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.5" SATA hard drive (20 GB, 40 GB, 60 GB, or 80 GB included)
20 or 120 GB hard drive, 64, 256 or 512 MB memory cards
External hard drive support:
Yes
Yes
USB 2.0 ports:
4
1
Memory card ports:
Yes
Yes
Ethernet port:
1
1
Wireless networking:
Yes except 20 GB version
Yes
What is it?:
Play Station 3, is a gaming console developed by Sony Computer Entertainment, commonly known as PS3.
Xbox 360 is a video game console, produced by Microsoft, and developed with IBM, ATI and SiS.
Inception:
Sony started work on the gaming console in early 2003, and introduced it to the public on May 16, 2005. But this set was not a fully functional one, as there were problems with power and hardware failures.
Xbox 360’s development started in February 2003, as the next gen gaming console. In August 2003, ATI joined the team to develop the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), and then IBM agreed to develop the triple core processor and joined in Sept 2003.
Release:
PS 3 was first released in Japan, on 11th November, 2006. Then in North America it was released on 17th November’06; in Europe, Australia, and Middle East on 23rd March’07.
Xbox 360 was launched on 22nd November, 2005, in US and Canada. Then on 2nd December’05 it was launched in Europe and on 10th December’05 it was released in Japan.
Different versions:
There are four different PS 3 versions available, depending on the hard disk size; a 20 GB model, a 40 GB model, a 60 GB model and an 80 GB model.
Xbox 360 has four different versions; Xbox 360 core, Xbox 360 Arcade, Xbox 360 Premium and Xbox 360 Elite.
Processor:
It uses IBM designed Cell microprocessor with 3.2 GHz cell w/7 SPEs 2.0 TFLOPS.
It has a G5 PowerPC processor by IBM with a configuration of 3.2 GHz, W/3 cores 1.0 TFLOPS
Graphics:
PS 3 uses Nvidia RSX graphics processor, which has 256 MB XDR main memory and 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory.
Xbox 360 uses a custom ATI Xenos which has a 10 MB embedded eDRAM, and it has 512 MB DDR3 video RAM.
Media type:
The media is stored mainly in Sony’s next gen storage solution, Blue Ray Disk, which can store up to 54 GB of data in a single disk.
The media is stored in the Double layer DVDs i.e. 9GB DVD.
Price:
PS 3 60 Gb $ 449, PS 3 80 GB $ 599
Xbox 360 - $349.99 (approx. Rs. 14, 120), Xbox 360 Core System - $279.99 (approx. Rs. 11, 300), Xbox 360 Elite - $449.99 (approx. Rs. 18, 170), Xbox 360 Halo 3 Special Edition Console - $399.99 (approx. Rs. 16, 150)
Online:
PS 3 has an online service, which is free and has multiplayer support. Though the developers of the game may charge a subscription fee to the gamers.
Xbox has an online component known as Xbox Live, through which players can compete with each other, download movies, download games etc.
Marketshare:
In March 2008, 257,000 PS3 units were sold. In the first quarter of 2007, the market share for PS 3 was 22.22%.
In March 2008, 262,000 Xbox 360 units were sold. In the first quarter of 2007, the market share of Xbox 360 was 32%
Units sold worldwide:
PS 3 has sold 5.59 million units, as of 30th September 2007.
480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p (will down sample to standard definition)
16:9 widescreen 720p, 1080i, 1080p (will down sample to standard definition)
HDMI output:
Yes
Yes
Component HDTV output:
Yes
Yes
Video cables:
Composite cables
Arcade model includes composite cables only. Xbox 360 model includes composite and component cables. Elite model includes composite, component, and HDMI cable.
Compatibility:
This is partially compatible with the PS 2 games.
478 original Xbox titles are compatible.
Integration with other portable system:
PS3 can integrate with PSP devices using Remote Play feature.
Xbox 360 does not have the feature of integration with other smaller systems.
Controllers:
PS 3 has 7 wireless and/or wired controllers. These controllers do not feature a removable battery.
Xbox 360 has 4 wireless and 3 wired controllers. These controllers can work with Windows PCs also. Controllers have removable AA batteries and can be replaced with removable rechargeable battery packs.
Sound:
The sound system is Stereo, and can support 5.1-channel Dolby Digital (HDMI), 7.1-channel LPCM.
Xbox 360 has Dolby Pro-Logic II, sound system and can support 5.1 channels Dolby digital output.
Controller input:
4 maximum (wired, wireless, or combination of either)
CPU:
3.2 GHz PowerPC Tri-Core Xenon
Media:
DVD, CD, Add-on: HD DVD (discontinued)
Retail availability:
November 22, 2005
Best-selling game:
Halo 3, (8.1 million as of January 2008)
Manufacturer:
Microsoft
Product family:
Xbox
Type:
Video game console
Generation:
Seventh generation era
Introduction (from Wikipedia):
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft, and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles.
Connectivity:
3 × USB 2.0, IR port, 100 Mbit Ethernet, Add-on: Wifi 802.11a/b/g
Storage capacity:
20, 60 or 120 GB hard drive, 64, 256 or 512 MB memory cards
Due to its early launch, the Xbox 360 has a one-year lead on its competitor, Sony's PlayStation 3.
Both Xbox 360 and PS 3 are 7th generation gaming consoles. Earlier, Sony’s PS 2 was very popular among gamers and it was the market leader in Gaming console market. Then Microsoft released their gaming console - the Xbox - to enter the gaming console market. Though the Xbox system was better in processing power, it was not very successful until the game Halo was released for Xbox. Then in 2003, Microsoft started to develop Xbox 360, the next Generation Gaming console. Microsoft held an event for 400 developers, to recruit support for the system. Also at the same time, former president of Sega, Peter Moore, joined Microsoft. On August 12, 2003, ATI joined the development team to produce the graphic processing unit for the new console and the next month IBM signed in to develop the triple-core CPU for the console.
After two and half years of development, Xbox 360 was released on 22nd November, 2005, in the United States and Canada; December 2, 2005, in Europe and December 10, 2005, in Japan. It was later launched in other countries. In the first year, the system was launched in 36 countries,
The PlayStation 3 is based on open and publicly available application programming interfaces, Open standards for OpenGL, matrix algorithms, and scene data are specified by the Khronos Group, and are intended to work with nVidia's Cg programming language. Sublicensed technology includes complete game engines, physics libraries, and special libraries. Engines include Epic's Unreal engine 3.0. Physics libraries include AGEIA's PhysX SDK, and Havok's physics and animation engines. The PS3 was first announced in E3 2005 conference. Though the functional version was not present in this event, the trailers for upcoming games (made exclusively for this console, like Metal Gear Solid 4) were shown to the public. The system was initially supposed to have two HDMI ports, three Ethernet ports and six USB ports. But to reduce costs, it was reduced to one HDMI port, one Ethernet port and four USB ports. The PlayStation 3 was first released in Japan on November 11, 2006, and then it was released in North America on November 17, 2006. The PS3 was launched in Europe, Australia and New Zealand on March 23, 2007. Within first two days the system had sold approximately 600,000 units.
To capture the gaming market, Microsoft has released 4 different versions of Xbox 360, at different price levels. The Xbox 360 Core is an entry level Xbox 360 priced at US$279.99. This system uses a 20GB/120 GB hard disk, which the gamer has to purchase separately. The Xbox 360 Arcade is targeted at the casual gamers and it was packed with casual games such as Boom Boom Rocket, Feeding Frenzy, Luxor 2, and Pac-Man Championship Edition. The Xbox 360 premium priced at US$349.99, includes all the features of the Xbox 360 Core, but includes a hybrid composite and component cable with optional optical out instead of a composite cable. It also includes a detachable 20 GB Hard Disc Drive to store Xbox Live Arcade games, game demos, Xbox LIVE Marketplace TV and Movies. The Xbox 360 Elite is the fourth and most expensive variation, priced at US$449.99. It includes a 120GB hard drive as standard and has a matte black finish. The Elite retail package also includes an HDMI 1.2 cable and a controller and headset matching the system's black finish.
There are four PlayStation 3 hardware models, depending on their hard disk space: a "20 GB" model, a "60 GB" model, an "80 GB" model, and a "40 GB" model. All of the retail versions include one or two SIXAXIS controllers, one USB cable, one composite video/stereo audio output cable, one ethernet cable and one power cable. In addition to all of the features of the 20 GB model, the 60 GB model has internal IEEE 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, multiple flash card readers (SD/MultiMedia Card, CompactFlash Type I/Type II, Microdrive, Memory Stick/PRO/Duo) and chrome colored trim. The 40 GB model has two USB ports instead of the four USB ports on other models.
Xbox 360 has 3 core processors at 3.2GHz each, developed by IBM, and the PS3 has IBM designed Cell microprocessor with 3.2 GHz cell w/7 SPEs 2.0 TFLOPS. Theoretically the PS3 is faster, as it has 7 core processors and that means it can process complex tasks faster. In gaming, complex things refer to physics calculations and graphics operations.
For example, when Tomb raider 4: Last Revelation was released, it had only 400 polygons for Lara Croft’s model. But when Tomb Raider released in 2006, for Xbox 360 as well as PC, the model had more than 5,000 polygons, for her whole figure. To move Lara’s model in a smooth manner, the processing power needed to be higher, so that it could calculate all the movements of the 5,000 polygons at a single time.
TFLOPS or Teraflops is a measurement of how many of the floating point operations crucial to the graphics and physics in modern games can be processed per second. The higher the rate, the faster it can do all the processes, and the end result is realism in the game. To move an animated character in a gaming system and to make it look as real as possible the processor should process all the vertices, texture mapping, normal mapping, light mapping, per pixel shading etc simultaneously. Theoretically PS3 can perform twice as many raw calculations per second, compared to Xbox 360.
The graphics power defines the realism of the game and smooth gameplay. Though the processor can do this task also, but with added graphics power, the game performance can increase immensely. Also the graphics processing unit has the capability of support Shader models, true hardware lighting support, soft light, smooth edges, realistic physics etc, which the normal processor alone cannot do.
Both Xbox 360 and PS 3, can produce High Definition (HD) output. In HDTV, the output and game experience is completely different. But PS3’s graphics capabilities are much higher than Xbox 360, because beside the custom-built graphics card from Nvidia, it also has an Aegia PhysX card, whose task is to calculate all the physics related tasks in gaming. But game developers have not yet been able to use the PS3’s complete graphics capability, which may be changed by the release of Metal Gear Solid 4 and Kill Zone 2 in 2008.
Both consoles have their online content. Xbox Live was already very popular among gamers as it brought the multiplayer gaming to the console gamers, through Halo. Apart from multiplayer gaming, through Xbox Live, users can download purchased or promotional content. This service offers movie and game trailers, game demos, Xbox LIVE Arcade games, gamertag images and Xbox 360 Dashboard themes as well as in-game content (items, costumes, levels etc.). These features are available to both silver and gold members on Xbox Live. A hard drive or memory unit is needed to store products purchased from Xbox Live Marketplace. In order to download priced content, users are required to purchase Microsoft Points for use as scrip.
In response to Microsoft's Xbox Live network, Sony announced a unified online service for the PlayStation 3 system, which can be connected all the time and included multiplayer support.
On this front, the Xbox 360 is the winner so far because it has more gaming titles, and most of them are very popular among gamers, such as Gears of War, Call of Duty 4, Halo 3, Lost Planetand Forza Motorsport. The Xbox Live, Halo 3 and Gears of War, created a loyal fan base for Xbox 360, and this helped in increasing the popularity of Xbox 360.
There has been no “killer game” for the PS 3 yet like Halo has been for the Xbox 360. PS 3 was launched with 12 titles, and the most popular game was Resistance: Fall of Man. In 2008, it is expected to come up with three titles; Tekken 6, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Kill Zone 2. In Q3 2007, when Sony showed the trailers and brief gameplay for both the titles, many gamers and analysts suggested that these two titles could change the fate of PS 3, like Halo did for the Xbox.
Sony’s tally was at 23.8 million in June 2009 with another 1.19 million expected by March 2010. Meanwhile, Microsoft, which released the Xbox 360 in 2005, had sold 31 million consoles as of late August 2009.
Due to its early release, the Xbox 360 gained market share and benefited with higher sales figures than PS 3. In North America, the sales of PS 3 were very poor in the first quarter of 2007. It also experienced the largest drop in sales compared to the previous month; 37% less in April than previous month. In overall and monthly sales, PS 3 is currently in the last place among the three new generation gaming consoles worldwide, including Nintendo’sWii and Microsoft’s Xbox 360. Worldwide, PS 3 has sold 5.59 million units (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_3#Sales_and_production_costs) as of 30th September 2007, and Xbox 360 has sold 13.4 million units (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Sales), where as Wii has sold more than 20 million units.
The Xbox 360 has had some technical problems. Since the console's release in 2005, the console's reliability gained a bad reputation from the general public, and was also criticized by the press through articles for its poor reliability and relatively high failure rates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems). But PS 3 is considered a technically superior console to the Xbox 360.
As PS 3’s processing power is very high, there is some interest in using PS3 to build supercomputers for high-performance computing. On March 15, 2007, SCE and Stanford University announced that the Folding@home project would be expanded to the PS3. If connected with the internet, PS3 owners are able to lend the computing power of their game systems to the study of improper protein folding and associated diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, cystic fibrosis, and several forms of cancer.
On the other hand Xbox 360 has XNA game studio, developed by Microsoft. Through this software, users can create their virtual story games very easily and they can share it with their friends through Xbox live. Through this studio, many game developers can try to develop games, with good storylines, game play and replay value that are preferred by gaming communities.
