did way back in Diablo 2. Otherwise, those days are gone. Now, they will hype up the ability to pay money on Day 1 for a cosmetic reskin package or an additional npc. Once upon a time those were just the "cool" patches. Now patches are only for fixing bugs and we are lucky if we get them.

Speaking of which, the game Toy Soldiers: War Chest on PS4, don't buy it. It freezes at the main menu and you can't play it. It is a known issue with the game and has been for a year. But Ubisoft has abandoned the game despite it still being sold at retailers for $30-40 in that wonderful library of next gen games. Xbox One's version has a different problem but at least it is playable. No patches in the foreseeable future.

 

[Darth Rosenberg]

PS3.

Because it's the one I bought.

Same for me, 'cept the other way around.

I would say the 360's given me my best gaming moments ever since I started in the mid '80's. But whilst I liked its GUI and loved its controller, the thing truly responsible for all of that is simply the state of the medium and industry. I don't think the medium's ever been stronger or more diverse, and so regardless of platform I'd say everyone had it good.

Hmm I got both consoles. And in my whole time with it I had to replace the Xbox 360, 3 times because of the Infamous Red Ring of Death, and my current Xbox 360's disc tray barely opens.

While my PS3 from 2009 is still functioning.

So despite all the good times I had with Xbox 360 and its online service Xbox Live (Xbox Live Multiplayer is superior to PS3) Playstation is just the better console.

Ah, so whether a machine functions efficiently and reliably is all we're talking about? Okay then... PS1 was clearly better than the Dreamcast - 'cause the latter broke for me rather quickly, and the former took a fair while to die - and the original Xbox is better than the 360, PS1, and DC as it's still functional and never needed to be replaced. My old Amiga 500+ would probably still boot, as well, so maybe that still beats all of them...

 

[Something Amyss]

entertainment wise they were pretty evenly matched.

It's a little different now, but for a long time PS3 had better multimedia options. PS3 also played Blu-Ray and for several years managed to be the or a top rated BD player. Xbox 360 even gated Netflix behind their Gold paywall, while PS3 did not. In terms of media, I'd put the PS3 way above the 360.

In terms of games? That's another story. And given the main reason I pick sides is to play with friends, I am pretty much in the Xbox camp there. Plus, things like their party options grossly improve the experience. PS4's party options are pretty lame. PS3 didn't even have any.

Ah, so whether a machine functions efficiently and reliably is all we're talking about? Okay then... PS1 was clearly better than the Dreamcast - 'cause the latter broke for me rather quickly, and the former took a fair while to die - and the original Xbox is better than the 360, PS1, and DC as it's still functional and never needed to be replaced. My old Amiga 500+ would probably still boot, as well, so maybe that still beats all of them...

PS1 was shipped with known hardware issues, including an issue reading discs due to a faulty spring in the optical drive. If we're talking reliability outside of an anecdotal level, PS3 is the first console that Sony had without a ridiculous failure rate due to known hardware issues. And you still had 12% of the users self-reporting failure within like a year.

 

[Lightknight]

The PS3 was significantly more reliable than the 360.

The PS3 had significantly more AAA exclusives (Uncharted, Last of Us, etc) thanks to the work of the massive number of Sony dev studios whereas Microsoft had fewer but more popular exclusives (Halo, Gears, etc.). I loved the exclusives on both sides but Sony just had a lot more of great ones.

I will say that the 360 had far better multi-player games/options. But COD generally filled that roll for me so I didn't really miss any of it.

The 360 was slightly more powerful than the ps3. While the PS3's hardware was more powerful than the 360, the architecture and difficulties of programming it made asset rending pretty difficult. It's why we saw the bugs we did in Bethesda games on the PS3 thanks to the way the architecture forced them to break various items into asset categories rather than allowing all of them to fit together and take disproportionate resources if necessary. Any bloating resulted in corruption of the game file or more commonly system crashes (anyone remember Skyrim? The worst offender of this).

The PS3 had a significantly better and de-cluttered user interface. 360 basically reveled in making you look at adds everywhere you went. This point actually still pisses me off.

As stated above, the PS3 had better multimedia options including being able to play bluray disks which won the format war.

Overall, the ps3 seems to win by a landslide in my opinion. The 360 was still a great system though, especially at the start, but the PS3 finished hella strong.

 

[Lightknight]

PS1 was shipped with known hardware issues, including an issue reading discs due to a faulty spring in the optical drive. If we're talking reliability outside of an anecdotal level, PS3 is the first console that Sony had without a ridiculous failure rate due to known hardware issues. And you still had 12% of the users self-reporting failure within like a year.

I don't recall the ps1's failure rate being particularly high. Something being a known issue doesn't mean the system has a higher than acceptable failure rate overall.

The 360 had a problem with its laser burning out in two of the four disk readers they used.

Do you have the actual failure rate numbers on consoles? As far as I can tell, the only generation we have solid numbers on was the 7th generation thanks to squaretrade insuring all three models.

EDIT: OK. The ps1 did not have an optical drive issue as far as I can tell. Not one that was common enough to still be known at least. It did have an issue with ventilation when displaying full motion video but that wasn't console failing. The one with a major problem was the launch version of the ps2 which was most commonly fixed by cleaning the lens but did sometimes require adjusting it with a screwdriver. They fixed that almost right away.

Right now the PS4 failure rates are still set at less than 1%. That's well below industry average for hardware like this. I'm not sure what the XBO failure rate is but I haven't heard anything major there either. Only the WiiU seemed to have an issue with bricked console thanks to how they rolled out the first update to the console. I think that's still a problem too.

 

[WoJ]

I feel like if I take personal bias out of it, PS3 is the stronger console when evaluating the 7th generation, but for me personally I have more affinity for the Xbox 360 for a couple of reasons.

First of all, the controller. The 360 controller is, in my opinion, the best controller I have ever used on a console. Period. Blows the Dualshock 3 and Dualshock 4 out of the water. While maybe that seems like a little thing, it makes a difference for me.

Second, online play. I completely understand why people like that it was free to play online on PS3 and critical of Microsoft for charging for Gold. I totally get it. But I had a blast playing online with my friends with the 360 so I have some nostalgia/rose colored glasses that tie me to the 360.

Finally, Mass Effect. I know it ended up on the PS3, but when I picked up my 360 it was Xbox exclusive and it blew my mind and quite honestly reinvigorated my love of gaming and became my favorite series of all time.

 

[Duck]

It seems that there are several reasons why someone would prefer one over the other, however I hold no bias over which one I prefer more.

I picked up the Xbox 360 first because it was the console that all my friends had. That's how we talked to each other years ago. That's how we played games online. I wasn't really that enthused with having to pay for a subscription just to be able to play games online (and for that matter, even play certain games or access certain apps period) but hey, that's a small price to pay for the developing world. Everyone has to make money somehow. I will say that the 360 controller is definitely my favorite over the competing Dualshock 3, and that is a personal preference. I just enjoy holding a 360 controller more.

With regards to the PS3, it was a purchase that I made in haste. I only picked up one title for it at the time of purchase (Assassin's Creed 3). As time went on I'd go to pick up Bioshock Infinite and a few other downloadable games as part of my PS Plus subscription, however I didn't really have that much experience with the console. I will however comment that being able to do basically everything on the console without a subscription is something that I did enjoy.

 

[spartandude]

Admittedly I didn't have a PS3 so take my opinion with a pinch of salt. For me it was 360 all the way. Didn't have anything against the PS3 but only a few of my friends had one where as nearly all had a 360. Also the 360 just had more games I wanted. Such as Fable, Gears Of war and ofcourse Halo.

But then I got a gaming PC and now the only consoles I play on are the 3ds and WII U.

 

[HybridChangeling]

In the Technical view, the PS3 was admirably much like it's predecessor, a monstrous brick that was hard to break and ran forever. I have never heard of one breaking in my circle of friends or even back in school. The online at the time was free and much better in terms of server quality and bandwidth.

But in overall "Fun" I am biased towards the Xbox 360. I had some of the most memorable times of my gaming life on it, from my first open world game (Fallout 3) to the introduction of my favorite GTA style game, Saints Row 2. Halo 3 was my game from 8th grade to sophomore year, and as many technical and gameplay problems it had, Fable was a memorable play.

Oh and as far as I know, only some PS3 games got custom music support while you could play music all the time on your 360, a big plus.

 

[Rednog]

I have a 360 and Ps3, I played my 360 90% of the time so I'm going to have to give it to the 360.
Though I must say two big influences were that I hate the ps3 controller and my ps3 died on me twice and when I had to send it in for repairs my save files were deleted.

 

[Fijiman]

I would have to say the 360, but then again I've barely used the PS3(not helped by the fact that it's with my brother nine months out of the year) so who knows if I would have liked it better or not.

 

[Buckets]

I preferred the PS3 for it's friendly UI, Xbox360 was bloody awful to navigate (they learned nothing with the X Bone either).
I mainly bought PS3 games (from the storefront) as the hard drive was bigger in my PS3 but did buy the exclusives on XBox such as Halo, Forza etc.

 

[gorfias]

Now that I've gotten used to the PS4 though, it's remarkable what a clunky piece of shit the PS3 really is.

LOL, I'm having trouble convincing pals to go PS4. It really is terrific (added 2 TB internal to it today. Needs it if you are going to own more than 3 games at a time).

360 vs. PS3? Tough call. 360 games look amazing even by today's standards. Easier to program for than the PS3 Xbox Live > PSN. Best controller ever. Halo is my favorite game series. My 20 Gig died after 6 years. RIP. I got a replacement that cost $80 with a 2nd controller and 2 games. No big whoop.

BUT: PS3 is among the best Bluray players on the market. Still worth owning even today. While it doesn't have Halo, it does have Uncharted. Uncharted 2 was among my all time favorite games ever.

I upgraded my 80 Gig to 500 Gig and with a single PS+ account, get free monthly games for my Vita, 2 PS3s and PS4.

Yikes. I can't decide. Sorry.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Decisions, decisions...the one that could randomly overheat and die without any warning or the one that requires 90% of the physical games you play on it to be installed on the HDD (a process, when coupled with patch updates, can take hours).

I liked them both honestly and those issues above are the biggest issues I have with either console. I would probably chose the 360 for the exclusives but the PS3 for its stability, familiarity and...well it's a blu ray player. I had a lot of fun with the 360 and I'm still having fun with my PS3.