Xbox 360 VS Playstation 3 - The console war of the 2000s

[NeonKnights]

i have never owned an xbox console, and know very few who have
given my love for the playstation and playstation 2, and the existence of games like demons souls and metal gear solid 4, i knew that i simply had to get a playstation 3
it was wonderful, and then the lights became yellow and the console would never turn on
so i sent it in for repair and all was well
then a year and a half later the lights grew yellow again and at that point i never replaced it
i have heard the words of many fine burgers of cheesie origin that my fat model playstation 3 was prone to that sort of thing, regardless, at that time i transitioned to computer game playing as my main method of entertainment for game play
around a decade after 2014 i bought a playstation 3 slim model that was so cheap that it might as well been free, and it has worked wonderfully, i have it next to my playstation 2 and between those two i have the libraries of the first three sony consoles at my leisure

The YLOD repair usually requires reballing/reflowing the solder. (Also sometimes cooling mods.) Which entails removing the factory lead free solder and replacing it with some 60/40 by drag soldering. Alternatively you could try the oven thing and hopefully melt the factory solder and fix the failure. The downside to this is the leadfree solder from the factory will probably crack again over many heating and cooling cycles breaking the solder joint and severing the connection. So technically you could probably repair those PS3'.

 

[NasserBlahman3000]

When the xbox played first game GTA IV back in 2008 great times! MY friend had the ps3 and it was sleek though... top design JAPAN they have smarts for that ;)

 

[legsrjust4show]

I guess the PS3 did win in the end. I think we can all agree since Microsoft got lost in the sauce with making the Kinect a thing (and it actually sold extremely well, but they couldn't get a single game outside of Just Dance to get anyone interested in it) and Sony got it's second wind and turned their No Games machine into the cinematic blockbuster game machine.

BUT THE ONE THING THE XBOX 360 HELD OVER THE PS3 was that the online functionality was top class. Stellar stuff. Xbox Live party chats and following up with friends was infinitely better than anything anyone else was providing, but the real hidden star in four seasons was that Microsoft basically invented streaming movies??? with this hunk of junk that fried itself??? and it's very odd to remember??? They essentially pioneered rental streaming which lead to Netflix streaming which then was essentially exclusive to the Xbox 360 for some time.

Ironically, this major victory ended up biting Microsoft in the ass and doomed the Xbox One. They went all in on making the Xbox One the home multimedia platform, only for smart TVs and other streaming devices to take the scene and make all of that completely pointless. Nobody cares that your game console can stream Netflix movies because every other device in the world can natively do that now.

Personally, I think this generation kind of overall was a big messy mixed bag and I think I still prefer the Xbox 360's exclusives over the PS3's. The global recession hitting right when this generation was getting some steam and then the skyrocketing cost to make anything people wanted kind of stunted these console libraries. It was basically a killing spree for so many classic game companies and studios for awhile there. BUT THE 360 HAD HALO 3 AND NINJA GAIDEN 2 SO IT'S SUPERIOR

 

[Spyrone]

The longest console war ever. It started my ascent from a lowly Xbox fanboy to a PC gamer elitist. I got a 360 at launch and it RRoD'd the next summer. Then I spent two years playing the OG Xbox, PC, N64, PSP, PS2, and the Wii because the fucking thing kept overheating and dying and had to be continuously sent back to MS so they could attempt to fix the poorly designed curvy POS.

I eventually got a slim PS3 that lasted longer than my first PS4 (which ate my copy of DOOM 2016, then took a shit and died). Definitely prefer the PS3 over the Xbox 360 because of that. It didn't matter if most of my-then favorite franchises like Gears of War and Halo were Xbox exclusives if my Xbox continually killed itself in a struggle with bulimia. By the time the S models started coming out they were well into the Kinect shovelware and Halo 4 end-phase, which sucked.

 

[DrunkGecko]

id say at the time xbox 360 was better
but looking back now, ps3 had more exclusives im pretty sure

 

[bigstinkie]

The longest console war ever. It started my ascent from a lowly Xbox fanboy to a PC gamer elitist. I got a 360 at launch and it RRoD'd the next summer. Then I spent two years playing the OG Xbox, PC, N64, PSP, PS2, and the Wii because the fucking thing kept overheating and dying and had to be continuously sent back to MS so they could attempt to fix the poorly designed curvy POS.

I eventually got a slim PS3 that lasted longer than my first PS4 (which ate my copy of DOOM 2016, then took a shit and died). Definitely prefer the PS3 over the Xbox 360 because of that. It didn't matter if most of my-then favorite franchises like Gears of War and Halo were Xbox exclusives if my Xbox continually killed itself in a struggle with bulimia. By the time the S models started coming out they were well into the Kinect shovelware and Halo 4 end-phase, which sucked.

it is amusing how similar our stories are
when the playstation 3 generation ended, working my restaurant job, i made the decision between getting a playstation 4, or a bunch of computer parts to build a strong pc
i went with the pc option and have not bought a game console since 2012 and i think i am very well off due to it

 

[RockHoward11]

This was probably the last relevant console war we had in gaming.
PlayStation 4 VS Xbox One VS Wii U was a massacre.
While PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and Switch 1/2 don't feel like they are even competing.

So Playstation 3 VS Xbox 360 is probably the last "true" console war.
Wii was there as well, but it appealed a very different market, while PS3 and X360 had the same target audience.

Most of you know the story, Playstation 3 launch was terrible and overpriced, while Xbox 360 final years with the focus on Kinect were atrocious. Both systems had high highs ans low lows.

How did you live that period? I remember having a Xbox 360, but honestly I couldn't wait to switch over to Playstation, most of my friends were there.

For me it was pretty much 100% Xbox 360 since my mom already worked for Microsoft at around the turn of the century. We had the original so I grew up playing Halo, Forza, Burnout and whatever weird obscure stylized exclusives Microsoft was putting out at the time. Still, I also had a DSI and a Wii to balance things out. A lot of SSBB and Halo 3. I remember the only reason I wanted a PS3 at the time was for Metal Gear Solids 1 and 4 since the 360 only had the HD collection and Rising.

 

[el_principe]

𝐈 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟑𝟔𝟎, 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐎, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐝, 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐨 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝, 𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐚 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐬𝟑, 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 , 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟑𝟔𝟎, 𝐈'𝐯𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐒 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐒𝟒 , 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐚𝐥𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐜𝐲𝐜𝐥𝐞.

 

[junkman]

i have a handful of 360 consoles still, and an S-model is still in use, playing the 360 games i wasn't able to play or even afford back then. Have never developed any interest in the PS3 besides the Little Big Planet-game.

Currently on finishing the FF13 games on it

 

[MeikHub36]

I had both consoles but my close friend had an Xbox 360 so I ended up playing it with her instead. We spent hours on GTA 5 as well as Black Ops 2 even though I wasn't very good at Black Ops 2. I have some fond memories from that time.

 

[Dr.Kisaragi]

For is PS3 because Xbox isn't the popular where I lived is only ps3 or Wii so I go with ps3 because Jrpgs like Odin Sphere, Tales Series Valkyria Chronicles, Nier, Ninno Kuni Trials Series Etenal Sonata Resonate of Fates and everything else.

 

[Bluewyne]

Wanted a PS3, but due to scarcity in my location and the high pricetag, I ended up getting an Xbox 360 first. I'll admit that the 360 probably did have better graphics, especially when comparing multiplatform games. However, I'm a big JRPG lover and Playstation is king for the genre.

 

[Psychonara]

 

[Bomberman]

Wanted a PS3, but due to scarcity in my location and the high pricetag, I ended up getting an Xbox 360 first. I'll admit that the 360 probably did have better graphics, especially when comparing multiplatform games. However, I'm a big JRPG lover and Playstation is king for the genre.

I mean maybe later on but earlier the 360 had better JRPGs.

 

[sandyx]

I like the bug on the PS3 version of Skyrim where vampirism can't be cured.

 

[Deleted member 384463]

In my case, I first got the Xbox 360 because my uncle had bought it but wasn't using it, so he decided to sell it to me. Interestingly, my PS2 was also bought from him.

 

[Deleted member 746185]

The PlayStation 3 Vs Xbox 360 era was during when I was 6-13 years old and had started taking gaming seriously. I remember even back then at such a little age having no bias towards either. Xbox360 had Fable, gears, and halo that I wanted to play, PS3 had Uncharted, Infamous, and Resistance that I wanted to play. Unfortunately my family was lower middle class at the time, so I owned neither console, and had a second hand desktop that had a 128 MB ram, on which I played mostly late 90s and early 00s games. It also ran internet on dial-up, and we didn't bought a proper laptop which could catch wi-fi until 2013 (that's how life is growing up in a second world country lol). Though i remember a lot of forum fights back then that felt childish to even me...a literal child at the time. Lol.

Though one thing I will never forget from this era are the "PC MASTER RACE" memes. Lol. Especially the Crysis memes. Those were amazing.

 

[dropsmegamega]

I feel like it was a tie, like half the people I knew had a 360 and the other half a PS3. I got a PS3 because it had a few JRPG exclusives that I was interested (like Folklore and Ni no Kuni, not to mention everyone was hoping for Persona 5 which eventually happened) and the possibility of playing a few PS2 titles through the PS store. Even then I felt there were many games I missed like Fable II and Lost Odyssey.

 

[Lena CE]

Realize I just monologued my whole history with that generation and as always I'm way too verbose, so I'll give a quick summary here. I wanted a PS3 the most since I grew up primarily attached to Sony IP and really only have a big fondness for Halo. However due to the super expensive launch of the system and almost every schoolfriend I had getting a 360 I felt more social pressure to get one of those instead. Took until 2011 but I finally got a 360 as a gift for Christmas, whilst I wouldn't get a PS3 until 2013. I like both systems a lot and have a lot of direct memories with my personal units as well as with the friends and family I mooched off of in the years I'd wait for my own, but I'd def say the PS3 was my favorite of the 2 in nearly every way.

---

I was a somewhat spoiled kid in the 6th generation. When a relative passed away I got their PS2 and then my stepdad got me a used Xbox from a coworker that same year (2002). That said, I used my PS2 way more so despite Halo being one of my favorite things to play that generation I still felt more attachment to the PlayStation ecosystem, especially since my first home console was a PS1. For the 7th console generation though, I'd end up not getting either of those systems for quite some time.

I'd beg and beg and beg for my whole family to do some combination birthday and christmas thing where instead of everyone getting me small gifts they all just pool together and get me a 360 Arcade or something, but they'd never budge. Slowly more and more of my friends would get Xbox 360s so I'd just play games at their place as much as possible. I actually snuck out of the house quite a lot in 8th and 9th grade just to play Halo 3 with my friend Matt as much as I possibly could lol. Meanwhile, everyone in my family who games was getting PS3s, so I'd first play games like Motorstorm, LittleBigPlanet and Uncharted at my Aunts whilst my uncle (who still lived with my grandparents and was only a few years older than me) would be someone I'd play Battlefield Bad Company and Ratchet & Clank with on many weekends.

Eventually we'd get a Wii from my grandmother, despite me trying to convince her to get a PS3 instead. This had to have been around 2009-2010 but I can't quite remember. Plugged an ungodly amount of hours into The Conduit, Black Ops and Smash Bros Brawl on there. Brawl in particular would become a huge obsession, with me competing at local tournaments and doing unsavory things to save cash to try and carpool with friends to major tournaments, good times :)

Anyways, we wouldn't get a 360 until 2011. A different grandmother got my little brother a 360 and despite her wanting it to just be my brother's my parents had us hook it up in the basement where the main systems were, so it became a family system. I enjoyed finally getting to play a fuckton of Halo at home and would eventually fall in love with Gears of War, but for the most part I ended up still putting a lot of time into Brawl and CoD on Wii (made a lot of friends online in that community) and all kinds of stuff on my PSP.

Still, originally I wanted a PS3 most! PlayStation All-Stars was tons of fun to play at my uncles but I hated having to beg him for a ride to his house if I entered an online tournament or someone wanted to run sets. LittleBigPlanet was so damn cool and I yet to get to try 2. Uncharted clicked with me way more than Gears and I couldn't play it and one of my fav franchises - Twisted Metal - had a badass new title on the system that I could only play at my uncle's too. However, I wouldn't get one until 2013. I got a couple hundred bucks from graduating and Best Buy was hosting a sale on the super slim model so I ran out and picked up a PS3, a cheap headset and a copy of PlayStation All-Stars and Twisted Metal 2012. I didn't care that the PS4 was already announced and on the way in a few months because I had an entire generation of exclusives to catch up on and all of them were hitting bargain bin prices. It was such a wonderful time to get into the system because everything was cheap but games were still online and pretty populated for the most part. PS3 remains probably my favorite home console from Sony, though if someone asked me what "the best" one was I'd probably still have to say PS2.

 

[Retro Doomer]

Well I never really cared much for the Konsolenkriege !!!!!! ;)

anyway.I like both Consoles but in Regards to Online Play the Ps3 is superior fuck Payed Online Play,I already pay for the Console/Game/Internet Connection I don't should be expected to pay even more than that,just to play with friends online.
Library:Well Both Consoles have a solid Library worth buying the Console over
Like Halo 3 and DOA4 on Xbox360 and not to forget the Gears of Wars Series and so on
and the Ps3 also had some bangers with Little Big Planet Series and the Last of US and other great games.
And in terms of Performance I would Say at least a Regular XBOX360 and not the versions that came after are Inferior to a Ps3 especially with the legendary ring of Dead wich was fixed mostly on later Versions.So with a XBOX360 S you would have about equal the performance to a Ps3 I would say.

 

[Bomberman]

Well I never really cared much for the Konsolenkriege !!!!!! ;)

anyway.I like both Consoles but in Regards to Online Play the Ps3 is superior fuck Payed Online Play,I already pay for the Console/Game/Internet Connection I don't should be expected to pay even more than that,just to play with friends online.
Library:Well Both Consoles have a solid Library worth buying the Console over
Like Halo 3 and DOA4 on Xbox360 and not to forget the Gears of Wars Series and so on
and the Ps3 also had some bangers with Little Big Planet Series and the Last of US and other great games.
And in terms of Performance I would Say at least a Regular XBOX360 and not the versions that came after are Inferior to a Ps3 especially with the legendary ring of Dead wich was fixed mostly on later Versions.So with a XBOX360 S you would have about equal the performance to a Ps3 I would say.

Whats funny is that while RROD was more prevelant in the short term. All BC PS3s have YLOD because both PS3 and 360 in their first iterations were not designed to last.

When I got RROD they sent me back an even older model (no HDMI) but it worked until I gave it to goodwill (I just played games off USB to mitigate the heat)

 

[moonbits]

PS3 superior online because it's free, that's a new one. The crappy servers, the lack of features and the superb data leak of the entire PSN sure was 'superior'. Shit, game invites weren't a thing until Sony patched them, developers had to make their own systems

 

[ryanftb]

I started with the 360 but became a staunch PS3 supporter by the second half of the generation. As a broke highschool/college student during those times, I just couldn't with the 360's paid online.

PS3 didn't really have a lot of worthwhile exclusives until the second half of its lifetime, hell it didn't even have any games for the first year.

 

[moonbits]

PS3 didn't really have a lot of worthwhile exclusives until the second half of its lifetime, hell it didn't even have any games for the first year.

It got good in 2008. MGS4 and GTA4 basically started the parade for Sony.

 

[Lena CE]

PS3 superior online because it's free, that's a new one. The crappy servers, the lack of features and the superb data leak of the entire PSN sure was 'superior'. Shit, game invites weren't a thing until Sony patched them, developers had to make their own systems

Aside from party chat, there wasn't really anything I missed from Xbox when playing on PS3. Sure I did enjoy how much more personality you could give your account on Xbox, but it wasn't rly a big deal. Regardless of if I sent invites through the console UI or the game itself, it worked fine so I can't really say I give much of a damn. So long as it works!

As a kid who couldn't afford to have Live consistently and primarily had to play the systems at a friend or relative's house, being able to actually play on my own account on PlayStation was awesome. No more trying to bum a 48 hour trial off of someone when I planned to stay the night. No more guest accounts or having to play on a friend's account when visiting or taking my turn. Even once I got my own 360 in late 2011 I ended up spending more time on my Wii and PSP purely because I couldn't afford Gold and even when I had money I prefered to actually buy or rent games as opposed to an online subscription.

And shit if you wanna talk about worse servers, I played Black Ops and MW3 on both Wii and 360. The difference was obviously massive in terms of ping times, hitreg and general responsiveness, but I still enjoyed myself just fine. I played games like Battlefield Bad Company 1, Battlefield 3, Medal of Honor, Street Fighter x Tekken and more on both PS3 and 360. While I'd definitely give the 360 a slight edge in terms of average performance, it really wasn't some night and day thing that made the price feel like it justified itself. Hell, if I really cared THAT MUCH about having the best servers and online experience I'd quicker go to PC anyways even if that generation was full of meh PC ports.

Yea the data breach was indefensible bullshit but it was a few weeks of down time in an 6-8 year (depending on system) console generation, I can't really say that it lives rent free in my head. It sucked, it was embarrassing, but imo it wasn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Clearly most people agreed considering how many still felt fine jumping ship to the PS4 (a system I dislike) just a year or so later.

I'd take the XMB over any iteration of the 360 UI, even if the OG Blades setup was dope and the pre-Windows 8 UI was also good. XMB really just hasn't been matched by any system imo.

I think at the start of the generation the 360 killed it. It is a real shame that all the momentum it gained in Japan was instantly undone the moment Sony sorted their shit out but no matter what region you preferred, Xbox was absolutely the place to be from 05 to 09 or so. The backhalf of the gen is easily dominated by Sony though. They really locked in and started releasing so many good games that they flooded their own market and doomed some of their games to fail just due to release window overlap and not enough hype to go around. That's a problem in its own way but god damn did it lead to me feeling like one happy camper as a consumer. Meanwhile, Microsoft lost pretty much all Japanese dev support, failed to really court any of the middle market stuff releasing for PSP/PS3 and even amongst western devs everything was going multiplat. In terms of exclusives while I still love Halo and Gears, there really wasn't much else happening. I know Forza fans were eating good since Forza 4 was the first time I remember people talking about Forza having officially dethroned GT as the better exclusive racing sim, but I was more into arcade and kart racers so it doesn't influence me much.

Some day its about how you finish, not how you start. The PS3's enduring legacy is a testament to that. Both are great and sure maybe pound for pound the 360 wins due to an overall more consistent and worthwhile ecosystem to focus on, but for my purposes and preferences the PS3 just wins out in the end.