Cross-Platform Game DiscussionGeneral discussion amongst games that are available across multiple consoles. Popular games will have their own forum below.
Ok, here is how it is. The graphics are basicly the same. The capabilites are not though. The PS3 has more power but they dont use it. The PS3 games and Xbox 360 games are made the same way with the same graphics if not the same the 360 has better. GOOGLE IT BEFORE YOU RESPOND!!
Ok some background first. I was pretty much a GameCube only guy last gen, I ended up getting an Xbox near the end because I had to expand my horizons and because I couldn't live without Morrowind and my PC just barely met the minimum specs.
Anyways in 2006 I stood fist in line to buy me a brand new Nintendo Wii. I had it up until oh around February of this year and then I sold it off, for a little more than what I paid for it so at last I came out ahead.
Anyways I got burned royally on the Wii, I mean dont' get me wrong I did and still do love the console for all it does, but the severe drought of games worth playing just made it unbearable.
So now I am in the market for a new gaming console and I need some advice because my head is spinning with all the options out there.
I know most forums get one of these "help what should I buy" threads probably once a week and I apologize for asking such a noob question but frankly I feel out of date.
I did not buy a PS2 because well I was fairly satisfied with my GC and I had a low tolerance for PS1, although they both had games I did enjoy it was never enough to need both systems. Anyways that is all in the past and irrelevent. See I am older now, 27 in fact, so my tastes have changed some. Several games I did not like on PS1 or 2 now look a lot more appealing than the first time around.
So enough of the chit chat here is my dilemma.
I know I want either an Xbox 360, a PS3 or a NEW PC. I just can't decide which one will meet my needs to most. I only work 2 days a week at a minimum wage job and attend collage full time so money is tight, otherwise I'd get all three.
gaming IS a major factor for me right now, as I am a Wii vet who just barely survived the drought. However HD movies and video is ALSO a factor since well we spent quit a bit of money on a nice Samsung LCD HDTV set and frankly I am a firm believer in HD video. (I owned a Laser Disc player and jumped at DVD first chance I had so yeah Picture Quality is an issue for me)
Anyways I currently have an HD-DVD player which I can and sometimes do download movies from online and burn onto (sometimes multiple DVD's) in HD-DVD format. Now it is worth it to me to take the time to do this because DVD and SDTV quality is NOT acceptable anymore.
I am aware of the HD offerings on both consoles, yes PS3 appeals to me because of the Blu Ray however many of the movies I already have will play on either console with a bit of tweaking so BRD is not a major factor. Also I might end up just getting a STB whe nthe prices get lower enough or if I can talk my parents into buying me one for my birthday.
Either way HD movies IS a factor but well so is gaming so I guess what I want to know is someone who cares about picture quality and whose only "current gen" console was a Wii, which console would be more my fit?
I have never played a PS3 ever in fact I only know 1 person who owns one, but I live in a very small town and I am moving soon so that could change. I do know several people who have 360 and for the most part I am fine with the games I have played on it. However most of my friends are different types of gamers than me so their gaming selections don't look much better to me than what I had on Wii.
So um what I guess I am looking for is action games but not FPS or Soldier games (no US Army or call of Duty stuff) no sports, no GTA nothing like that. I liked Crackdown, Eternal Sonata, Oblivion, Fable 2, Marval Ultimate Alliance, and Phantasy Star Universe on 360. i mostly like RPG games a lot also and um Harvest Moon so like which system and what games meet that criteria?
Sorry if I am all over the place I am just kinda looking for some advice kinda in a short period of time. Thanks in advance and I'll try and answer questions if anyone has any or needs more details.
I guess what I am asking is what are some good games on both systems and what are the HD movie selection like on both systems? Or would I be better off just buying a brand new PC?
If you want HD movies, then PS3 is really the only choice, I guess, because of the Blu-Ray player. The 360 offers only hi-def rentals as far as I'm aware. Well, it also offers a HD-DVD drive, but, we all know what happened there...
About a year ago, I would have just said get a 360. Now I'm not so sure. The PS3 has some ace exclusives in the way of LittleBigPlanet, Valkyria Chronicles and inFamous, and some decent ones on the horizon. However, the 360 has its own good exclusives, ie Fable II, Mass Effect, Lost Odyssey, Crackdown - if you like RPGs then the 360 seems to have become the spirital home for them.
Also, if you're looking at building a decent library, then historically, the 360 does multiplatform games better than the PS3 does. It's not that much of an issue anymore (except Ghostbusters!), but if you're going to go back and pick up some classics then 360 is where it's at.
Finally, the 360 is full of hidden costs. Granted, you don't need any of the extras, but if you want wi-fi, rechargeable batteries or online play, you gotta pay extra. It all comes bundled into the PS3. Personally I have both. Any games I want to play online I get on PS3 (I won't pay for gold), any fighter I get on PS3, PS3 exclsives are a no brainer, and pretty much everything else I get on 360, unless the price is a lot less on PS3, which is almost never the case.
Finally, the 360 is full of hidden costs. Granted, you don't need any of the extras, but if you want wi-fi, rechargeable batteries or online play, you gotta pay extra. It all comes bundled into the PS3. Personally I have both. Any games I want to play online I get on PS3 (I won't pay for gold), any fighter I get on PS3, PS3 exclsives are a no brainer, and pretty much everything else I get on 360, unless the price is a lot less on PS3, which is almost never the case.
I know its stupid, but I only just last week realized that i can bridge the Ethernet and wireless connection of my laptop/netbook to the xbox and use it as wireless adapter. Problem solved
and with netbooks starting at 100 bucks nowadays, its a way better deal than a xbox wireless adapter lol.
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this went through perfectly! didn't think it would happen.
well online is not really an issue, I will never play games online anyways. I know PS3 plays blu ray and eventually I want a BR anyways but I also get a lot of HD movies off my DVR and I usually just burn those to HD-DVD anyways cuz I have a stand alone player, but I know 360 plays WMV and PS3 supposedly plays everything else but I haven't tested anything on PS3.
I try doing google searches and come up short on the games front. What I mean is like I said I only had GameCube last gen and a Wii from launch up until a couple of months ago, so I am not aware of what games are on what platform.
If it wasn't for the Blu Ray aspect and the DivX HD i wouldn't even consider PS3 but WMV HD files are a bitch and a half to encode whereas DivX HD and HD-DVD files (MPEG2/MP4) are not so hard to encode.
basically multi platform games they both offer a lot you say? So um what are some of the top games on either one? I played Gears of War, Mass Effect, and Rainbow Six Vegas on 360 and I didn't like any of those. I also played Halo 3 Beta and didn't care for that either. I did like Crackdown but not enough to run out and buy it, I played it all the way through at my friends house.
I know Oblivion is on PS3 and I know Fable 2 is on 360, are there other games like those on both systems? Specifically JRPG's though is what I like, I played Eternal Sonata Demo on 360 really loved that and PSU on it also. Um are those two games on PS3 or are they 360 exclusive?
And about the media options, what all can PS3 do? I mean I know it plays blu ray and I can either burn AVCHD discs or DivXHD discs ( yes I know it will take multiple discs but it is worth it to me cuz I am poor and don't have BR burner yet) anyways what I mean is can I play movies from a hard drive via USB on PS3 like on 360 and if so what formats does it support? SD or HD either one.
Also what um other media files can it play like i know Blu Ray and DVD and I know AVCHD because that is Blu Ray compliant but what else? Divx HD? MKV? MP4? AVI? stuff like that. I have 3 500GB USB hard drives I back up all my movies and TV shows to and I also want to be able to access the files on those drives to watch on my TV. Currently I have a DVD player that plays DivX and WMV with USB that I usebut it only upconverts doesn't play native HD and that is very important to me.
Damn sorry I am rambling on again. Or if there is like a website that maybe lists all the info I am looking for someone could direct me to there? I try google and get conflicting answers.
I will try game Spot to look up the games I guess that is probably a good start. Thanks for the replies so far and hopefully I get this figured out. man I wish I had enough money for both that would solve my problem but sadly I am poor and am making sacrifices to buy which ever one I end up getting. Or I might just buy a brand new PC and go that route who knows.
Ok so I did a comparison of the games and while I did find several games on PS3 I'd consider playing, turns out none of them were exclusive. However 360 had, at last count, 12 exclusives I would consider. So I decided I will buy a 360 and just get a Blu Ray player latter on since I found some HD-DVD's on Ebay for dirt cheap and I am fine with streaming video from my PC to the Xbox. I decided since I was used to not playing games online on Wii and since honestly the only games I ever played online were WoW, halo 2, and Tetris DS, I decided I am not that fond of online gaming anyways so it wasn't a factor.
What did it for me was Eternal Sonata, tales of Vesperia, Phantasy Star Universe, and Fable 2, and finding out FF13 is coming to 360 and not PS3 only like I had previously thought. Plus I read up on Crackdown 2 and since I liked the first one I figure chances are good I'll like the second one also. I do wish though that I didn't have to buy the Blu Ray separate but they are down below $200 now so maybe they will drop enough by Christmas I can get one then. Oh and since all my friends have 360's I figured it would save me ass loads of money if I borrowed games from them instead of buying PS3 versions. BUt hey if I hit the jackpot at the casino I'll end up getting them both. Well hell if I do that I'll buy another Wii too.
If JRPGs are your thing, then you'll want to go with PS3.
Unless you want to play Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, The Last Remnant, Star Ocean or Tales of Vesperia.
You really just need to do some research based on what games you like. Figure out which system has the games you want and buy that. We can sit here all day and talk about which system plays movies better but if that system only has games you can't stand then what's the point? If the one you want is harder to encode for or whatever, you'll just learn to put up with it. Since you asked though, the PS3 plays anything I've ever thrown at it, whereas the 360 has a bit more difficulty. You'll need to make sure those 500GB disks are FAT32 though, otherwise neither console will read them.
all of my drives are always FAt32, it is the only way I get my DVD player to read them. I did end up deciding on the 360 because of most of the games you listed as well as all my friends have one so it will be easier to borrow games from people. I figure since I have the HD-DVD player right now and I can burn movies to that I can hold off on the Blu Ray since honestly their movie selection isn't really up top snuff quit yet. The problem is if I want to watch HD movies on 360 I have to convert them into WMV and I am not fond of WMV.
all of my drives are always FAt32, it is the only way I get my DVD player to read them. I did end up deciding on the 360 because of most of the games you listed as well as all my friends have one so it will be easier to borrow games from people. I figure since I have the HD-DVD player right now and I can burn movies to that I can hold off on the Blu Ray since honestly their movie selection isn't really up top snuff quit yet. The problem is if I want to watch HD movies on 360 I have to convert them into WMV and I am not fond of WMV.
You keep talking about burning movies for the HD-DVD player... I'm confused. Do you have a HD-DVD burner?
you don't need one, a normal DVD burner will work. It is a bit complicated process but it works. Basically I start with the movie file, avi, mkv, whatever, rip the uncompressed PCM audio out, convert that down to AC-3 (dvd quality 5.1 Dolby Digital) re-ecnode the video into MPG2 (if necesary sometimes I get MP4's and those work just as fine as MPEG2) then once audio and video are re-encoded into proper format I use a program called Ulead DVD maker to output the HD-DVD project into an HD-DVD folder on my hard drive, this I can burn as a UDF Xbox Compatible disc which also happens to be the same as HD-DVD compatible. It takes about 5 hours start to finish to do a movie. I either use a bitrate equivelant to DirecTV HD bitrate of 9mbps or I up it to 12mbps for movies that I think are important enough to warrant higher bitrates. Sometimes I can fit the finished movie onto a DVD5, sometimes I have to use a DVD9 very rare occasions, I will use 2 DVD9's if the movie is good enough to justify the need for higher bitrates and/or if I decide to keep the TrueHD audio. retail HD-DVD movies are only 15GB anyways and the audio if it was PCM is 3-5GB alone so taking that out is usually just enough to squeeze the video onto a DVD9,
I would need a much faster computer to put HD-DVD rom onto my PC, I only have a 2Ghz CPU with 1GB RAM, full HD movies running at 18 to 25mbps can not be played back on such a slow CPU with a weak GPU (mines is only 128MB Radeon 9200). My PC is 5 years old. That is *why* I need a stand alone player to watch HD movies on, because my Pc can't handle it unless I severly lower the bitrate down to DVD or below quality. DivX HD is low enough their HD profile is set at 6- 7 mbps, which IMO is too low. At that low an upconverted DVD usually looks comparable.
But if I had an Xbox or something that could play the avi files at their full resolution and the higher res I could leave the audio in tact and not have to compress anything ever. I'm too picky about my picture quality to settle for mere DVD upconversion anymore.
