This is probably my biggest disappointment with the PS3. I bought GHIII for PS3 in an impulsive moment and before I had my 360. I was hoping I could use the controller to play GH1, GH2 and Rock's The 80's since the 60GB has the backwards compatibility. Then I find out the controller doesn't work on the other games. Then after getting a PS2 GH2 bundle, I had some issue using that controller on the PS3, so I just broke out my PS2 to play the older games.

I bought my 360 primarily for the exclusives like Bioshock, Bully Scholarship and Mass Effect. Been dying to play Bioshock and have the PC version, but my 4.5 year old recording PC which I use for gaming is starting to show it's age and can't run it very well. So nice to have a $500 video card be almost obsolete in 3 years. :rolleyes:

My point is, for someone buying their first game box in the next generation, the 360 is the only one that doesn't have wireless built in. Hell, the Wii has wireless, and it's basically a toy.

It just feels too delicate and I worry that during a heated battle scene I may snap the thing. I need to test out a DualShock and see if maybe I will dislike it just as much. The controller shape and button layout is ok to me and I have pretty large hands.....another reason I picked getting a PSP over a DS.

My reasons for buying PS3 over xbox:

1. Blu-ray (really the main reason, but I did consider 360+HD).
2. free online. the extra $50/yr adds up, and I don't do online that much, but enough where the $50 would have pissed me off.
3. RROD
4. MS's propretary add-ons annoys me. I like the option of Bluetooth devices instead of overpriced addons. (headsets, hard-drives, etc...)

If I was a gamer first, I probably would have considered 360 more, but I use it mostly for movies, and then games. I considered a 360 when halo-3 came out, but the RROD and xbox-live charge kept me from it.

My PS3 is almost exclusively a Blu Ray/DVD player.

I game on my Xbox 360.

When Sony starts getting some decent exclusives, I'll consider using it as a gaming console. Until then, any game I want to play is available on my 360.

I own all 3 systems from this gen. I LOVE the 360. I would buy any game for the 360 instead of it's PS3 counterpart for achievement point alone. It takes a game 'deeper'. For example...Assassin's Creed--If you take the time to find all of the flags & kill all of the Templars, you are 'rewarded' on the 360. It gives you something to shoot for, where as the PS3 would just seem like a waste of time to do the same monstrous task.

I have only owned one game for the PS3 (Resistance), but I use the Hell out of it as a BluRay player. I love the PS3, just not for gaming (as of yet). As for the controller, I agree that it feels 'light' & 'cheap'. I have had no problems with it, it just doesn't feel as good as a 360 controller (to me).

I have to agree about wireless. I just can't accept that my PS3, Wii, PSP and even the lowest tech of the current gen the DS all have built in wireless, but MS charges $99 for it. There are cheaper third party solutions, but I still consider it unforgivable that the console with the best online service has no built in wi-fi support and overcharges so much for their adapter.

I also don't understand why MS still has to charge for Live when they are already making money on all the awful ads they stick on some of the blades. They charge you for themes and then cover part of them up with ads. Nice.

These are minor gripes and Live is still the best service out there, but I really wish MS would address stuff like this.

For all its faults the Sony service works fine on most games I have tried including Burnout Paradise and GTA IV and it is free. For someone that only goes online to play once in awhile I probably wouldn't want to pay the $60 a year for Live. With the PS3 I don't have to worry about that expense that might end up wasted.

I also have to disagree on achievement points making a game deeper. It is just as much fun to get 100% in GTA IV or Assassin's Creed on the PS3. If you are doing something like flying under bridges in GTA IV only for a gamer score I consider that the biggest waste of time possible.

I finally had a chance to play a 360 this weekend. I liked the controller enough, but as a PS2 owner, I don't quite get all of the knocks against the DualShock. They both fit my hands just fine, and the 360 controller doesn't feel that much different (in-size) compared to the DualShock.

I can see why folks prefer different button/analog arrangements, however.

It is that plus the ergonomics of it that win out.

I've never quite understood the allure of achievements, but then again I've never really cared what other gamers think of my skillz.

I spent some time in Bully getting a few like the 'Over The Rainbow' achievement. It was funny, but did seem like a waste of time otherwise.

Yup, I get that. I still enjoy the more symmetrical design of the DualShock; the balanced layout simply feels like the standard.

Having said that, I was impressed with the 360 controller; the slippery, "jelly bean" buttons have better grip than they did on the original XBox (I guess that makes them no longer slippery ...). And as a long-time PC FPS gamer (who loves the mouselook), Halo 3 handled pretty well with the controller.

I only played for about 20 minutes, but I could have played that all afternoon.

I, personally, have always enjoyed doing everything a game has to offer. Typically RPGs as DQ8 and KH2 come to mind recently.

So for there to be something for me to track those literal achievements personally as well as publicly other than just "I swear I did it!" is a nice bonus. And for that to carry over to every game is brilliant. Plus giving extra incentives to play through something again is nice to me, but I can see it being a mixed bag for others that just want to move on to the next game as soon as the credits roll.

I don't mind paying for live. It makes it less of a circus. When things are free, anyone & everyone can do as they wish, without repercussion. Having to pay for LIVE (hopefully) keeps some, not all, dregs offline.

I went from primarily a PS2 gamer (my PS2 library is still easily 3x the size of my Gamecube and xbox libraries and always was) to a primary xbox360 gamer. The 360's online is way better , WAY better, than the PS3 online, and at $30-$40 a year it's not really a huge expenditure. I never liked the original XBL much (I let it lapse), but the 360 version is fantastic. I can play a single player game on the 360 and my buddys can invite me or IM me to go play an online game.

The PS3 is a nice system - I got the 20GB for $270 after selling my PS2 - but I only use it for Blu-ray and PS2/PS1 games. And Tekken 5. So far. I know there will be a few exclusives I want to play, eventually.


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BTW: I post this quite frequently - a pair of wireless routers in WDS bridging mode supplies you with 4 ports for your home theater / TV area and costs very little.

Mine services my PS3, Xbox360, Dish HD-DVR (soon to be HD Tivo), and soon a mini HTPC/media server type box.

I paid -$17AR and $40 for my wireless routers 3-4 years ago. I picked up a 3rd Buffalo router for $20 about 2 years back, I used for a while.

I've said this before and I'll say it again. If it had an actual working D-pad, the 360 controller would be the best controller ever made. I just don't feel the same level of precision (especially in the analogs and triggers) when I use a Dual Shock.

It's telling that the games most played on my PS3 are all PS2 games: Final Fantasy XII, Odin Sphere, Persona FES, and others have all gotten more play than any PS3 game in my library. I also have yet to buy an American PS3 game for full retail (and it's not that I don't have any... bought Warhawk, Lair, and Folklore at clearance at Target, R&C and Unreal Tourney III recently used at Gamefly, got Eye of Judgement on a price fluke, and Gundam, Enchanted Arms, and VFIII for dirt cheap... I did import Gundam musou before it was announced domestically). I think MGS 4 will break this trend.

It's just that all the cross-console games are more attractive, to me, on the 360 because of:

Live: not just the service, but because I have more friends with 360s

Achievements: this is a seemingly minor thing, but Sony really is missing the boat here

Adaptation: Now that the PS3 is catching up, the cross console games seem to come out at the same time now, but I have yet to see or hear of a PS3 version that is markedly superior to the 360 version... in the last generation, I'd usually go for the Xbox version because it was the more powerful machine, and it was obvious

Sony does have Blu, though. And I will give them credit for finally upgrading their storefront, and having easily upgradeable storage capacity.

It's true. Even though the PS3 has many excellent FPSs this generation, with the looseness and larger dead zone of the DS3 sticks I'd rather play them on 360. I wish they'd tightened up the analog sticks more for the PS3.

I never had any trouble with the d-pad on the 360 controller. I have easily logged 200+ hours on Oblivion, including this past weekend, and I use the hotkeys continuously without a problem. I never select the wrong item, and the response is perfect. I heard people complaining about the d-pad a couple months ago, and since then I have been trying to notice any inadequacies, but so far I haven't experienced any.

I think my main complain with the 360 d-pad is the placement, which requires me to lose my grip on the left tumbstick or right. There doesn't seem like a right way to hold the remote control without having to get out of the zone to use it.

Of course, you haven't used it for anything besides selecting items. Try playing Pacman CE with it. Amazing that I haven't even seen a third party controller fix this yet (though not sharing the wireless technology with third party controller makers pretty much eliminated a lot of them from contention)

This was probably the deal-breaker for me as well. I'd rather play games like Bioshock, Gears of War and Bioware's games on a PC. After excluding games that are (or likely will end up) on the PC, I felt the PS3 would have more exclusive games I wanted to play by the end of the year. If I didn't have a "gaming PC" I probably would have swung for the 360.

Is the 360's d-pad not real responsive? I always thought people just didn't like it's placement on the controller. I didn't get to use the d-pad when I gave it a whirl this weekend.

I didn't know PS3 was adding downloadble movies... hmm.. The main reason I'd want a system in addition to my Wii was for that purpose and I had wanted a 360. But if PS3 adds this, I think I'd go that route (with the BD player). But that's because I want a multimedia device, not a gaming system.

I'll be putting my Economy Stimulation check towards a PS3... Now that Cloverfield is coming out on Blu-Ray and Metal Gear Solid 4 is coming out, I think it's time to go bi-console.

Yeah, it's kind of funny about the whole JRPG thing. The Playstation brand has always been so big on JRPG games with both the PS1 and PS2 while the PS3's been out well over a year without any major titles.

And the only major game in the first few months of the PS3's life was a FPS with Resistance when the perception that's an XBox thing. Weird.