Xbox 360 vs. PS3 Face-Off: Round 17

Eurogamer Write: It's the first face-off of the New Year and with it, the opportunity to bring the cold, hard, iron first of order to the games cupboard by rounding up the games we really should have covered by now, but didn't for reasons too numerous and too tedious to get into. It's also the chance to take a look at how the first high profile release of 2009 - EA's Lord of the Rings: Conquest - measures up under Eurogamer's unyielding scrutiny.

[Darkseider]

I am going to predict the SAME outcome as the previous 16 installments. Xbox 360 comes out on top and the PS3 is yet again relegated to the bin. amirite?

[PirateThom]

Apparently all PS3 games look "blurry" both upscaled and at their native resolutions now.

So, yeah, a lot of nonsense as usual.

[beardtm]

360 won again!

no surprise there, this is getting silly.

i actually feel bad for ps3 owners...

[hay]

@Beware Oblivion: You must've not seen the PS3 playing some games judging by such illiterate bs you throw.
Dunno how they doing it but my visuals are pretty much clear with upscaling... Reading it I have a feeling there's a bit of bias and bs there.

[SL1M DADDY]

Sorry but your post just drips of fanboy. If you can honestly believe what you have posted here then it is safe for me and the many knowledgable PS3 players that you are not a PS3 player and perhaps have never seen anything more than screen shots posted up on the web.

Simply put, these types of articles are for flame bait and fanboy wars and serve no purpose outside of that. In the end however, many of us who actually play games and keep from getting caught up in the fanboy banter know that both systems have great games and that much of what you see on the web in terms of the PS3 suffering graphically is just plain poor journalism.

Heck, some of these comparisons were done in the past without even setting the PS3 to it's optimal picture settings all the while setting the 360 up for the best picture. Now tell me, would that be considered truth or fiction? Good journalism or poor journalism?

[InMyOpinion]

Anti-aliasing is last gen...

[I_LOVE_MYSELF]

People can make PS3 vs 360 articles all day
but at the end of it neither system has a game that can match Super Mario Galaxy

The Wii should be included in more face offs

[littletad]

Rare to see that kind of Nintendo fan on here.

[PotNoodle]

The only face off it would win is in sales ^^

Though my wii was useful at keeping my PS3 and 360 on the edge of my desk.

[Anon1974]

I tried multiple times to get into Mario Galaxy and just couldn't and finally sold it to co-worker in my office with my Wii just before Christmas. I thought maybe I had just outgrown platform games as I didn't care for Ratchet and Clank either, but then I played LittleBigPlanet and loved that game.

[jBat17]

i have a samsung hdtv which is connected to my ps3 via hdmi. it has a feature called edge enhancement. i played around it, toggling it off and on. the difference it makes is very noticeable! with if off, the graphics looks blurry and muddy. with it on any game looks significantly better, the way it should be.

so maybe the ps3 somehow sucks at transmitting signals to tv's?! but your tv's settings can truly affect how good the graphics will look. maybe eurogaymer has a crappy tv set or has edge enhancement off.

[Kushan]

You've found the Anti-aliasing settings for your TV, not many HDTVs will have such settings and it'll work just as well on a 360 or even a Wii (assuming the setting can be applied to non-HDMI inputs).

[KRUSSIDULL]

I thought they used capture card for comparisons :O

[snyper831]

so that tells you the ps3 sucks at upscaling just what the editor was talking about, thats why most games look better on the 360.Man this is getting old every one knows most games look better on the 360 except some sony exclusives which takes ages to develop and lots of money,double the staff and then maybe you could get a better looking game just look at killzone2 i been waiting for that sucker since the ps3 came out and its barely coming out next month and it doesnt look even close to what sony promised back in 2005 remember??????????????
Thats sony for you, I just dont understand why people keep hoping for the ps3 to achieve better graphics??? its just not gonna happen and at the end of the day what matter are the games and so far 360 wins hands down. So far its looking really bad for sony, they are loosing so much money on every ps3 sold and 3rd party games are not selling well, the 360 sold more 3rd party games then ps3 and wii combined that means 3rd party developers will make more money by selling their games on the 360 and remember every company is here for the money,no money no games and so far its twice as expensive to do a game on the ps3 as it is on 360 now you do the math???????????????

[123360]

i bought a ps3 a few months back,this site was one of the main reasons i held back on getting sony,s console.comparison this comparison that went to my mates house to watch him beta test killzone,new 160gb bundle bought the same week.when you start looking at games like killzone,mgs4,uncharted,motors torm 2 etc,etc those titles there already look better and sound better than anythink on my 360 to date.cod5,pop,dead space i bought for ps3 i can,t tell the difference between the 360 and the ps3 version the only thing i noticed was cod5 plays in 1080p on my newly purchased bravia as my mates 360 plays in 720p on his samsung.the way this site talks its like there light years apart,thank f*ck i bought a ps3 to miss out on there exclusives would be insane and the multiplats who knows i can,t tell jack sh*t between them as of what i,ve bought.

[SL1M DADDY]

So many idiots here actually listen to the fanboys here spreading FUD about the PS3 and forget that the one thing that counts is your own opinion. You did the right thing by buying the PS3 and seeing for yourself that the games you play look nothing like the bias medias reports. Heck, I play COD4 and World at War all the time and I had some idiot from the GamerCast Network tell me that COD4 on the PS3 was "unplayable". Now tell me, if that was the case, then why is it that the game is played all the time but tens of thousands including myself? I chalked it up to ignorance, just like I do with all the other fanboy banter you get here and on nearly every other North American site that feels the need to suck MS's arse.

I have no problems with the 360, in fact I love it. But one thing I do have a problem with is media that is bias and reports nothing but FUD on Sony and is blatant about it. Sony deserves a fair shot at the console generation and it just seems too many are out there trying too hard to keep fair journalism from reporting the good about them.

[illuminatus_V]

I don't understand that pixel comparison. a game that sucks can have the best graphics ever, nevertheless the game will suck. so whats the deal. for me its not the graphics its the gameplay, the story, the twists, the fun. best example is Left 4 Dead. Old Engine but a lot of fun. i always prefer little less graphics in favor for steady 60fps game performance.

so the only important thing to me in that comparisons are the frame rates.

[tatotiburon]

How many rounds had the xbox 360 won already?

[InMyOpinion]

Not enough for people to understand it's superiority it seems.

[MURKERR]

for techinical capabilities i got one word....killzone or is that two words? ;)

[MURKERR]

..

[Pennywise]

Are you seriously even trying to talk up a Codemasters game??? You should be banned for making such a ridiculous statement and for putting GG and CM in the same sentence. Shame on you.

Where their teaser trailer looks good, What game has codemasters actually delivered on?

[Rhythmattic]

Operation Flashpoint 2 (muliplatform) .. I dont know... The tech demo (not the CG Trailer) running on a MOFO PC Had pop in and didn't have (what looks like) the physical weight of K2...

Anyway... 360 owners grabbing at straws...We will all soon see... Oh, I did mention OF2 will be on PS3?

BTW, For Graphics, No one can deny Crisis, but for Consoles, no one can deny the achievement of K2 ...

[Rhythmattic]

Relating your own personal life through a gaming site is too much information.

[Yomiro]

It is useless to resist killzone 2

[TheMART]

Whats up with the PS3 still being blurry after its out two years, promised to be having the better versions of multiplats from its launch on and these two years later still having sad versions of its big brother the 360 doing better with about every game?

Colours also still washed out, must be a specific GPU weakness there.

Not to forget the framerate drops on the PS3...

[Socomer 1979]

my girl wears glasses. when i put them on im even more amazed on how sharp and amazingly clear the graphics are on all my games.

you ever play gta4 on 720p? its looks like crap! switch the setting to 1080i or 1080p and take a look at how much of a difference thier is.

it works the other way around too. Pop in naruto ultimate storm and try playing it at 1080i or 1080p. even your notifications are all messed up. naruto looks like a sketch of dotted lines. Now switch it back to 720p and look at that... amazing right? looks better than the cartoon itself.

ps3 is a advanced system where you manuelly mess with your settings and configurations. If edge hasnt figured out the best for thier setup then why are they even reviewing games? they are NOOBS!

[MegaMohsi]

It really depends on what the native resolution of the game is, since the hardware scaler is very poor on the PS3 the native resolution will look best at all times. Upscaling the game from the native resolution(software upscale) causes blurriness and a much softer picture, so the moral of the story is stick to native resolutions aka let the PS3 pick for you, unless your tv is over 50inches then go 1080p if available

[P4KY B]

"ps3 is a advanced system where you manuelly mess with your settings and configurations. If edge hasnt figured out the best for thier setup then why are they even reviewing games?"

Thats not really what consoles are all about. If you want to mess with settings buy a PC.

[Anon1974]

...as I've noted before, what good is a game if your hardware isn't reliable. After being without my 360 4 months from launch and not being able to play the bulk of my game library, I quickly learned to only use my 360 for the odd exclusive. What's the point if you can't play your games?
And as of yesterday when I met a friend to go take in an Oilers game, every single person I know with a 360 has had at least one RROD. He was the last holdout as he had a bit of a newer model which he replaced by buying an Arcade for the new motherboard and selling his old 360 to some guy over the net who refurbed rrod consoles.

[jcfilth]

Very nice multiplat comparisons.

Let's compare some exclusives now shall we?? ooh I know you don't want that bots ;D

[TheMART]

No problem with that.

MGS4 is more cutscene then gameplay, movie watching is fun but thats it.

Resistance 2 is in fact Resistance 1.5 graphics are about the same, a bit more colour put in some large enemies and there you have the 'innovation'

Up to Gears 2 it looses in every possible way.

Only LBP is one of a kind. Yes it looks good. Yes the different materials are fun. Yes I bought a PS3 for it.

But why compare just a few great exclusives for the PS3 to more 9 out of 10 games for the 360 when the majority of gamers will own more multiplatform games which look better on the 360?

I mean, don't you want the game collection to look good overall and not those couple of exclusives?

[jcfilth]

1. I thought we were comparing graphics.

2. "MGS4 is more cutscene then gameplay"
MGS4 is about 10 to 11 hours without the cut-scenes on your first run. On my fourth run, I ended up with 8 hours and a bit more because I already new everything.

3. "Resistance 2 is in fact Resistance 1.5 graphics are about the same, a bit more colour put in some large enemies and there you have the 'innovation'

Eight players co-op, 60 competitive players online. I CALL THAT INNOVATIVE.

4."I mean, don't you want the game collection to look good overall and not those couple of exclusives?"
I have 13 games and only 5 are Multiplat COD4, COD:WAW, GH:3, Virtua Fighter 5, UT3, I had more games but sold them, Virtua Tennis 3, GTAIV(sold it after 2 weeks,BORING), rented Burnout Paradise and finished it(awesome game).

So yeah, all this game look great some better on PS3, and the difference in some games which is only brightnes (gameplay is the same) that can be fixed with your tv settings is not going to push me to buy a faulty and expensive console. I rather buy a reliable console with games that can only be made in that console like Killzone 2 in only 2 years of life, the 360 has been around for 3 years and PS3 already surpassed it in graphics with Uncharted 1 year ago, now 1 year later KZ2 sets the 360 apart from PS3 and makes it look ugly, and wait until they show GOW3.

.Blu-Ray (awesome)
.Bluthooth
.Built in wireless(thanks to it, I didn't have to pay for broadband for 6 months!! someone in my building had a router)
.Free Online Service (yes! I've played on Live and there's nothing worth paying $50 for)
.Reliable Hardware
.Best Looking and Innovative Games
.Support from Sony for ten years
.Expandable HDD up to 320GB and not limited overpriced ones.
.FREE THEMES
.My friends sound just like on the phone not weird like on Live(people sound different)
.Internet Browser
.Remote Play with my PSP(I love this feature)
.HOME is good and WILL be great!!

Sorry but no, PS3 is better all the way, developers are being held back from making even greater games because of the 360. Period.

[Capt CHAOS]

It's round 19. I'm sure of it.

[Kushan]

Graphical comparisons are pointless.

PS3 and 360 are almost technically equal in terms of GRAPHICAL ability.

CELL is better suited to things like Physics and other PROCESSOR intensive tasks (Advantage PS3).

360's GPU is slightly faster at graphics than PS3's and has a better scaler so there's less FPS drops (Advantage 360).

People will disagree with this statement and start bringing console exclusives into it without knowing what fair testing is about: A 'fair test' is one in which you only change one thing (variable).
If you change the console AND the game, that's not a fair test, thus nothing conclusive can be made from the comparison. I could compare the PS3 to the Sun and state that the PS3 is superior because the games are better and it can process more stuff than the Sun can, but we both know that comparison is meaningless. The same can be said for console exclusives.

The point? Stop getting so worked up every time someone says your console of choice isn't as good as you think it is. If you're not happy with it, take it back for a refund. If you are, well then enjoy it and stop worrying about what everyone else thinks. The end.

[Rhythmattic]

But your last paragraph is absolutely true.

[iistuii]

in every round of the 17 the main topic is what ive said all along about the consoles, especially the ps3. NO or hardly any AA......jaggie, jaggie , jaggie.2 years now and the dev's are still having trouble gettin the aa right without losing frames. Don't quote K2 as weve not seen it in the flesh yet. As R2, LBP, has aa problems and walking round HOME is a jaggie day out too.As for the person above who thinks his tv does the aa hahahaha

[ultimolu]

I love how Eurogamer does comparisons like this. It's really laughable.

[Rhythmattic]

What ? no Wii?

[Socomer 1979]

"Thats not really what consoles are all about. If you want to mess with settings buy a PC."

Why do I need a PC when I have a PS3?

All i use a pc for is for surfing the net and downloading stuff and i rather do that on my 46'inch lcd hdtv with the ps3.
i dont like pc gaming and i hate pc graphics. mouse and keyboard shooting is not how i was brought up, get it? good.

"Thats not really what consoles are all about".
Who died and left you in charge? Says who? Ps3 is a advanced gaming machine.in fact if need be it can be a pc. I hooked up a printer to my ps3, does that frighten you? if you wanted and i know you know, i can hook up my mouse and keyboard to play ut3 if i need that kinda frag fest in my life athe the moment. also, i like to point out to pc gamers that what do you guys have left? Youre best games are on consoles. Why buy left 4 dead on pc when you can get it for xbox? why get crysis when you can have killzone 2? MMO's? Soon my exstinct pc gamers... very soon.

[Foxgod]

sims 3, dawn of war 2, warhead, cryostasis, stalker, diablo 3, starcraft 2, project offset etch.

And my pc makes your ps3 look like piss.

[Foxgod]

if your western you should invest in a western console, in the east they are xenophobic enough to stay away from western products, so westerners should stay away from the ps3.

[METtAL-GAMER]

God dammit not this crap again.I'm starting to think that site that does this lives off of flame wars and fanboyism.

[Foxgod]

Respect the flames, without it there would be no hell... uh i mean n4g.

[LeGenDx]

FIGHT !

[sajj316]

To be honest ... the only ones I care about are

Tomb Raider
Prince of Persia
MK vs. DC
LEGO Batman (love the LEGO games)
Saints Row 2

The differences are minor and something digital foundry can point out with the right tools.

[darthv72]

seems to be no different than when sites like toms hardware and anandtech do comparisons of the lates cpu's or gfx chips. I have seen comparisons for at least 10 years for those things. It hasn't been until this console gen has a war been so huge. It rivals the old school days of snes vs genesis.

Looking back you can plainly see that snes had a graphical advantage but genesis had a performance advantage. Flash forward and you have two consoles going at it because the fans want it. Regardless of how you feel towards comparisons, there are hundreds, thousands who do. I gave up trying to decide what to get in the pc parts world based on comparisons.

I buy what I think is the best bang for my buck. I recently got me an amd 5600+ x2 and mobo for $80. Considering that I have been using an amd athlon 2400+ for such a long time, it was the best value for my $$. I had to get memory for it but hey, going from 1gb of pc3200 to 4gb of pc6400 for only $30 was a bargain.

So to me, comparisons don't mean as much as they used to. I tend to get a game based on price and if it is fun enough to keep my interest. I sometimes buy based on my friends and if they have gotten it for either system.

[u got owned]

This articles are pretty stupid, specially when you got K2 destroying everything out there right now.

[dirtrider]

the multiplats are getting "better" on ps3. she is just as retarded as most of the other sony droids on here. ps3 is a failure. as long as microsoft keeps making consoles, they will always be superior to whatever sony releases. enjoy your framerate hiccups- only on ps3!!

[GUNS N SWORDS]

hasn't anyone thought the 360 has earned it, in spite of all the negativity that's conjured up here at N4G and else where. just a little wouldn't hurt you know.

[yz250]

but but but teh cell

[JeepCreeper86]

Cant you guys just say good job microsoft and stop the mindless troll ramblings... PS3 lost... Plain and simple. PS3 has alot of things that XBox doesnt. But that is a two way street. Sony blew it again. Just say "good job microsoft, you won" and leave it at that. Theres always nextgen... Im looking forward to seeing what they are gonna do...

[xg-ei8ht]

`Foxgod'

sims 3, dawn of war 2, warhead, cryostasis, stalker, diablo 3, starcraft 2, project offset etch.

And my pc makes your ps3 look like piss.

----------------------------- ----------

Wow, you really are a tard. S

Sims 3 - WTF
Starcraft - No thanks
Stalker - Got boring quickly
diablo 3 - Boring
Project offset is owned by intel now. And when it does come out, you'll probably need a new pc.

ROFL>

You fail.

Seriously, i don't understand why anyone in the world and far beyond would want to play sims.

[Rhythmattic]

Opps