Xbox 360 graphics worse than PS3?

Elessar

I know this is a tried and tested argument and both consoles have their advantages, but I have noticed something over the past while.

It seems to me that X360 game textures are less crisp than their PS3 counterparts. I've noticed they have a much lower resolution in general than dedicated PS3 titles. Take for example a really good looking game on the X360 - Oblivion. All of the textures are low res. Then take a good PS3 example like Uncharted 2. The textures in this are some of the most crisp and highest res I've ever seen in a game, even taking the PC into account.

Why is this? I've heard xbox developers complaining about the restraints of the DVD format to hold the textures they want to show (they need to be heavily compressed), whereas the PS3's bluray has ample space and they can be continually streamed without compression. I had thought it might be a VRAM isssue but both consoles have pretty much the same amount and the PS3 can do better. Is the DVD format letting MS down here?

DARK-KNIGHT

come on really???? can someone close this it is gonna end nasty we all know it!!

and to add my 2cents thats laughable what your saying mate apart from uncharted as its an exclusive what game seriously looks better on ps3?

take ghostbusters for instance - massive difference in picture quality with the 360 winning out.

Retr0gamer

You can't compare two different games and come to that conclusion especailly 2 completely different games like Oblivion and Uncharted 2 since firstly Oblivion came out in the first few months of the 360's launch and Uncharted 2 is relatively new and that Oblivion is an open world game while Uncharted 2 is totally linear meaning Oblivion puts a much greater strain on it's host hardware so of course it won't look as good. Compare the 360 and PS3 versions of oblivion, the textures are exactly the same. In actual fact it's the PS3 that usually suffers from lower res textures than the 360.

Now for the science part

Both the PS3 and the 360 have their strenghts a weaknesses. The 360 has an excellent graphics processing unit that makes excellent use of video ram while the PS3's GPU is weaker and has less video ram to work with. What this means is you find texture resolution is lower in PS3 games and transparent and special effects work better on the 360. The 360 also seems much better at pumping out more geometry than the PS3. However the SPU's on the PS3 can be used to work in tandem with the PS3 and in games like Uncharted 2 low quality texture detail can be covered up by the use of shaders that add extra detail to the textures. The PS3 really excels in this area and can make surfaces look more detailed despite lower resolution textures being used if in the hands of clever developers. Lately the PS3 has an nifty effect that can actively lower the resolution of games if it becomes too hectic while the 360 stays at the same resolution.

So both have their strenghts and weaknesses. It used to be that third party games always looked better on 360 but we are starting to see games that are indistinguishable and some EA games that are better on the PS3 and first party games that make a lot of use of the added SPU grunt to add detail look a lot better than 360 exclusives.

Fnz

As the saying goes, "knock yourself unconscious":

http://www.eurogamer.net/archive.php?platform=digitalfoundry&type=comparison-gallery

DARK-KNIGHT

Retr0gamer wrote: »

You can't compare two different games and come to that conclusion especailly 2 completely different games like Oblivion and Uncharted 2 since firstly Oblivion came out in the first few months of the 360's launch and Uncharted 2 is relatively new and that Oblivion is an open world game while Uncharted 2 is totally linear meaning Oblivion puts a much greater strain on it's host hardware so of course it won't look as good. Compare the 360 and PS3 versions of oblivion, the textures are exactly the same. In actual fact it's the PS3 that usually suffers from lower res textures than the 360.

Now for the science part

Both the PS3 and the 360 have their strenghts a weaknesses. The 360 has an excellent graphics processing unit that makes excellent use of video ram while the PS3's GPU is weaker and has less video ram to work with. What this means is you find texture resolution is lower in PS3 games and transparent and special effects work better on the 360. The 360 also seems much better at pumping out more geometry than the PS3. However the SPU's on the PS3 can be used to work in tandem with the PS3 and in games like Uncharted 2 low quality texture detail can be covered up by the use of shaders that add extra detail to the textures. The PS3 really excels in this area and can make surfaces look more detailed despite lower resolution textures being used if in the hands of clever developers. Lately the PS3 has an nifty effect that can actively lower the resolution of games if it becomes too hectic while the 360 stays at the same resolution.

So both have their strenghts and weaknesses. It used to be that third party games always looked better on 360 but we are starting to see games that are indistinguishable and some EA games that are better on the PS3 and first party games that make a lot of use of the added SPU grunt to add detail look a lot better than 360 exclusives.

thats what i said in a nutshell lol!!

good post retro firfst class homework done there

corcaigh07

well said retro, didnt know about that PS3 Res trick it does. 360 has better anti-alasing though yea?

i just recently own both consoles and both consoles have advantages. 360 seems to load faster for me but some of the graphics on PS3 are unreal and very crisp. havent seen uncharted yet but Heavy Rain is a game I'd highly doubt could make it on 360, definitely not on just 1 DVD anyway...

Liber8or

Get a PC, then you will realise both consoles are inferior. Problem solved.

noodler

raycaulwell wrote: »

thats what i said in a nutshell lol!!

I was just thinking that....

....:pac:

Retr0gamer

Just off the top of my head from digital foundry.

In a nutshell both have their quirks and strong points meaning they excel in different areas.

PogMoThoin

Being a pc gamer I judge them not on graphical ability, but features, the PS3 wins, its the better media centre. The 360 has a gigabit network port, internet connectivity but hasn't even got a browser, now thats just fcuked up, more locked down than anything Apple ever released.

Ostrom

You play games for graphics?

gizmo

In addition to what Retr0 said above, the SPUs can also be used for post-processing effects, further taking the weight off the GPU which would have traditionally handled these. There is also the fact that the PS3 hardware is better equipped to implement deferred rendering which was used so fantastically in Killzone 3. Of course all of these features are far from the norm which is why we're only seeing them used effectively in first party Sony titles where there is plenty of first party support.

So what does this mean? Well it means the majority of third party titles will look better on the 360, as we've seen over the last few years, since developers won't be able to take the time to tailor their titles to the PS3. On the other hand, the first party PS3 games look stunning as they're designed to play to the strengths of the hardware. While things are changing on the cross-platform front, I'd wager that things will stay pretty much as they are now, with most big titles looking similar between the two platforms while the smaller ones will lean more towards the 360. In cases like these, however, it's only really an issue for people who own both platforms.

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Being a pc gamer I judge them not on graphical ability, but features, the PS3 wins, its the better media centre. The 360 has a gigabit network port, internet connectivity but hasn't even got a browser, now thats just fcuked up, more locked down than anything Apple ever released.

While the PS3 is certainly the leader in terms of media centre capability, complaining that the 360 doesn't have a browser is silly. It's a console, not a HTPC and I'd much prefer MS to continue to invest money in XBL functionality that's useful to the majority of people rather than gimmicky features which only a small subset of users utilise.

Retr0gamer

I don't think there's anything special about heavy rain. The areas in the game are tiny and not that well detailed which means a tonne of detail can be put on to the characters which is where it stands out. I'm pretty sure the 360 could pull it off easily. Uncharted 2 is a different story. Even something like the stunning train section needs a lot of processing and clever programming that the 360 would probably struggle to do.

corcaigh07 wrote: »

360 has better anti-alasing though yea?

Not really. The 360 usually has full AA on while the Ps3 has that awful vaseline smudge AA. the PS3 can do AA but it takes a lot of video ram thatis better off being used else where while the 360 can do it for almost no performance hit thanks to it's GPU. However some developers like EA have a very clever AA solution that actively blurs the edges on the models (check out the digital foundry piece on saboteur) which looks better than the 360's AA solutions.

Another thing I forgot to add is that the PS3 is much better at HDR. For full HDR on the 360 the resolution has to be reduced severely which is what happened in the case of Halo 3. PS3 also has much smoother shadows and the SPU's help greatly in lighting calculations meaning lighting is usually better.

I think the best comparison is the digital foundry article on the two versions of Ninja Gaiden 2 which really shows both machines strenghts and weaknesses.

Stercus Accidit

Well its difficult to tell really, you can actually look at the 360 and decide what the graphics look like, the ps3 however, entirely lacking any games whatsoever, is limited to the options menu.

See this dramatisation.

super_furry

Liber8or wrote: »

Get a PC, then you will realise both consoles are inferior. Problem solved.

Yes but your smugness levels can go through the roof.

Liber8or

super_furry wrote: »

Yes but your smugness levels can go through the roof.

Its only a danger if George Clooney's acceptance speech collides with it...

All jokes aside though, it is completely pointless arguing over which console is graphically superior. Both consoles have shown their superiority with certain games, for example: Dragon Age looks better on PS3, but RDR looks better on Xbox360. However, and the most important point - the difference is minute.

So, I suggest the OP looks at the PC version. Then you will see what the game should look like. Then you will appreciate what the PC has to offer and pick the console version of the game which imitates the PC as best as possible, that is if graphics are the most important thing to you in computer gaming.

allanb49

raycaulwell wrote: »

come on really???? can someone close this it is gonna end nasty we all know it!!

and to add my 2cents thats laughable what your saying mate apart from uncharted as its an exclusive what game seriously looks better on ps3?

take ghostbusters for instance - massive difference in picture quality with the 360 winning out.

and it was developed on the ps3 and comparing a game thats 3/4 years old to one a year old.

Both consoles have there weak and high points, graphics are nothing if the game is crap,

tman

You really should have a quick read over some of the face off articles on digital foundry over on Eurogamer.net... Take a recent title like Red Dead Redemption for example

Comparing a game released in 2006 with one from 2009 hardly seems fair, you need to compare like for like!

DarkJager

Have a look at the Mafia 2 comparison if you want your question answered. PS3 can't even handle textures like grass or blood pools in that game while the 360 runs them just fine.

WolfForager

DarkJager wrote: »

Have a look at the Mafia 2 comparison if you want your question answered. PS3 can't even handle textures like grass or blood pools in that game while the 360 runs them just fine.

Game was developed for each console separately and they still screwed it up, disgraceful.

DARK-KNIGHT

WolfForager wrote: »

Game was developed for each console separately and they still screwed it up, disgraceful.

agreed.. we should all be expecting more from our consoles inc ms and ps3. imo

Overheal

raycaulwell wrote: »

agreed.. we should all be expecting more from our consoles inc ms and ps3. imo

The 360 is 5 years old and there havent been many changes to the hardware. Theres not a whole lot you can expect. If you said the same thing about a PC after 5 years you'd have given it to your granny and built a new one by now. The truth as Retro points out is developers are squeezing whatever they can out of these consoles with whatever tricks they can. and while they're doing this they're ignoring all of us PC gamers with a gig of GDDR5 vs. PS3s 256mb of GDDR3 and hexacore processors..... rabble

DARK-KNIGHT

Overheal wrote: »

The 360 is 5 years old and there havent been many changes to the hardware. Theres not a whole lot you can expect. If you said the same thing about a PC after 5 years you'd have given it to your granny and built a new one by now. The truth as Retro points out is developers are squeezing whatever they can out of these consoles with whatever tricks they can. and while they're doing this they're ignoring all of us PC gamers with a gig of GDDR5 vs. PS3s 256mb of GDDR3 and hexacore processors..... rabble

ok agree they are getting what they can out of what they have but i meant if we spend our hard earned then we should expect more and more

Inrteresting article about xbox being done for advertising a game on their console using the ps3 graphics.

http://uk.videogames.games.yahoo.com/blog/article/14868/xbox-advert-rapped-for-using-ps3-footage.html

Overheal

raycaulwell wrote: »

ok agree they are getting what they can out of what they have but i meant if we spend our hard earned then we should expect more and more

call me back when you drop a grand on a new PC :cool:

Lu Tze

Overheal wrote: »

call me back when you drop a grand on a new PC :cool:

And yet you are complaining about spending $50 on a game :pac:

Overheal

Lu Tze wrote: »

And yet you are complaining about spending $50 on a game :pac:

The game lasts about 30 hours, the PC lasts about 10,000 load-hours and tens of thousands more at idle or desktop. The Utility of a PC is astronomically greater per-dollar.

PogMoThoin

gizmo wrote: »

While the PS3 is certainly the leader in terms of media centre capability, complaining that the 360 doesn't have a browser is silly. It's a console, not a HTPC and I'd much prefer MS to continue to invest money in XBL functionality that's useful to the majority of people rather than gimmicky features which only a small subset of users utilise.

But the next gen is guaranteed to have a browser, and full HTPC fuctionality for that matter. Microsoft just won't let Sony and Google make any gains with Google TV. Even now Sony TV's are about to ship with android built in. Bet the Xbox gets added functions before too long, androids already nearly killed Microsofts mobile OS.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2010/05/android-based-google-tv-coming-to-living-rooms-this-fall.ars
http://www.itwire.com/your-it-news/entertainment/39299-google-sony-and-android-tv-and-much-much-more
My phone has a browser, even the young fellas 4 yo psp has one, whats wrong with the xbox having one?

Overheal wrote: »

call me back when you drop a grand on a new PC :cool:

Thats the thing, You don't need to spend anywhere near a grand to get a pc capable of playing games at higher detail and resolution than a console. Bog standard Dells can do this if You choose wisely and most houses have a pc. You can build one for a few hundred

Lu Tze

Overheal wrote: »

The game lasts about 30 hours, the PC lasts about 10,000 load-hours and tens of thousands more at idle or desktop. The Utility of a PC is astronomically greater per-dollar.

Depends, take oblivion/fallout with mods you are looking at hundreds of hours - i take your point though.

gizmo

PogMoThoin wrote: »

But the next gen is guaranteed to have a browser, and full HTPC fuctionality for that matter. Microsoft just won't let Sony and Google make any gains with Google TV. Even now Sony TV's are about to ship with android built in. Bet the Xbox gets added functions before too long, androids already nearly killed Microsofts mobile OS.

The next generation will more than likely be moving in that direction alright and if they're designed that way from the ground up then fantastic. I just don't see the point in tacking on this functionality when it's next to useless compared to a fully featured PC-based browser.

As for WinMob7, well I think we should wait till it's released before we say it's being killed off by anything. Personally I've been holding off getting a new smartphone until I see how it preforms. XNA development interests me far more than anything else available on the Android and iOS platforms.

KilOit

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Thats the thing, You don't need to spend anywhere near a grand to get a pc capable of playing games at higher detail and resolution than a console. Bog standard Dells can do this if You choose wisely and most houses have a pc. You can build one for a few hundred

Thanks to the out of date consoles holding back the industry

Overheal

gizmo wrote: »

The next generation will more than likely be moving in that direction alright and if they're designed that way from the ground up then fantastic. I just don't see the point in tacking on this functionality when it's next to useless compared to a fully featured PC-based browser.

For people who don't want to deal with Options?

DARK-KNIGHT

Overheal wrote: »

call me back when you drop a grand on a new PC :cool:

IM HAPPY WITH CONSOLES TBH i have a laptop which i paid 700 for so there lol was that like a brag i spent a grand on a pc ROISCH LOL

Overheal

That wasn't directed at you personally. But at the idea that you weren't getting your money's worth out of a €300 console.

DARK-KNIGHT

Overheal wrote: »

That wasn't directed at you personally. But at the idea that you weren't getting your money's worth out of a €300 console.

300 euro? i reckon on different consoles over the last 3 years i have spent ps3 release day - 679, replaced ylod 400 say an average of 20 or 25 games at average of 45 so 900 min, xbox 360 60 gb 279, replaced elite 299 and now slin model 225. at least 55 360 games at average 45 say again so say 2,475. wii and few games say 400, dsi xl and games say 300, psp release and games 400 so thats 6,357 and we will allow trades of 2 360s and few games of say 800. so 5,557 i reckon over last 3 years without retro consoles

so thats why im saying our hard earned money should push gaming on nevermind 1,000 euro i spent the guts of that on a decent laptop.

gizmo

Kaidan wrote: »

Thanks to the out of date consoles holding back the industry

Consoles aren't holding the industry back, if anything they're helping it flourish.

Overheal wrote: »

For people who don't want to deal with Options?

I don't understand the point you're trying to make? Do you mean it would be useless for people who don't want to deal with options?

Overheal

raycaulwell wrote: »

300 euro? i reckon on different consoles over the last 3 years i have spent ps3 release day - 679, replaced ylod 400 say an average of 20 or 25 games at average of 45 so 900 min, xbox 360 60 gb 279, replaced elite 299 and now slin model 225. at least 55 360 games at average 45 say again so say 2,475. wii and few games say 400, dsi xl and games say 300, psp release and games 400 so thats 6,357 and we will allow trades of 2 360s and few games of say 800. so 5,557 i reckon over last 3 years without retro consoles

so thats why im saying our hard earned money should push gaming on nevermind 1,000 euro i spent the guts of that on a decent laptop.

Again you've completely missed the Message. But perhaps we're talking on crossed-tangents.

But on that note, personally, I think it's the money that isn't spent on games that drives the industry forward. If everybody bought everything at the price asked, the market would be stagnant and full of Madden 2010s. Then again if a lot of people buy a very small number of titles and expect a competitive price, that generates the games we're looking for. Developers are then more pressed to keep innovating.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make? Do you mean it would be useless for people who don't want to deal with options?

The plug and play nature of consoles, phones, etc. compared to a PC. A fully featured PC browser like firefox for instance, I spent about 15 minutes setting the blasted thing up with flash, adblock plus, forecastbar, and so on. And IE - thats just shyte. Then if you want to really enjoy netflix you have to install its software, same for hulu... I can understand consoles and TVs pre-integrating all of that. I'm a gear-geek and even I hate these setup chores. 9 in 10 people never have the patience.

gizmo

Overheal wrote: »

The plug and play nature of consoles, phones, etc. compared to a PC. A fully featured PC browser like firefox for instance, I spent about 15 minutes setting the blasted thing up with flash, adblock plus, forecastbar, and so on. And IE - thats just shyte. Then if you want to really enjoy netflix you have to install its software, same for hulu... I can understand consoles and TVs pre-integrating all of that. I'm a gear-geek and even I hate these setup chores. 9 in 10 people never have the patience.

Actually what I can see happening first is a move to a more app-based hub for this kind of content rather than a web browser. Wired had an interesting, if exaggerated article recently about web traffic decreasing but traffic over the net via apps like these to be increasing. I suggest you give it a read as I believe it will be applying to consoles more and more in the future.

If you take a look at the 360 you have the Twitter, Facebook and Netflix apps and Hulu is on the way. On the PS3 side you have Netflix and Hulu too as well as BBC iPlayer over here. For the people you described above I'd consider these kinds of apps to be far more useful than a full web browser. One button press and presto, as Wired says "the screen comes to them, they don’t have to go to the screen".

CiDeRmAn

Its not about the visuals any more, the 360 is more than capable of equalling the PS3 performance, depends entirely on how lazy or devoted the dev is.
With 780p becoming the default HD setting for most consoles it seems much of the extra power is wasted anyway.
Also, more emphasis is coming to bear on gameplay, snazzy visuals no longer cut the mustard, so that's why I prefer Project Gotham games the Gran Turismo games.
Common development across a series of platforms and picking one as the common denominator also means that extra features of a given machine are left in the dust as well.
Not to mention the fact that the brute force of the cpu or even gpu is no longer as important as how the machine handles code, getting around bottlenecks and using the available resources well means that the lesser of two machines could, in fact, be the one that gets the better results, Bioshock on 360 looked better than the PS3 version.
Valve didn't like the PS3 for ages, Orange Box and the recent surprise announcement of Portal 2 altering that position slightly perhaps.

So, really, for all intents and purposes, the two lead machines have comparable graphics, and so it will be until the 360 is replaced or the PS3 gets lots of 1st party content that takes particular advantage of the machines talents.

jaykhunter

God-dammit, this thread has been successfully hijacked into a "let's harangue console users about gaming on a PC" thread

Back on topic, yes it's been said before, it really depends on the game. I have both, and am annoyed that the PS3's 2 teraflops don't smoke the 360 in terms of graphics. Maybe the differences in hardware (and various limitations) become more apparent in 5 years but we might just have new consoles by then....

Retr0gamer

jaykhunter wrote: »

Back on topic, yes it's been said before, it really depends on the game. I have both, and am annoyed that the PS3's 2 teraflops don't smoke the 360 in terms of graphics. Maybe the differences in hardware (and various limitations) become more apparent in 5 years but we might just have new consoles by then....

Newsflash the PS3 isn't much more powerful than the 360 and is full of so many bottlenecks that it's about the same.

jaykhunter

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Newsflash the PS3 isn't much more powerful than the 360 and is full of so many bottlenecks that it's about the same.

I read your initial post (which was great, mind you) but i read everything combined, PS3 outputted 2 teraflops while the 360 did 1. What's the deal with the starting price point being so expensive if they're roughly the same??

DARK-KNIGHT

jaykhunter wrote: »

I read your initial post (which was great, mind you) but i read everything combined, PS3 outputted 2 teraflops while the 360 did 1. What's the deal with the starting price point being so expensive if they're roughly the same??

maybe thats why psn is free? or how about the fact that it has a bluray player? the consoles are both good i think the 360 is just a better gaming product apart from a few ps3 exclusives

Retr0gamer

jaykhunter wrote: »

I read your initial post (which was great, mind you) but i read everything combined, PS3 outputted 2 teraflops while the 360 did 1. What's the deal with the starting price point being so expensive if they're roughly the same??

Where did you get those values, they seem made up to me or from an unreliable source? You can't just base the preformance on 'teraflops'. There's plenty of other factors, who much ram there is and access speeds and how much strain the GPU takes off the CPU. The GPU is really important. Sony has a great CPU with the cell but when they throw in an outdated off the shelf GPU which the RSX with a video ram bottleneck then a lot more strain is put on the CPU to match 360 performance and negates the advantages of the Cell. The 360 uses off the self power PC cores for it's processors but it's GPU hardware is far more effective than the PS3's.

As for the massive difference in price I can only imagine it's because there was a lot of R&D money put into cell and Blu-ray and they needed to recoup that as well as Blu Ray drives at the time being very expensive. Sony dropped a lot of features from the slim to keep the price down and Blu ray drive prices dropped massively.

jaykhunter

lol, i got it from the Guinness book of world records Gaming Edition. i dunno all of the technical jargon but that word stuck out to me (2 > 1 teraflops) Odd to think that PS3s have gotten 300 euros cheaper to produce/sell!

Thinking about costs of PS3s, including 70 euros for PSN and ~100 for a bluray drive, maybe it (the initial price of 600) was all R&D. Those USB slots and multimedia card reader can't be too expensive!

Grumpypants

Teraflop

Retr0gamer

The Ps3 launch was 3000 terafails.

satchmo

Just like you can't compare two different games to compare hardware, you can't take a single cross-platform game and compare visuals to determine which is capable of better graphics - there are a lot more factors involved than simple raw horsepower.

It's undeniable that the RSX is less powerful than the 360's GPU, just like the Cell has more power than the Xenon. However when it comes to development, how accessible the hardware is makes almost as much of a difference as the performance it's capable of. A 6-core symmetric processor like the Xenon is well-understood, and developers knew what to expect and how to handle it. Microsoft concentrated on the right things - documentation & tools - and along with the familiar development environment of Visual Studio, definitely gave them the edge when it came to helping the developers get over the new hardware and get to the important part... making games.

In comparison, the PS3 was at a disadvantage before it was even released. A new architecture like the Cell, while having lots of potential, took some getting used to. Documentation was thin on the ground, and the tools were, for a better word, lacking. With such tight schedules, I strongly suspect many developers simply focused on getting the game done, assuming they could optimize the PS3 at the end. But with such a different architecture (including the stricter memory requirements on PS3 - it has the same amount of memory, but in a less flexible model), this isn't always possible and I'm sure a lot of projects have been badly delayed based on this assumption. Many of the first wave (and even second wave) of PS3 games barely used any SPUs. Thankfully, Sony have stepped up and documentation & tools have improved a helluva lot. Developers have learned how to cope with the Cell architecture and use it to their advantage.

These are the main reasons that we are now seeing games released that look almost identical on each platform. Like I said above, any difference in quality is largely due to choices made by the developer and not due to a specific hardware difference. The PS3 is just as capable as the 360 at doing deferred rendering. The PS3's hardware antialiasing looks practically identical to the 360's hardware antialiasing. It just depends where you want to spend your budget.

I think that, ultimately, the PS3 is more capable of producing a better-looking game thanks to the extra horsepower available from the SPUs. But for cross-platform games.... you can spend months developing the most amazing SPU-based lighting model, but you've just spent months on a feature that isn't doing anything for your 360 version, and now you need to maintain two different lighting models. The vast majority of developers don't see that as a win, so they won't do it. Therefore I think that it's only first party games that will continue to look better and better towards the end of the hardware's life cycle - God of War III is a perfect example of this.

daveharnett

Well done folks. This is the first thread of this kind i've seen which hasn't been consumed utterly by "my console is better than your console" bullsh*t.

This round of the console was has been interesting though. Wii seems to have won the battle in terms of cash, but I think sony have made more progress in terms of the war - they have come close to the XBox in terms of sales, their console has allowed them to win the (last?) format war, and had paid for (their portion of) the development of the cell, which will be useful in lots of their products into the future.

Microsoft still seem to be the kings on the software side though (apart from the awful media UI) - the most popular development environment, and XBox live seems to be miles ahead of the opposition.

Retr0gamer

I think you've got it all wrong. Sony are in a very precarious position at the moment. From completely dominating the last 2 generations they have gone on to be the runner up and only really attained that position very recently with the launch of the slim. MS have gained a lot of ground in this generation with a very strong showing and the xbox is now a household name instead of a niche console. Sony have also failed to keep up with the DS juggernaut which despite getting a hadcore following in japan from monster hunter fans is just being totally left behind by the DS. The 3DS is just going to seal Nintendos grip on the handheld market. Sony cell processor won't be used by other companies and hasn't been taken up like sony hoped. Power PC based multicore processors are the way forward and cell hasn't left Sony anything except a big hole in their R&D budget. They really messed up with a product that was way too expensive and a terrible line up of exclusives or lack thereof. They have managed to improve things recently and I feel the PS3 now has the advantage in exclusives. If it wasn't for the PS3 being uncontested in japan and the Sony bias of a lot of european countries we'd be seeing Sony in 3rd place.

Nintendo have also been left in a verydangerous position. They have gotten their household name back with the success of the DS and Wii and if they can launch a well supported and powerful system that attracts hardcore gamers MS and Sony will see a big slice of their market share evaporate.

gizmo

Retr0gamer wrote: »

They have managed to improve things recently and I feel the PS3 now has the advantage in exclusives. If it wasn't for the PS3 being uncontested in japan and the Sony bias of a lot of european countries we'd be seeing Sony in 3rd place.

But they are still in third place worldwide...

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Nintendo have also been left in a verydangerous position. They have gotten their household name back with the success of the DS and Wii and if they can launch a well supported and powerful system that attracts hardcore gamers MS and Sony will see a big slice of their market share evaporate.

Maintaining that balance would be extremely tricky though and they run the risk of turning off casual gamers and only gaining a small share of the hardcore audience. With the success they've had with their current approach I think they'll more than likely going to follow a similar route but just push their first party titles earlier. Their reception at E3 shows that they need to do very little to placate that particular audience.