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Though all videogame consoles would like to be the entertainment focus of your home, Nintendo’s Wii is marketed towards a more general audience (with which it has been wildly successful) while the Xbox 360 from Microsoft and Sony’s Playstation 3 chase the hard-core action-gaming crowd dominated by male teens and tweens, as reflected by Xbox 360 Accessories like an Xbox 360 Wireless Network Adapter. When it comes to hardware, the Wii is outclassed by both the Xbox and the PS3, but it’s really the software that makes a game console. Thus do Microsoft and Sony’s catalogs appear rather similar, as both are gunning after the same market with a similar number of titles with a similar range of genres and gameplay.
But big numbers buy bragging rights in action-gaming, and it must also be remembered that, in the final analysis, it’s the hardware that drives the software. (Though no one boasts of their Xbox 360 Power Supply.) And thus it is that many may find the Xbox 360 and PS3 to be pretty similar under the hood, no matter Sony’s much-hyped “emotion engine” said to render facial expressions so realistically as to provide a more engrossing gaming experience. Nonetheless, each console does have its following of die-hard devotees who insist that major differences abound between the two. Yet it’s a safe bet that few, if any, would turn down a rival console were it given for a gift!
The real differences, in fact, involve those truly special features offered by each platform, as well as the online experiences each provides. With Microsoft there is a noticeably richer online experience than that of Sony, whose online service is not bad at all. But the Xbox 360 provides a more extensive experience in that department, though the PS3 does try very hard to make up for it with a built-in Blu-ray DVD player, WiFi web surfing, and support for Bluetooth wireless devices. To which it must be added that NetFlix on-demand is available through the Xbox 360, likely neutralizing the PS3’s multimedia advantages. But the PS3 is extensively moddable by users with the technical interest, while Microsoft rather discourages such hobbyist tinkering under the hood.
Then there’s the matter of prices, with the PS3 selling more going for than the Xbox 360 on account of its slightly longer list of features. Naturally, if you’re a hard-core gamer, prices are probably not going to be all that big a consideration, because purchasing decisions will often be made based on titles exclusive to each platform. Of course, the truly hard-core don’t care about prices at all and would simply buy each of them!
Tags: gaming consoles, videogames, Xbox 360, xbox 360 power supply