# New Model PS3 and Xbox 360



## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

What do people think of the new models?

[img]http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l190/wbassett/HTS/Consoles/PS3.jpg[/img]
The PS3 is dropping support for PS2 games, at least the hardware will no longer be part of the system. This wouldn't be bad if the PS3 had a bigger lineup of games, and I must say even though the graphics aren't as good on the older PS2 games, some of them are still a lot of fun! The thought might be to force game developers to start developing more PS3 games, but it could also bring about poor quality PS2 to PS3 game conversions.

Also the hard drive size dropped and the number of USB ports went from four to two. Also gone is the multi-memory card port, and overall in my opinion it's a crippled version of the original PS3. So instead of the quality going up and the price coming down, Sony decided to remove features along with the lower price tag. 


[img]http://i96.photobucket.com/albums/l190/wbassett/HTS/Consoles/360Elite.jpg[/img]
Now for the Xbox Elite. They added HDMI (The biggest improvement) as well as increased the Hard Drive size (lowest improvement considering all you need to do is add an external USB drive), and other than that it's not much different than the original system, and the price went up! Instead of a dedicated digital audio output connection, Xbox decided to go the route of integrating a tos link connection on its multi port connector.

The biggest disappointment to me was the decision to exclude the HD DVD drive as part of the unit. Most will say "It's only $179, if someone wants it, get it, if they don't want it, they don't have to pay for 'bloat'." Well that may be a valid mindset to some, but increasing the Hard Drive to 120GB was less of an upgrade than a whistle and bell... as I previously mentioned, you can add a much larger external USB drive for under $100 now. A much bigger improvement and incentive would have been HDMI *and* an internal HD DVD drive.

To me the biggest differences between these two consoles is one is more of a High Def DVD player with gaming capability (the PS3), and the other is a gaming console with High Def DVD capability with the additional purchase of the drive (the XBox 360). Both in my opinion missed the mark to some extent on some levels.

The format war is going to rage on for a lot longer than some people want to believe. Even if one format wins out over the other, the format that lost isn't necessarily 'dead'. Say Sony loses, since a Bluray drive is included in the console already, they may have lost the movie business revenue, but can start developing games based on BD technology- meaning a grunch load of more on disc content and the potential to finally tap into those cell processors and their power. In this scenario, we're saying HD DVD won the video format war... but now their console is still just a regular DVD player. Yes an add on drive can be purchased, but it is still a game console first and foremost, at least that will be how many consumers see it. If they had included the HD DVD drive with the Elite, they would be staged for the future in both games and High Def DVD playback.

Now let's say Sony wins the format war. All PS3 consoles are already a very good BD player (better than some of the dedicated units). XBox will have a hard time trying to get owners to shell out the extra bucks for an external HD DVD drive for a defunct format. That seriously limits them for future gaming growth and storage that the HD discs offer.

I am not condemning either console. In fact I think they both are power houses that have much more potential than a lot of people may realize. I have the PS3, and my son has the 360 Elite (Halo version) and I have a lot of admiration for both, but as I did mention, I also think both missed the mark in a few areas.

What do others think of these new additions? Are they an improvement over the original or just marketing buzz?


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## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

What are the price comparisons? Is the XBox + HD-DVD more expensive than the PS3?

My kids want one of these two for X-mas. Well I should say three. They wouldn't mind a Wii, but I would. The HD drives are a huge plus for the other two! Plus I've heard theWii's graphics don't seem on par with the other two.

mech


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

The current price of the PS3 is $499 and it will be dropping to $399, and the Xbox 360 Elite is running around $440. Keep in mind though that the Elite does not include the addon HD DVD drive, which is an additional $179.


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## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

When is it going to drop? Black Friday? I'm really leaning towards your setup - the PS3 and a HD-DVD player. If I could just stop spending money on testing DIY screen stuff! :spend: :coocoo: :spend: lol

It seems like there are some decent games coming out for age groups matching my kids too. Personally I doubt I'll ever touch the console for gaming. But you never know once I see it on the 100"... :daydream:


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

Actually they are talking about the beginning of November for the PS3 price drop. If it's the original model I say definitely snag one if you are leaning that way.

Sony is definitely dropping prices to attract more people to BD, so my comment that one unit is more of a BD player that also has the capability to play games. If this is the way you are thinking about going, wait a bit, word is there may be a PS3 with Spiderman 3 on BD bundle coming up and possibly another free movie deal too... (Spidey should be in the box like Kong was with the 360 HD DVD addon)


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

mechman said:


> It seems like there are some decent games coming out for age groups matching my kids too. Personally I doubt I'll ever touch the console for gaming. But you never know once I see it on the 100"... :daydream:


My son and I played From Russia with Love on the 106" screen and it was a blast! But that was a PS2 game and as mentioned this new unit isn't supposed to be backwards compatible, or at best will have a limited compatibility.


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## mechman (Feb 8, 2007)

wbassett said:


> Actually they are talking about the beginning of November for the PS3 price drop. If it's the original model I say definitely snag one if you are leaning that way.
> 
> Sony is definitely dropping prices to attract more people to BD, so my comment that one unit is more of a BD player than can also has the capability to play games. If this is the way you are thinking about going, wait a bit, word is there may be a PS3 with Spiderman 3 on BD bundle coming up and possibly another free movie deal too... (Spidey should be in the box like Kong was with the 360 HD DVD addon)


They have bundles now and the 5 free movie deal thing too. I like the BD movie selection a bit better than the HD-DVD selection too.

I'll end up with ten movies out of the deal anyways cause I'll pick up a Toshiba HD A2 as well. Now can you tell me when that price will drop?!?!?!? :bigsmile:

mech


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

No confirmed dates but looks like it might be around November 2nd.


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## Sonnie (Apr 11, 2006)

How low you wanna go on an A2? We got them in the Shack Electronics Store for as low as $185 refurbished and $214 new.

I think $440 for the XBox is too high. I guess the faithful to XBox will buy it, but if I were in the market for a game console, I'd be going the PS3 route.


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

Sonnie said:


> How low you wanna go on an A2? We got them in the Shack Electronics Store for as low as $185 refurbished and $214 new.
> 
> I think $440 for the XBox is too high. I guess the faithful to XBox will buy it, but if I were in the market for a game console, I'd be going the PS3 route.


Great price on the A2 Sonnie 

Yeah I think $440 is too much for the Elite, especially when it really should have come with HDMI in the first place. If it had an internal HD DVD drive though I'd say it wouldn't be too much considering what all it can do (I was reading on the official site something about pausing live TV... can this thing be used as a DVR?) It can also be used as a media server like the PS3 can but looks like you have to convert a DVD to mpeg4. It's a better compression scheme, but I can tell everyone first hand that it takes a long long time to convert a video file that is the standard size of a regular DVD to mpeg4. Still, it can be done and also will stream videos from your PC. I just wish they would have included the drive or made it modular so a person could swap the drive with an HD DVD drive without voiding the warranty.


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## SteveCallas (Apr 29, 2006)

wbassett said:


> To me the biggest differences between these two consoles is one is more of a High Def DVD player with gaming capability (the PS3), and the other is a gaming console with High Def DVD capability with the additional purchase of the drive (the XBox 360). Both in my opinion missed the mark to some extent on some levels.


The biggest difference between these consoles is that the Xbox 360 has better games in a much greater quantity. This Fall season alone for Xbox 360 games is regarded by most as the greatest season ever for multiple AAA games on a console, and I would have to agree. PS3 will have been out a year now and still doesn't have a killer app. It's best game at the moment is Oblivion 4, a game that came out a year earlier on Xbox 360 and doesn't yet have online support for downloadable content like the 360 version. It's going to take MGS4 to sell some consoles for the sake of actually playing a video game, and that's not coming out this year. Many of the PS3's "top shelf" exclusives are no longer exclusive anymore, they will be out on 360 - if MGS4 made its way to 360, well, things would get really bad.

PS3 at the moment is primarily a blue ray disc player and perhaps a media device like you have modded yours to be. Demand for a blue ray disc player isn't exactly staggering right now, and since there are no must have games, PS3 saturation is less than half that of Xbox 360. These are video game systems after all.



wbassett said:


> The biggest disappointment to me was the decision to exclude the HD DVD drive as part of the unit.


Dedicated HD DVD players with better functionality are going for $200 right now. I really don't see what MS stands to gain by including a HD DVD drive with the 360 - their future doesn't depend upon the success of either of these formats like Sony's does. They are going to play it safe and save costs.



Sonnie said:


> I think $440 for the XBox is too high.


I agree, but then I see no need for the Elite. What use is there really in the 120GB hard drive? The Premium console goes for $350 and now has HDMI, though even the HDMI isn't needed. All its games are native 720p and look amazing over component or VGA.


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

SteveCallas said:


> PS3 will have been out a year now and still doesn't have a killer app. It's best game at the moment is Oblivion 4, a game that came out a year earlier on Xbox 360 and doesn't yet have online support for downloadable content like the 360 version. ...PS3 at the moment is primarily a blue ray disc player and perhaps a media device like you have modded yours to be...


I agree wholeheartedly and why I said it's more of a BD player that has the capability of playing games too more than a game console.

I've seen some demos in the store, and had Pirates for the PS3 we rented for the kids to play and from what I've seen of the 360, I like the games better for it than the PS3.



SteveCallas said:


> Dedicated HD DVD players with better functionality are going for $200 right now. I really don't see what MS stands to gain by including a HD DVD drive with the 360 - their future doesn't depend upon the success of either of these formats like Sony's does. They are going to play it safe and save costs.


Steve let me clarify my statement I guess... for the price they are asking, it should have the drive built in is what I was saying... Over the $400 mark and primarily the changes are a bigger Hard Drive and HDMI. I agree its future doesn't depend on having a built in HD DVD drive, I'm just saying that to me a bigger improvement for the price increase would have been to have HD DVD built in than go with a bigger Hard Drive.

My son had a first gen 360 and was looking at getting a hard drive and I couldn't believe the prices he was telling me they were. It ended up with the 3 red LED error so he went ahead and got the Halo edition and said that one is working fine.


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## SteveCallas (Apr 29, 2006)

I agree that the pricing of the Elite doesn't make much sense. The Premium edition is well worth $350 though. The thing is that the PS3 at $500 is just a good deal, even if only to be used as an early blue ray disc player with PS2 backwards compatability. But Sony is taking a bigger loss on each unit sold than MS, and MS is still selling more 360s, so they really don't have any motivation to include a HD DVD drive. Sony made the *potential mistake, now MS is going to make them live with it. The PS3 will live or die by that decision. 

I keep re-evaluating my own interest in a PS3 every few months, and now that there is a rumored drop to $400 coming up, I did again. While that is a great price to get a blue ray disc player at, now I'm not so sure I even want a blue ray disc player. The Toshiba A3 will probably drop to $200 between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it seems like more studios are moving to or coming back to HD DVD. It's going to take games to get me to buy a PS3. Losing PS2 support hurts quite a bit too, as I never got a chance to play Shadow of the Colossus, and Marvel vs Capcom 2 for the PS2 is still the best fighting game ever.


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

Well if anyone listened to Marshall's podcast, Sony was completely missing from the show he just attended. I am format neutral so I'm not trying to seem like I am favoring either format, but right now I would have to say the momentum definitely is with HD DVD, and Sony being MIA sounded like there may be some trouble ahead. I am not very impressed with the specs on the 'new' PS3.

Like you said, the 360 knows what it is and isn't trying to be anything else, but it does have much more capability just as the PS3 does. I am more than happy with the PS3 as a BD player and it is kinda cool that when the kids come they can throw a game in it too. I doubt I would have been as happy with the 360 if I had gotten it primarily as an HD DVD player because that's not its main function, but man are some of the games wicked cool!

One thing I don't understand is my son paid less for the Halo system than what I see the plain Elite bundle going for. Personally I would have done the exact same thing he did... get the less expensive package and add a USB hard drive!


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## SteveCallas (Apr 29, 2006)

The Halo system isn't an Elite, it is the Premium system with a different color scheme.


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

Steve have you heard anything about an Xbox 360 'Ultimate' system?


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## SteveCallas (Apr 29, 2006)

Not yet, but I heard about an "Arcade" system to replace the "Core". WAY too many 360 systems floating around out there :nono:


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## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

I have a friend who works at a high end Audio video shop here and he uses the PS3 to watch BluRay movies and he says that the playback quality of the movies are second to none. He said it even looks as good as the Samsung BD1200, Is this true?


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## wbassett (Feb 8, 2007)

tonyvdb said:


> I have a friend who works at a high end Audio video shop here and he uses the PS3 to watch BluRay movies and he says that the playback quality of the movies are second to none. He said it even looks as good as the Samsung BD1200, Is this true?


I have an AV mag here that rated BD players and at the time of the article (the mag is about 6-8 months old) they rated the PS3's Bluray playback quality on par with the Pioneer BD player. That's pretty good company to be in.

More 'news' on the new model, as per ElectronicHouse the new model is confirmed it won't play PS2 games. That's kind of a hard sell seeing there aren't that many PS3 games out there that are worth the cash outlay in my opinion. If you want it as a Bluray player as it's primary purpose and also to play a few games, it's a great unit... but right now I would probably opt for the original PS3 since it retains the multi-port memory card reader, four USB ports, and an 80GB hard drive... as well as full PS2 compatability. I'm not sure why Sony decided to drop those features and again, in my opinion, cripple the unit some. At $399 vs $499, I'd save up the extra $100 and skip the stripped down version.


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