So I'm trying to decide which game system to buy...I want something that looks a little better on my hdtv than my wii does...

do you go with the tyrannical microsoft and their xbox 360?
or
do you go with the rootkits of sony and their playstation 3?

I don't know, it depends on the games. If you are a halo fan, 360. If you like Gran Turismo, and other exclusives, Sony. Its just a console, the fact that it is Microsoft or Sony is of no consequence. I doubt PS3 has a rootkit, and there are plenty of homemade games on the 360, so it is not so tyrannical. I like the Wii, and I wouldn't mind having one. I don't have an HDTV. I think its a waste of money at the moment. Also, if you are into the whole format war, you also have to consider 360 is HD-DVD and PS3 is Bluray.

I haven't gamed in years I lost interest, but from a financial point of view, it is worth investing in a console rather than to do pc gaming, since pc's changes rapidly, you have to keep up by buying memory, or a graphicx card, or build a new one all together. With a console, it will last you at least 5 years and you won't have to buy anything new.

In the end, its your decision. Both consoles support HD-out (HDMI) and so I would imagine both would look great on your HDTV.

yeah I suppose you're right...I just started using linux at home and it's wonderful, I guess I take the whole "evil corp" thing a little too far at times...I felt a little ill when I bought my cute little smartphone and found out it was microsoft mobile or whatever...I wanted to connect it to evolution and I was having issues...probably wouldn't have so many problems if I bought a linux smartphone...speaking of which that contracts almost up...but that's another post entirely...

The PS3 I consider to have the better hardware, but there really aren't any decent games out for it yet. At least the Xbox 360 has some games out that are worth buying. Of course, I won't buy the 360 because it's MS AND because of all the failures that they seem to be having with them...

I won't be getting a PS3. I hate Sony far too much to get one. The idea of pushing Blu-ray down everybody's throat is a huge turn off for me.

Besides, Japan has monopolized the console market since Nintendo 8 bits. It is time to give others a chance too. And apparently, Japan is against the 360, just like they were against the Xbox-classic before that.

Also, I've lost interest for Japanese-styled games for a quite a while. Arguably, the few games that are worthy getting to PS3 are Metal Gear, Final Fantasy and possibly Resident Evil sequels. How many of these series are going to be on the Xbox 360 remains to be seen. I personally hate Final Fantasy series, so that series alone is not a selling point for me. I can't get into "role playing" with a character I can't customize the looks, looks like a girl (Cloud, Squall... anyone) wearing some weird (and girly) outfits (eg: Vaan). With Final Fantasy X-2 they really lost it completely with a Barbie-like game where you spend most of the time dancing and changing the clothes of the three main protagonists. That and off course, turning Yuna (possibly the only character in the FF universe I didn't hate), into a cheap dirty slut.

Give me a real western RPG game any day of the week, please.

Besides, getting a PS3 is just like giving Sony the green flag to charge how much they want and including whatever piece of hardware-junk they please, even though gamers not really care about it. Consoles, for me, are all about innovation. Sony basically uses a 15 years old design for the controller, which is a clone from Snes controller. Later on they added analog and vibration, pretty much stolen from the N64. Now, they are stealing the triggers and motion from Xbox and Wii... If this was not a respectful forum, I'd use the "F-word" to tell what I really think about Sony.

I have the feeling that Linux-community hates monopoly. Sony is pretty much monopolizing the market bringing 0% innovation, forcing standards and Japan is backing them up 100% by ignoring western consoles. Get a Wii for innovation and a Xbox 360 for hardcore gaming.

My 2 cents. Oh, and bite my shiny metal X Sony...

P.S: hardware means nothing for consoles. PS2 had the crappiest hardware from the last generation and did really, really well. All PS2 fanboys were saying "it is not about the graphics". This time, arguably Sony has a better hardware and what do fanboy says? PS3 has the better graphics. hehe...

Sony always had a history of pushing their own formats, dating back to VHS vs. BetaMax, MiniDisc-Atrac. However, Microsoft is doing the same thing. Although the Xbox360 is only equipped with a DVD drive, they are selling HD-DVD addons, and so either way you are still sucked into the HD-DVD vs. Bluray wars. At this point, I have become so fatigued with this format bullshit, I don't care which one wins because both bluray and HD-DVD use the same video codecs, and it comes down to storage, which bluray does store more.

Perhaps we should write to Trip Hawkins, and see if he is willing to go back into the console business. I really did like the 3DO console, but too bad it just didn't have a lot of publishers on board to release more games. I am one of the very few that is part of a cult following of that rather obscure console.

You can basically trace all this back to Final Fantasy VII, which made the Final Fantasy series more 'playable' to the mainstream crowd. I personally prefer Final Fantasy III (VI) for the SNES. Not as 'pretty', but the gameplay and story was much better. Chrono Trigger was another good example.

I Find the Nintendo Wii to be quite innovative, particularly because of it's controller. The only thing that did bug me about the N64, just like the Dreamcast was it's oversized controller. I honestly couldn't understand how people could play Soul Calibur, or anyother fighting game on that oversized and uncomfortable Dreamcast controller.


A side-note. There is a Nights Into Dreams game for the Wii! (Nights Journey of Dreams) Now that is something that I would love to play again! I still remember playing the original on the Sega Saturn back in the days.

Oh Jeebizz, what nice post. You brought me back so many good memories. I loved Nights. I always wanted to have a 3DO, but it was so bloody expensive back in the days that I never did. I wanted it so bad because of basically two games: Need for Speed and the perfect Arcade conversion of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, my favorite game back then .

I wasn't aware of the Nights for the Wii. I think this "alliance" between Sega and Nintendo will bring even cooler stuff (either old or new) for all of us old gamers.

I also like FF VI to be totally fair. But my all time favorite RPG from Square has to be SNES's Chrono Trigger

P.S: I laugh everytime I read your sig:

"I couldn't repair your brakes, so I just made your horn louder."

Just great

You might be lucky in getting a 3DO console in good condition off of ebay. I even saw an unused one, but for an obscene amount of money though. I did buy myself a 3DO console off of ebay 5 years ago, but it lasted a year, then died out on me. I did have some original games, but I will admit I have a lot of 3DO games downloaded from the net. I have the original Need for Speed, it was also ported to the PSOne, and it's sequel Need For Speed II was excellent! Gex (The very first one) was a title released on the 3DO and also on the Playstation when the Playstation first came out. Total Eclipse and Off Road Interceptor was also on the 3DO and ported to the Playstation. These games were made by Crystal Dynamics before being acquired by Eidos. I still even prefer the original Legacy of Kain. My all time favorite, Road Rash is another good one. That game however spanned on many consoles. Genesis, SegaCD, Sega Saturn, 3DO, Playstation. I like the 3DO version the most, with all the bands from the Seattle Grunge Era, which is also on the Playstation.

There is also a project to emulate the 3DO console, but it has stalled. www.freedo.org

See: http://www.sega.com/gamesite/nights/index.php

This however is rather disappointing. It is exclusive to Japan only!

In my opinion there was been no reason to purchase a PS3 unless you want a $600 PC to load Linux on and watch BR DVD's. The system has been out for way too long without a solid hit game for it. It has many OK games that will entertain you for maybe 2 weeks solid however there is nothing "must have" on the system. I don't buy many 360 games however there are some amazing amazing titles on there you can't deny Live is an amazing system that adds so much to the gaming experience.

I am sure this is all relative however I think now the 360 is the way to go not to mention the HD DVD Player + 6 HD DVD's for just $100.

I just wanted to point out this: I am not against Japan or Japanese people. In fact, most of the Asian history, language, food and traditions fascinates me.

Now... with that off my chest: That is yet another reason to avoid supporting Japanese companies. This does not necessarily applies to the "Big N" (which did a great job releasing the Wii to several countries), but several other companies threat the rest of the World as left overs.

I think Europe should definitely ignore the PS3 completely. We not only got the PS3 way later than the US and Japan did, but also a more expensive and crappier version. I say crappier because that is what it is. The Emotion engine was not included in the European release, so backward compatibility with PS2 has to be done through software emulation. This brings the compatibility list down a lot. And we also did not get the 80 Gb model at all.

It is also important to note how other companies threat us a left overs. Many games never made to Europe. I don't think I need to say that I am a Mega Man fan (lol). Mega Man games here are poorly advertised, they are shipped in a much crappier box (thus less attractive for many to even take a look at the box) and I consider myself lucky when I find a PAL release of a Mega Man game. Mega Man X collection never saw a light in Europe.

So we need to mod-chip the consoles if we want to enjoy the most out of our machines or buy addition stuff to run games from different regions. I think it is about time to release all consoles in Europe region free out of the box, since a lot of games don't make it to here... or make it in a different (again, crappier) shape.

Ironically, the PS3 sold better in Europe than in Japan... probably because people where uninformed about its crappiness.

Hmmm, I would have to disagree there. I never heard any PS2 fanboys saying "it's not about the graphics"... The PS2 had the best graphics of that particular era. Nintendo is the one that's always graphics weak, but makes up for it with supposedly better game play (at least that's what the Nintendo fanboys say, I personally have never bothered to buy a Nintendo because of the combination of the weak graphics and the fact that they didn't have any games I liked).

Sorry Dox Systems - Brian, but in the last generation consoles, the Playstation 2 was the weakest out the three, hardware-wise (compared to Xbox and Gamecube).

The Xbox had a dedicated Nvidia GPU and the Gamecube a custom ATI card. They both could pull far better graphics than the PS2's Emotion engine. That is very clear also when you look at the same game available on multiple consoles.

The only occasional times where the Gamecube had worse graphics than PS2 was when developers had problems fitting big textures within Nintendo's crappy mini-DVD discs.

So in terms of hardware power for the last generation, it would be like this: Xbox >> Gamecube >> PS2. Just compared side by side their specifications. Still, looks how well the PS2 made.

The only advantage the PS2 had over the others were the bigger third part developers and the hype from the PSOne. Good launch titles helped the PS2 as well.

This generation goes like this (hardware-wise): PS3 >> Xbox 360 >> Nintendo Wii.

Basically, now the PS3 has the potential peak performance and the Nintendo the "weak" graphics as you put. However, the Wii is selling about 4.4 > 1 compared to PS3.

The only real advantage Sony has this time is the large storage media(Blu-ray), which still remains to impress. Reading Blu-ray discs are a lot slower than DVD's and since the games run directly from the discs in a console, that is a big problem for developers.

And again, Playstation 3 has the "potential" to perform better than Xbox. However, games for both consoles either runs better on the Xbox 360 or has better graphics (please check The Orange Box / Valve). A lot of games were canceled or delayed for the PS3 as well.

Historically, every console with a complicated architecture to develop for failed (read Sega Saturn) and that is what most developers agree with. Also, this time PS3 has virtually no attractive or "must-buy" games and is being kicked by the weak Wii.

Please watch John Carmack talking about the PS3:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=r4k8y3ChYF0

Maybe if you won't believe me, you may believe him

Just wanted to add another thing. Apparently, you can no longer find the PS3 with 60GB HD in Europe (not easily at least).

The PS3 60GB released in Europe was backward compatible with PS2 and PS1 games, through software emulation (as I mentioned, the crappier version). The Cell processor was emulating the EE, while some (all?) components for the PS2's GPU was still included in the PS3 60GB Europe.

Now Sony decided to completely remove PS2 backward compatibility (which never worked as well as the American/Japanese version anyway). This is kinda hilarious, especially when you read this:

Personally, I don't really care about backwards compatibility much. When I move to a new machine, I move to a new machine. Either I keep the old machine in the case I want to play a few games later on or I just trade it in. And to tell you the truth, no console in this generation got BC right:

- Xbox 360: Works with major titles, needs a HD, which is not available in the "Core" version.

- Wii: To play GCN games, it needs memory cards and controllers from the Gamecube. How lame is that? The memory card I can understand... but controllers? Why can't we use the "Classic" controller Nintendo released for the Wii.

- PS3/EU: No backward compatibility at all(apparently).

Still, the other two companies are at least trying. Sony sucks at everything, but I think you all knew it already .

Even though I don't want blu-ray to win, the PS3 is the "better" console out of the two...

Define "better" please Jorophose. Better hardware? Software? So far... PS3 looks like a cheapo Blu-ray player to me