X360 vs. PS3 Face-Off: Round 12 Comments by Richard Leadbetter

First/500

Before the massive torrent of the usual, I'd like to say I respectfully disagree with the only one I've played on both, Overlord, and found them to be indistingushable.

More importantly, the thumbnail on the front page is awesome, as are all funny pictures of cats.

Awesome picture!!!

As someone who owns both consoles now, a very informative and useful article... Well, not really, as I had no intention of buying any of these games anyway - with the exception of overlord which I bought for 360 ages ago! All very informative nonetheless.

And +1 for the funny cat pic on the front page!

I love it when you get 2 pussies at once...

I have decided that none of this actually matters.

Just enjoy your games, on whichever system you play them on. It's a better use of time than posting comments on a....

It's official then: ST > Amiga

well nothing odd here.again the 360 ends on top overall.i think this will never change in the current gen.

Once again, 360 kicks the PS3's arse.

As usual, the PS3 shots are washed out and not calibrated properly. EG really hates the PS3.

I used to hate these features (when I only had the 360), but now that I have both it's useful when picking a version.

EG - "One pixel in the EGTV player is equivalent to one pixel on your HDTV..."

Is this still true for 720p footage displayed on 1360x768 native resolution HDTVs? I ask because 720p equates to 1280x720 so clearly there's some "stretching" being done to map the image to 1360x768 and as such this cannot be 1:1 as you infer. Right?

But what do you like best, daddy or chips?

Couldn't the time you spend doing these be invested into something more worthwhile?

Nice to see all the cat love here :) The picture is actually better than all of these fanboy baiting articles put together. Let's have all the frontpage as cat pictures.

bit of a waste of time these articles maybe?

big love for the cat pic tho =D

I really don't understand EG's criticism of LEGO Indy being only 30 fps with V-Sync. It's not a fast paced game anyway, aside from the few short vehicle sections, so the drop to a locked 30 fps feels perfectly fine to me. It's not like the game requires you to make precise movements 60 times per second!!! V-Synced 30 fps far more preferable to the horrendous screen tearing that you see by default IMO. But since this is a matter of taste, why don't all 360 and PS3 games include a V-Sync option in the menus so that those of us who can't abide screen tearing but don't mind the odd framerate drop and/or a lower framerate can still enjoy these games without getting a headache?

I noticed that Top Spin 3 has tearing in its cutscenes and replays. What's odd is that it isn't frequent so it's a mystery to me why the developers thought it was a good idea to disable v-sync when the framerate dropped rather than just letting the game run with the odd stutter. Sure it's not a big deal but it does distract from the polished feel of the game somewhat IMO when a closeup of a player's face suddenly "wobbles" due to tearing!

Just because fanboys take the bait so easily, doesn't mean these articles should be stopped. Why should we dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator?

Believe it or not, some people do own both consoles, and, especially if it's a single player game - Xbox live wins out most of the time for online multiplayer(for me) - these articles are very useful for deciding which version to get. It may only be a marginal difference between the two consoles sometimes, but some people have huge tv's too - or in my case a HD projector - and the bigger the display the less marginal that difference becomes!

My only complaint with these articles are that they come out sooner, especially for AAA games, I like to buy them on the day they're released. Which is, obviously, easier said than done, as it takes time to do these in-depth comparisons I'm sure...

@NatAttack - The reduced tearing in SD with PS3 GRID is because the game is pushing less pixels and effects per frame, i.e. 852x480 as opposed to 1280x720. If you play Uncharted in SD there's a lot less tearing in that game too. Basically the higher resolution you use, the more pixels the hardware is having to draw onscreen and the harder it is to get a solid framerate without some issues, e.g. tearing or slowdown.

So basically it equates to 'get the 360 version of every game in the face-off....unless you want a minimap in Overlord' ok gotcha!

also i have to say the tearing on the PS3 version of GRID is a fucking disgrace, and the peeps who cant see it are obviously wearing special 'sony fanboi tinted' spectacles.

P.S. This article does again confirm that multiformat games are best played on the Xbox 360 except for rare exceptions. And even if the PS3 version is identical, you still have to consider those multi-minute, multi-GB HDD installs than in the majority of cases don't improve loading times beyond the 360's DVD drive speeds anyway, e.g. Top Spin 3 is a good example. (By the way I own both consoles)

yay lolcatz!

"PS3: ur doin it rong".

"I'm calling bullshit on the 30/40% torn-frames on PS3 Grid. I can't say I've played it that much but for the time I did, it wasn't that pervasive."

My guess certainly wouldn't have been anywhere close to that number either. I've clocked in perhaps 15 hours in GRID, and with the exception of two or three cases during some major high speed pileups plus occasionally during replays from certain camera angles, the only times I've noticed fairly consistent screen tearing is when the camera quickly zooms down the grid before race start.
99.9% of the time there's none during actual gameplay. Or it's so minor that my eyes are missing it and you'll need some fancy software like EG is using, to analyze the frames and tell you there's supposed to be screen tearing here, there and almost everywhere.

I'm playing on a HDTV by the way - 40" Samsung M87 (with the game defaulting to 720p, I haven't tried forcing 1080p upscaling).

So to sum up. The 360 version is much better, exept when the PS3 is doing little bits much better. In short, they are exactly the same but we prefer the 360 version. So Ner :)

those cats are beautiful!

more flamebait, with the usual giving with the left hand and punching about the face with the right.

Is it me or do the "vs" articles just make EG look like its having a punch up in the carpark with itself like Brad Pitt in Fight Club?

Utterly pointless waste of energy and you get a big fat bloody nose at the end for being a dick.

must try harder

Do you hear that Sonyboys? That's the sound of another crushing defeat!

Ah but still, you lot have got firmware 2.4 to look forward to.

So are the PS3 fanboys ready yet to admit that the console isn't actually technically superior to the 360?

It's been so long now going over the same results time and time again, do you still believe it's down to development rather than simple technical constraints?

T3H C3LL CAN'T SAVE YOU NOW!!!!

That's it. Just ignore the fanboys. Nothing to see here...

i though overlord on ps3 had extra content?

Agree that those articles are mostly super-uninteresting. (Yeah, I own all current-gen consoles for the record.)
Should limit it down to games with 1) Major differences/flaws and 2) AAA-titles like GTA4, really.

Also, for those articles to be effective, try to have em out as close to release as possible, as people tend to buy AAA-stuff pronto etc. (Should be possible if you follow suggestion 1 and 2, right?)

@Darren

The 360 might indeed come out on top in most multiplatform titles (though I would still pick an inferior PS3 version just to avoid the hellish noise from my 360 - in fact with the PS3 game catalogue finally becoming decent, I haven't had my 360 turned on for more than around an hour total over the last two months), but that "eight minute PS3 install" that even reviewers like to throw around as supposedly a major issue, is just plain silly in my opinion.

Alright, fair enough if we're talking about disk space (I was also pissed off at running out of space on my 40 GB disk, fortunately a 250 GB replacement only cost me around the same as a game) - but in many cases it actually sounds like it's the 4-8 minutes wait they consider a problem.
That's really more than a little silly.

@MrMarc:
Im still convinced the ps3 is ~20% more powerful than the 360. And I think that will show more and more the longer the ps3s lifespan gets. (Ofc, you cant take multi-platform games into consideration. They will almost always be superior(or equal) on the 360 for obvious reasons.)

Although, its pretty much up to SquareEnix/Konami/Sony alone to prove me right on this.

banfoi or fanboi....you have a obvious retardation, get it sorted.

All i can say is time will tell the ps3 will be the ultimate winner no doubt and i have one ! Owned a 360 for a while and enjoyed it but theres something so sexy about the ps3 and the fact im using it as a fully fledged computer with linux its great. I give the 360 another year or so and then it will start fading out the ps3 will go from strength to strength !

@banfoi:
"EG. GTAIV which unanimously everyone else says loks better on the PS3) "

Does it really? Ive got it for ps3, and the frame-rate is fukken horrible atleast. Id personally take "smooth" over quality any day..

"I love it when you get 2 pussies at once"

Happened to me twice actually - unforgettable.

I own both systems and like em both.

People like LeD just embaress themselves on these threads.

The message I got from this Face-Off was "360 vs PS3... nothing in it... but if you want to get anal about it then the 360 has the edge for your avarage 3rd party cross platform game"

more or less same old same old.

Though for looks alone i do prefer the PS3 version of Quake Wars.

Surprised not to Bad company. Have the 360 version after play demo on both versions, not sure why but they increased the video grain effect on the PS3 version and it just looks horrid!!! Do wonder at times if theres a secret alliance between MS and EA as alot of their PS3 conversion work is rubbish.

Hopefully more devs will take the ID approach and get the 360 and PS3 version done separately from the ground up.

@silents:
Not saying you are wrong about your statement there, but you put it in such a fanboyist way, that ill almost start to root for the 360 ;p

omg edit

@banfoi: Seeing that answer, ill just take it you didnt read past..hmm, well, didnt read at all, probably.

I played SKATE on PS3 the other day, after much play on the 360. I knew it wasn't meant to perform as well as the 360 version but thought you wouldn't be able to tell the difference... I was shocked! It was crap! The frame rate was appalling, i was really truly surprised. I'm no technical whizz so I don't know what else may or may not have been suffering but next to the 360 version it really was a let down.

Obviously the 360 is doing great, but I think it has more to do with the ease of porting PC code than anything else, to be honest. Though it has to be said ATI's 360 chip is doing a great job.

However, ytu have to remember that 99% of these comparisons still involve games that have started development on PC or 360, and have then ported a version to PS3. The PS3 is much harder to code for, and has less in common with the PC compared to the 360, so there are more things that you should do differently to get the system to perform well.

Which all goes to show that technical superiority isn't everything. The ease at which developers can get that performance out of the system is clearly equally important. For a smaller scale game where technical prowess is more important than art, you will see the power of one system vs the other more clearly. Think for instance of Super Stardust HD's Solo pack, and play Endless mode in it. Something like that is just amazing.

Eurogamer's methodology is fairly solid. The author of this article discusses its tools on http://www.beyond3d.com for instance, with some graphics guys that know their stuff. But it is important to always know at what native resolution the comparisons have been made, obviously.

and suddenly he makes a comment that makes sense. Bravo boifan! (Not sarcasm! Those things are difficult, better point it out.)

Didnt know the word "clan" was used today thou. Thanks for the update (y)

Overall verdict:
The 360 is slithly better in most terms on multiplatform games. Its also quite a bit cheaper and with many more exclusive "must own" games regarding most peoples tastes. The PS3 has the Blueray player though - theres no denying that. As a gamer with an exterior blueray player i am much better of with the 360 though no doubth.

@ Arbiter

What a surprise. Journo criticises a technical element of a game on PS3, claiming it was worse than on 360 and you call bs. He, at least, has provided actual video evidence of what he is claming, whereas all you can do is say that 1) you haven't played the game all that much and 2) you didn't see that much tearing in the little time you did play it.

Scratch going blind from doing it - you're going blind from Sony doing it to you. You're a huge Sony fanboy, yet all you do is call out the 360 ones (who are fanboys), while pretending that everything you say is logical and legitimate. But it isn't - all you do is wipe the worst of the rabid fanboy foam from your mouth and delude yourself just that little bit more.

"Frankly I dont hold much faith to their methodology either."

Of course not - you are a PS3 fanboi.
Its just moronic to blame the messager (EG) though.
Blame Sony for not delivering on promise instead.

It seems to me the PS3 is losing with less difference lately. Maybe in a year they will be equal, and I suspect afterwards PS3 will be able to win these face-offs.

The problem with PS3 so far seems to be the tiny marketshare it has, which is not encouragement to invest huge amounts to adapt to the uncommon architecture. More marketshare should help a lot.

PS but until the PSthree comes out I'll stick with Wii & 360 ;-)

So when will EG reach a conclusion? How many 'face offs' before you decide, just like the rest of us, that it really doesn't matter which version you buy as they are essentially identical across these two platforms? It's getting a bit dull. Why not focus on the exclusive games which differentiate the two platforms? I'd like to see a nice retrospective on Sonys wonderful PR campaign from three years ago that fundamentally undermined Microsoft. Or a story on whether all of the collective SKU packages provide choice or confusion for customers. Or some predictions on lessons learned by both companies that will influence the future.
Also, what are Nintendo going to do next? Where do they go from here? The Wii is selling more than the PS3 and 360 combined in some markets. What will their next machine feature? How can they extend and build on what they have done with the Wii?

"If you play Uncharted in SD there's a lot less tearing in that game too."
Never ever noticed any lol.
but seriously the couple of points above are mainly true; all these games arent not made for PS3 and are usually not optimized vary well either. However with risk of sounding like a fanboy (i do so enjoy it XD) the PS3 exclusives (i feel) are on the whole way better than nething on the 360 and i do own both so i can make that statement.

Pathetic how Eurogamer is using a multi-console game just to piss on the PS3 yet again. The 360 may do certain multi-platforms better but they're not as *superior* as 360 fanbrats think it is.

Freakin' bastards...give MGS4 an 8? You can shove it up your ass.