by James Webster

Created on: February 12, 2007   Last Updated: February 14, 2010

Much has been said on the difference between the two machines', some biased towards the Microsoft and others towards Sony. The CPU in the latter has more going for it in terms of "core" hardware but the 360's cores - while fewer - are more powerful.

The cores really place the power in the hands of developers. The Xbox 360 has 3 running at 3.2GHz each, the PS3 has seven "apparently". So theoretically the PS3 is faster, much faster, which means it can do a lot more complex things. These days' complex things refer to physics calculations and graphics operations. But it's all about how to use them as the power can only be exploited by using the cores together. It's a bit like having several complex puzzles to solve with several clever people available. If you give each person one puzzle will they solve it quicker than if you give all the people one puzzle at a time? The better developers will make their code efficient, meaning theoretically better games.

The PS3 will be more complex to develop for, which might mean that the first wave of games will be better on the 360. Having said that, the PS3 line up looks a lot more impressive right now. We will just have to see what comes out.

In terms of the active memory on access, the PS3 is two times as powerful as the PS2 and the Xbox 360 is twice that. (So in other words the 360s frame rate is a HELL of a lot faster)

Graphics

It's all about HD. Both companies are "totally stoked" about the HDTV revolution expected to take the US by storm, which should saturate the market with screens twice as detailed as current widescreen products. Of course, because both Sony and Microsoft report to be releasing media centers, this means there'll be plenty of HD for non-gaming applications. For interactive software, however, the PS3's announcement suggests that the graphics in the machine are twice the current market leader on PCs.

PS3 will be able to output a higher-resolution (i.e., more high definition) signal, but there are very few TVs in existence that can use this highest resolution. In a few years though, who knows? Games will also have to be made in widescreen compatible.

Online.

Both machines will release with out-of-the-box Ethernet capabilities. Both will be WiFi enabled and both hope to corner the market on downloadable content. Internet access, music downloads, movie downloads, and video and text chat (with the later-released video cameras): this is the showdown space for the non-gamers, and this is where Microsoft kicks butt. For gamers, Microsoft is also in the lead with their profiling service which should offer a useful service to folks who want to play hard-core online titles, meander through the Final Fantasy MMOG or just play drafts.

Microsoft simply has more experience with the online medium, so it's expected that their implementation of Live will be better. From what I've heard on the inside, it's definitely easier to design for.

So really for me it has to be the Xbox 360 (for a few years) just as Halo 2 Rules and playing online on Xbox live is amazing and I expect Sony to very bad (just like live when it first came out) online until they get used to it. Plus I don't have the cash to buy the ps3 as it is VERY expensive.

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