Eurogamer: Xbox 360 vs. PS3 Face-Off: Round Five

Once more Eurogamer returns to the front line trenches of the Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 console war with the latest in their continuing series of cross-platform confrontations. This time the coverage is bigger and better than ever before, featuring more games, more comparison shot galleries, and more detail on the behind-the-scenes technical trickery employed.

So, onto the line-up of games then - five highly rated 'original IPs', and four not-so-impressive summer movie tie-ins:
* Virtua Fighter 5
* SKATE
* Transformers: The Game
* Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
* Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
* Colin McRae: DiRT
* Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
* SEGA Rally
* FIFA 08

[Meus Renaissance]

You know what, I haven't looked at these images, but I don't think such comparisons should be approved on this site. It's fuel for the flamewars so I'm personally boycotting approving them. Maybe one day others can see the logic in that.

[predator]

ive looked, read what eurogmer say and i think it was 6- 2 to the 360, but they did say it was hardly anything inbetween them, ps3 development is getting better.

[titntin]

I do understand your point of view, and even approve of it as too many threads are hijacked by fanboy flamewars.

But this is a good and informative article, well written , and suprisingly unbiased.

Its of no suprise that the PS3 versions of many games suffer as they are often quickly ported from the 360/PC version. What is heartening for that platform, is that its becoming increasingly obvious that if you spend a little more effort, some decent parity can be achieved without having to rewrite your engine for Cell. Sega Rally, dirt and Harry Potter all show this is the case....

[unwind_protect]

It's an article written by professionals who try to thouroughly compare PS3/xbox versions of multiplatform games. Links to articles like this should definitely be approved, read and discussed. I like reading them, although I'm a PS3 owner and most of them so far are not favorable of PS3. What I hate is seeing people discuss obscure fanboy blogs comparing pictures of 100x50 size, taken from 10 meters away from an SDTV set with a crappy camera. Or blog articles that are 1 year old. These should never get approved and discussed... :)

[rushbd]

3rd party devs are really improving with PS3. very good comparison indeed. although 360 takes the win this time, the difference is barely seeable. Expect them to disappear ( or yet crossed ) within 2-3 months.

[OpiZA]

This should suck..

*Waits*

[mighty_douche]

its here to do nothing but insinuate a flame war....

[Guardian0fPeace]

The day they lose the LOTR and Harry Potter games (God willing this happens), there actually will be awesome games on the way based on these movies/books.

[AnalFace]

I have to say dirt looks better on ps3

[BadTaste]

The rest looked identical though.

[Daurelus17]

not exactly..look at the potc pic again.. the 1st pic with jack in town look at the sign its something small. but im glad to see things have improved for the ps3

[Daurelus17]

not exactly..look at the potc pic again.. the 1st pic with jack in town look at the sign its something small. but im glad to see things have improved for the ps3

[Bill Gates]

Round 5?.....What!!

The 360 got "KNOCKED THA FU<K OUT" in the first minute of the FIRST ROUND by the PS3......AHHHAHHAHAHHAHAH

"You got knocked tha fu<k out"........AAAHAahHHA

[godofthunder10]

you can't read because if you could you will see that the 360s games are better except 1or2 but the rest go to the 360 so if you want to talk boxing it's the ps3 that got knocked the f**k out.so stop acting like a fool and stop being bias because all it does is make you look like a damn fool because the article stated that most of the games are better on the 360 and this is a fact,all you have to do is read the article.so please act your age instead of your shoesize and have a grownup conversation because your post make you look like you can't read and you don't know what the hell is going on.

[AngryTypingGuy]

With insightful comments like that, I can't see why you still only have one bubble. That was called sarcasm by the way, since you aren't very intelligent.

[ActlikeitaintIronman]

you f*ggots

[sticky doja]

I'm taking your bubble for that sensless comment.

[Chris_GTR1]

is this even nessesary? everyone knows ports on 360 are always better. pictures arent enough to show the diffrence. a bigger diffrence is the framerate..

[Jen5en]

I disagreed due to you stressing that Xbox 360 versions ALWAYS look better. I think this all comes down to many other factors like developement resources, experience etc. Take a look at CoD4, and you'll see that both versions are completely identical.

By saying that every multiplatform game will always be better on X360, you are automatically taking sides, and can thus be percieved as a simple fanboy out to get attention.

[DarkSniper]

These pictures show absolute proof that Sony's PLAYSTATION 3 is the leader in next generation interactive technology. XBox 360's graphics shows that the hardware is a bit dated and is highly unlikely to catch up to the PS3's capability.

$niper

[The WildAttorney]

In light of DarkSniper's comments, the following bears repeating (mind you, this is not my own commentary below)

The Playstation 3 can only display 275,000,000 polygons per second, compared to the 500,000,000 polygons per second of the Xbox 360.

That is the reason why games like John Madden Football 2008, NCAA Football 2008, All-Pro Football 2008, and many other games from EA Sports, 2K Sports, and so many others all run at 60 frames per second on the Xbox 360, but only 30 frames per second on the Playstation 3.

Gamespot specifically said in the review of those sports games: “The Xbox 360 versions run smoothly at 60 frames per second at 1080p resolution, while the Playstation 3 versions struggle to run at 30 frames per second at 720p resolution.”

It isn’t just sports games with that problem. Look at all the Tony Hawk Skating games, Tom Clancy Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and F.E.A.R. They have frame rates that drop below 20 frames per second on the PS3 and go into slow motion it is so bad…even though the Xbox 360 versions have very smooth framerates.

Oblivion is NOW BETTER on the Xbox 360!!!

When Oblivion was released a year later on the PS3, it used a new shader design…that had NOTHING to do with hardware technology; it was just something put into the new version of the game as a software program. The download was released for the Xbox 360 later on, but the PS3 fanboys always pointed out, “But when you compare the actual discs, the PS3 one has some advantages (although the Xbox 360 version also has advantages, and was ALWAYS rated higher).

Oblivion: Game of the Year Edition is now available for the Xbox 360, and when you now compare Oblivion on the Xbox 360 to Oblivion on the PS3, there is NO DOUBT that the Xbox 360 version is significantly better; that is why it is rated higher!

The Playstation 3 version of Oblivon is a perfect example that what this man is saying about the Hard Drive of the PS3 being used to help out with memory limitations is NOT true. Consider the FACT that the Playstation 3 version of Oblivion does NOT allow the entire world to exist in the game at the same time, like the Xbox 360 version does. This is because of the Memory Bandwidth hardware bottleneck of the Playstation 3.

Also, when it comes to RAM, the Xbox 360 certainly DOES have fundamental advantages over the Playstation 3!

For example, the CPU of the PS3 can NEVER access more than 256MB of RAM at any point. The Xbox 360 CPU is free to access up to 512MB of RAM if there was a need. With the PS3, there are plenty of times when the CPU needs more than 256MB of RAM, and the Video-RAM of the PS3 is actually using less than 256MB of RAM, which means that if the PS3 had a Unified RAM environment–like the Xbox 360’s–then that unused Video-RAM could help the CPU, like it does on the Xbox 360. OBVIOUSLY, the Xbox 360 RAM design is much more flexible; it helps developers in ways that they enjoy working with.

Plus, it’s important to remember that the original design of the Playstation 3 called for the used of TWO Cell CPU processors–each with two Threads that could Send signals to the SPE subprocessors.

However, when Sony saw the design of the Xbox 360, and they saw how much better the Xbox 360 was, then Sony was forced to redesign the Playstation 3 very quickly in a way that hurt the PS3 system. This is nearly identical to what happened with Sega and the Saturn. Sega saw how much better the original PS1 was, and they were forced to quickly redesign the Saturn in a way that used parallel processing that was difficult to work with and was more expensive. This is EXACTLY what happened with the Playstation 3.

The original design of the PS3 was not even supposed to used a GPU, because it was going to have two of the Cell CPU processors. But when Sony saw the revolutionary ATI GPU in the Xbox 360 that was Custom designed for the Xbox 360, and was 1.5 years ahead of its time (since the PC didn’t see similar Unified Shader technology until January 30, 2007), then Sony was forced to removed one of the Cell CPUs in the PS3, and instead add a Nvidia GPU. But there was NOT time to custom design the GPU, so Sony was forced to included a four-year old generic GPU in the PS3. That is why people often point out the vast superiority of the Xbox 360 GPU.

Now that the PS3 only has one 3.2Ghz Cell CPU, it means that the PS3 has only two Threads capable of Sending signals to the six SPE sub-processors running parallel. Each of those six SPE processors is capable of Receiving a Threaded signal; however, the PS3 CPU is only capable of Sending two Threaded signals. This is where the hardware “bottleneck” of the PS3 reveals itself. Programmers often say that the PS3 has two arms (CPU Threads) that are trying to juggle six balls (SPE sub-processors). Obviously, that is NOT possible, and that is why the Playstation 3 hardware is such a BIG disappointment.

With the Xbox 360, Microsoft used a much newer and better form of technology. PCs often brag about their “dual-core” CPU design. The Xbox 360 actually takes that to the next level and used a “tri-core” CPU design, with each CPU using the most developer-favored videogame processor available–the PowerPC.

The Xbox 360 is literally the exact opposite when compared to the Playstation 3 in terms of hardware design and efficiency. The Xbox 360 has three 3.2Ghz CPUs, each with two Threads capable of Sending instructions. But the Xbox 360 doesn’t the outdated parallel processing environment of the PS3. There are no “sub-processors” to worry about with the Xbox 360. The signals can be focused on CPU and GPU commands. This literally means the Xbox 360 has six arms (CPU Threads) that are being asked to juggle only two balls (GPU and CPU functions).

THAT is why the developers absolutely LOVE the Xbox 360 and can design games so much more efficiently for the Xbox 360.

THAT is why games are released so much earlier for the Xbox 360.

THAT is why the overwhelming majority of Xbox 360 games offer better graphic and online performance on the Xbox 360.

THAT is NOT going to change!

It may be easier to port a PS3 game to the Xbox 360 than it is to port an Xbox 360 to the PS3 (since the Xbox 360 is more powerful in terms of videogame performance–500,000,000 polygons for the Xbox 360 is more than the 275,000,000 for the PS3), but the Xbox 360 will continue to be the Lead Platform this generation for two reasons:

(1) Because the Xbox 360 is so much easier for developers to develop games for and experiment with new types of gameplay.

(2) Because the Xbox 360 has sold over Eight-Million more systems than the Playstation 3, and that lead continues grow by hundreds of thousands of systems each month, in terms of Worldwide Sales.

[P4KY B]

Be careful some of the 360 fans won't realise you are joking. (like The WildAttorney with his copy and paste response)

I'll give you a bubble.

[Jen5en]

@Dark Sniper and The WildAttorney

You two are the sad, yet funny, examples of how low human life can sink.

Although The WildAttorney ultimately takes the "Most-Girlfriend-Needing- Individual" -award of the year with his new bible, prophetizing why the Xbox 360 will lead us to the promised land.

Congratulations!

[andy001]

I have seen this same information a number of times lately. It has no references and came from a comment posted here; http://www.product-reviews....

Anyone who cares to read through the comments on that post will see how biased and ill-informed it is. Here is a post showing tests between the Cell and the G80 which shows a significant performance benefit for the Cell;

http://gametomorrow.com/blo...

Here is one comment from the thread which again, is unreferenced, and is worth exactly the same as your source

[begin quote]
1) The XBox 360 design is bottlenecked. The GPU and CPU have to share one bus to the RAM. The PS3 has one bus to faster low latency XDR RAM and a seperate bus to the GDDR3 RAM. Roughly twice the bandwidth.

> PS3 can NEVER access more than 256MB of RAM at any point

2) It can both the CPU and GPU have access to both types of RAM.

> TWO Cell CPU processors–each with two Threads that could Send signals to the SPE subprocessors.

3) The PPE allows for 2 hardware threads and as many software thread the software developer wants, each SPE allow for 1 hardware thread and as many software threads the developer wants to create.

> Programmers often say that the PS3 has two arms (CPU Threads) that are trying to juggle six balls (SPE sub-processors). Obviously, that is NOT possible, and that is why the Playstation 3 hardware is such a BIG disappointment.

4)IBM tests already showed the SPEs can reach near 100% perfomance levels. So there’s no bottleneck.

> Each of those six SPE processors is capable of Receiving a Threaded signal

5)7 SPEs, one is currently used exclusively by the OS.

Just some things I wanted to point out to render the article useless and clueless. [end quote]

As you can see, the information you have posted is more than likely wrong, has no credible sources, and not even your own work.

[sajj316]

I was intrigued to look at em. Everyone likes to compare. Its human nature. What it does expose is the inconsistency of ports. It does show the strengths and weaknesses of both system. It also shows the 'work in progress' view of porting 360/PC code to the PS3. I bet you'll see less of a difference in round 6 and going forward. Eurogamer should also look into the first part titles.

[Bullseye]

Should, if approved at all, be blind comparisons i.e Let post the picture, but don't identify the source machine. Let all the fanboys have there say to which is best. Then, a couple of days later post with the source machine.Would be interesting to hear fanboys excuses why they picked the competetion!! :)

[kn]

We need to know that the person that is pulling the images isn't "tweaking" the pictures or selecting specific images for the benefit of or to the detriment of the other... It would be cool, though, to run a poll and see what comes up...

[judd]

Bubbles for you

[ActlikeitaintIronman]

thewildattorney is such a lier, go to wikipedia, the rsx kills 360 period, hahahahahahahahahahahaha 500,000,000? PS3 puts out a max of 750,000,000 a frame dude, let alone 5billion max out, verse 360's 3billion, ps3 has 8 CPUS, 360 only 3, do u know what cpu is, no u dont. The ram is a little issue because ps3 doesnt compress stuff, dude come with real facts. WHY DO XBOTS ALWAYS LIE

[Guardian0fPeace]

Neither side is 100% made up of perfect little angels. I don't know where he got that info, I do remember reading something similiar before, but I do take it with a grain of salt, but wikipedia certainly ain't the Holy Bible either, anyone can submit their own stuff to it, that's why fewer and fewer teachers are allowing students to use it as a source for their research papers.

[pornflakes]

I see u really know your Playstation3 hardware

First of all: The PS3 has only 1 CPU (I am sure you mean the SPU's which arent cpus you noob)
Second: The Cell ha 8 SPU's but the playstation3 one hat 7 SPU's and 6 can be used 1 is reserved.
3rd: the GPU (not CPU) of the 360 can handle 500.000.000 against 275.000.000 to the RSX

And you want to tell people about playstation3 Power?

selfowned fuktard :)
Play delayed.
Get a life.
Jump away.

[Ju]

The guys writing the comparison doesn't obviously know what he's talking about. He claims "upscaling" all the time, where obviously a couple of games run native 1080. E.g. Transformers, Pirates and Harry Potter. This is pretty obvious, if you compare the 720p shots which look absolutely identical with the 1080p shots, where the 360 shots are basically upscaled and (HW) filtered, while the PS3 shots render without or lesser AA (pretty obvious in Pirates, no jaggies in 720p no AA in 1080p - this is not an upscaler effect, this is simple a different level of AA in the higher resolution). Also, Transformers runs stable a 1080, Pirates has real low fps, I haven't tried Harry Potter long enough to make a statement here (didn't feel to bad, though). The best is his "conclusion" that Harry renders in 2560x720 - an absolute "obscene" resolution for the PS3, because the a) the scaler cannot scale 720->1080 lines, and b) why the h..l would they waste memory bandwidth to render 2560 horizontal pixels! (and then still interpolate 720 to 1080).

A reporter should probably not pretend to be a developer and simply and clearly state his _opinion_ rather then coming up with this strange explanations.

Maybe he should have added another criteria, which is "360 Scaler Quality" which is good. We know that.

[Whoooop]

Another dumb xbot joins N4G.

-SLAP-

(Going with Neurotoxin with the -slap- theory).

Some people here need at least 10 slaps a day.

[godofthunder10]

it's not fanboys from either sides,it's retard people like you that don't have the common sence to hold a converstion and have a debate like a grownup,but instead you make an a** of yourself when you post crap like this because all it proof is that you don't know what the hell is going on,you don't know your elbows from your a** hole because if you did then you would've posted something that had to do with this article.

i said it before i say it again.some sonyfanboys will still say that the ps3 is like a god that it's perfect in every way,even when they have article and programmers saying it isn't.just look at the guy that posted the ps3 knocked the 360 the f**k out,the article said that the majority of the games he talked about was better on the 360, yet you have people like this that just think that they are always right and every body is wrong if they say some thing bad about the ps3, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, he's just a sonyfanboy with no mind of his own,he just listen to what sony says and listen to it like it's the bible,people like this better start using their minds before it's to late.

[Whoooop]

I think we need to increase the amount of slaps to 15 a day...

at least for you.

haha a 360 fanboy talking crap... priceless

nap time... :)

[abg428]

Ummmmm guys what is the big fuss over?? The only difference between the games is that it seems like color on th e360 is darker an dthe color on the ps3 is lighter. I saw NO difference in graphics, and those who state otherwise is OBVIOUSLY a hardcore, obnozious fanboy.

[Salvadore]

While the 360 versions are more rich in colour, the PS3 version ain't looking that bad.

[SuperSaiyan4]

I know for a fact if all PS3 ports were superior to the 360 versions all you PS3 fans would be lapping it up.

Well there you have it, all Xbox 360 ports apart from 1 or 2 are better on the 360 and with better controls.

[gerrard]

You say ports are better on x360 eh?

Well I'm going to dispel those facts.

1. On the majority of games so far the x360 was the lead platform (not a port) and was ported onto Ps3 making the games look worse because those lazy devs couldn't be bothered to work on the Ps3's different architecture to make their games work properly.

2. If you look at Infinity Wards effort on COD4 (with the best graphics on any console so far) not only did the Ps3 manage match the x360 efforts but surpass it (if only slightly) because of the dedication they gave to the Ps3 architecture, so in future expect more like this to happen when developers get better tools and learn more about the Ps3.

[karlostomy]

gerrard.

you are right. COD4 has proven that the PS3 is capable of nearly equal 360 performance albeit with *slightly* jaggier textures. ( http://www.n4g.com/NewsCom-...

But at what cost?
Is it up to the developers to put in EXTRA effort to get the SAME result for the PS3?

Developers might not be so happy about all that...
PS3 = More effort, same result, less sales, less profit.
Brought to you by Sony.

If I was a developer i'd.... oh wait... you know the answer already.
---------------------------
edit at below:

Meh! Of course 360 fans lap it up. FOr them it's a WIN-WIN.
Better games = more sales = more dev support = better games = more sales.....

It really is a good thing.

[jackdoe]

However, 360 fanboys like you are lapping it up. Lose lose either way.

[Vip3r]

Great, more flamebait, just what this site is needing.

Unless you have both versions running next to each other you won't notice the difference.

[tk]

It was news when there was doubts if the PS3 is really more powerful. Now it caught up, and is surpassing - even if only marginally enough to ignore. So the early ports the XB360 win, and now the PS3 is winning slightly. Woohoo. Yippee. Great. Shalom. Now stop posting this crap.

[The WildAttorney]

Did you even read the article? Most of the games look and play better on the Xbox 360. Sony fanboys are living in their own private Idaho.

[Martini]

Arguing with fanboys is like banging your head against a wall, like i said draw a circle and PS fanboy will look at it and proclaim it's a square :)

This is Living = private Idaho welcomes you! hahaha

[Danega_Sciphor]

btw sence when has wikipedia stirred you wrong

PORNFLAKES YOU IDIOT
7 cpus is more than 3
RSX produces 750000000 max out idiot, 360 only 500000000
resevered cpu is the rsx have you seen the xenon

YOU JUST OWNED YOURSELF

[Martini]

You just owned yourself kiddo it's One CPU with 7 SPE - at leats get your facts straight.
Back to private Idaho with you!

[ActlikeitaintIronman]

Yo come on pornflakes you want a cooky for OWNING YOURSELF, you dont know jack dude, first off:
PS3 has 8 CPUS in the processor itself, no substitutes, 360 only 3
PS3 uses RSX, max dot output, 51 billion, 360 is like 30 or 20
The ram is 256MB on different pools, which is weak while 360 has the full 512MB, but ps3 has uncompressed space and is proven to give quality, no duh, whats compression, thought so
BLURAY is 1080P automatic output, 360 cant put out 1080P because you need a harddrive for it, how many developers know if you have a harddrive?

YOUVE JUST BEEN PWNED
dont try it again

PLAY BEYOND

UNDER ME:
DUDE YOUR AN XBOT YOU DUNNO WHAT YOU ARE TALKIN ABOUT, they said it was easier stupid not better, and YES IT DOES HAVE 8, are that retarded to fgure it out? welcome to my ignore list you little idiot
JUMP IN MS's BULLSH*T

[The WildAttorney]

Your post is so full of lies. There is only 1 CPU in the PS3, not 8. Just about every impartial engineer has stated that the Xbox 360 graphics card is superior to the PS3 card. The Xbox 360 has almost as many titles that are natively 1080p as the PS3. Keep spouting Sony lies. It's so laughable.

[BLACKJACK VII]

LMAO !!!

WildAttorney, bubbles 4 u. If I ever need litigation, I'm callin' you !

[Boink]

it's a good article and deserved to be approved.

if people want to turn it into another flamewar against their beloved console because their imagination sees one jaggy line in one image and not the next. then let them waste their time, kill their bubbles and send them packing.

cheers.

[jackdoe]

The only games worth comparing on that list are VF 5 and Dirt as every other game sucks so many balls that it doesn't matter which version looks better.

[SuperSaiyan4]

I am loving the kids on here that talk about things they have no clue about - PS3 has 7/8 CPU's?? WTF? Hahahahaha wow I bet Sony didn't even know that when they asked IBM for the CELL - oh wait I bet according to the Sony fans the CELL processor was made by only SONY hahahaha

[Edwin1989]

why are they taking moviegames??? those games usually suck! (Graphics AND Gameplay)

[sandhawk]

dirt aint a movie game but ur right in some casses movie games do suck and people just give ps3 some time

(time will crown the king)(ps3)duh

[pshizle]

360 pwns ps3

lol jk

they both look identical almost

[xg-ei8ht]

The WildAttorney - Learn alittle will you. jeez.

Screen shots look close on both formats.

Games running patchy on ps3 is nothing to do with graphics, its to do with how to use cell.

And do you think that fillrate is everything with graphics.

I'm a pc engineer, have been for ages, built many systems from amd to intel.

The same can be said from ati to nvidia.

If you think fillrate is everything check nvidias new 8800gt.

Its faster then the gts with less fillrate!

Why? because it does more shader ops per sec and more texture throughput per sec.

And stating that ps3 does 275,000 polys is comical at best. Think you need to rewrite your statment, your looking alittle silly.

6800ultra does 500,1mill polys per sec.

Its all about shaders and texture.

And ps3 does excel at shaders.

But as i stated above most games look the same, its the exclusives that change things.

IT depends on the games you wish to play, so buy a console for the games you like, not for its power.

You want gears,halo,bioshock buy xbox.

You want MGS4,Uncharted,rachet&clan k.gt5 buy PS3