XBOX360 And PS3 Unveiled

Last week Microsoft unveiled the new xbox360. In the last round of console wars I chose Microsoft and I think I made the right decision. Its simply a better piece of hardware and the online capabilities blow the PS2 completely out of the water -- no contest. And the console is finally getting developer support to the point that I think their game libraries are comparable (see Halo and Halo2). The point is, I'm a bit biased. However, from the details that have been released so far it looks like Sony is in really trouble. Just from the looks the xbox360 looks fucking awesome. Microsoft really seems to have addressed all the issues gamers had with the first gen hardware. The box is smaller, sleeker and looks like something I'd want to show off as opposed to shove into the darkest corner of my entertainment center.

But more importantly, the controller kicks ass. It looks like Microsoft took the basic shape of the popular S-Controller from the current xbox and added a few touches from the PS2 controllers -- mainly a second shoulder button to go along with the right and left triggers. Awesome. I hate it when companies refuse to use ideas their competitors use simply because the other guy had it first. So Microsoft kept the kickass triggers (which the PS2 is severely lacking) and added the PS2-like shoulder buttons to create a best-of-both world controller. The extra shoulder buttons also means they could get rid of the black and white buttons so your thumb only has 4 buttons to deal with instead of 6. Much more efficient -- I can't wait to get my hands on it.

The PS3 on the other hand looks like a weird Spiderman co-branded console. The Playstation 3 text across the front is totally the same font Sony uses for the Spiderman movies. What, are they cutting cost company wide by sharing fonts across multiple assets? Weird.

And speaking of superheros, that controller looks like something Batman would pull out and wing at the Joker. Please tell me that thing snaps into some kind of steering wheel mount for racing games ... it's the only practical purpose I can think of for those humongo fins shooting off what looks like an otherwise OK controller.



The specs for the xbox360 look sweet and everything I've seen about the next gen of Live is amazing. I haven't heard much about the PS3 specs other than some rumors from developers that the dev systems they've been given are more powerful than the xbox360. We'll see. They said the current xbox could render as many polys as the first Jurassic Park but we never saw anything nearly that impressive -- so if the PS3 is that much more powerful, will anybody come close to tapping it out?

Anyway, I'm picking up a xbox360 ... if you couldn't already tell.

xbox360 link

PS3 link