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Gadgets,

PS3's MotorStorm™ PS3 & XBox

This has pretty much been the state of affairs since our Sony PS3 arrived. It's mostly been MotorStorm. A high octane dirt racing game.

Game time has increased as both of us have been laid low by the dreaded Lurgi making its way around London.



This morning I caught a bit of BBC's Click. A British gadget show. They were doing a comparison between the Xbox 360 and the PS3. I am usually fairly impartial when it comes to these things. But I was a bit annoyed as to how the PS3 was portrayed, especially its online offering. I have been a keen Xbox'er for a while now and own both an Xbox and an Xbox360 and since just before the UK launch have had a PS3 .

The Click were doing a like for like comparison of " XBox Live " and " Playstation network " they expounded how Xbox live was great and that Playstation Network felt like an add on. I can tell you that the UI of the Playstation Network is streets ahead of Xbox live and that it is free. No subscription charges at all.

UI: I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of navigating around the simple and beautiful interface. Sony have translated the PSP interface to a medium that really works well. By far it is the more superior interface. Think - Xbox's Big, clumsy colorful Hulk Hogan vs. an elegant, poised Sony Bruce Lee.

Online: I can also tell you that so far (the online offering is evoling as Sony rollout new features as more PS3'ers join) that the Playstation Network is more reliable than XBox live that did freeze and had constant lag issues.

Game graphics: PS3 has awesome high end clean graphics. The XBox360 less so. However the XBox's ambient graphics (lighting, texture rendering, etc) is much better so far. Bear in mind I have only played a handful of PS3 games but have a collection of Xbox games. I'm hoping this will be addressed as Sony rollout more games builr to match the most powerful graphics maching currently available on the market. My comparison has been mainly made comparing Gears of War to Resistance: The fall of man.

High Def: I cannot rate Blu Ray High Def Discs high enough - Mainly because I have had a high Def TV for awhile now and been subjected to really low quality broadcasts and regular quality DVD's. Note: Check to see the quality of standard quality rendering on your Hi Def purchase.

The guys that do the installations in our block are quoting a ton for Sky HD as there is no one else using near me at the moment. I'll wait a couple of months till someone else has paid for the cable to be run and then I'll get it installed.

The Xbox 360's high def output (translated via component) is no match for the PS3's purer HDMI output and it rocks. I spent some time actually analysing the pixel by pixel movement on my screen.

Negative: Although he PS3 has loads of ports; USB, Flash, SD, Memory stick pro, etc. It doesn’t matter if I cant play my downloaded Divx or Xvid films. Sony has been ignoring these codecs and favour of more standard easily controllable ones.