So… I broke down. I got myself an XBox360 for one reason: to play Mass Effect. I also got Jade Empire because I saw it on STEAM. I have LOVED Bioware games since the Baldur’s Gate series came out. They take so many little things into account that old-school RPGers like me definitely appreciate their attention to detail.
I begrudgingly tried Knight of the Old Republic (after it came out on PC) and loved it. They took that gameplay and moved it back to D&D with Neverwinter Nights. I have been waiting for Mass Effect for a while. I’m a grand total of 30 minutes into the game, and I can’t wait for my kids to go to sleep so I can play every night.
In the midst of playing games, I was tinkering with the Xbox360. Here’s my quick comparison of the XBox360 vs. the PS3:
Even:
- Backward compatibility
- Legacy games purchasable through on-line store
- Internet available demos
- DVD upconversion
- Both can cook Sunday breakfast
Pluses for the PS3:
- Gran Turismo, Grand Theft Auto
- Minor upgrades to legacy game visuals
- Better minimalistic media interface
- Standard hardware interfaces (Bluetooth, hard drives)
- Quieter than the 360
- Full Web Browser
- Remote play with PSP
- BluRay support
Pluses for the 360:
- Mass Effect, Halo
- Better overall seamless on-line approach
- Better integration with WM11 for pulling audio / video from PC (duh)
- Better DivX and Xvid codec support (surprising)
- Slightly better input method
You can tell which one was made by a PC software company and which one was made by a consumer electronics hardware company. If you can get past the Xbox Live visual overload, the Xbox360 is actually very nicely implemented system. It is clear that MS learned A LOT from their previous PC in a black box exercise. I have replaced my standard DVD players in two rooms with the 360 and PS3. Being able to pull data from my WM11-enabled PC also has be rethinking my DVR strategy.
Lemme see… For about $400, you now get a high def DVD player and media endpoint (like a DMA), along with a game console. Yeah… name two markets that need to get cheap fast if they want to succeed. Now, if more TV content was available then we’d really start talking about SCE and Microsoft taking over the living room.