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Retro|Spective X02: Playstation 3

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    #16
    The PS3 eventually came good, and had the better exclusive software lineup, but the 360 was just a brilliant experience. It was the iPhone of games consoles, the jump in terms of features and user experience just felt absolutely huge over what had come before.

    Having this overarching operating system that you could bring up at any time, mid-game, without quitting, to choose music from your iPod (connected over USB - OK, this feels lame in a world of Spotify, Apple Music, etc, but was brilliant in 2005), message friends, check achievements, etc, was incredible. And it worked well right from the get go.

    Achievements and the Gamerscore (although I'm not personally bothered about them these days) were simply a brilliant idea in themselves that were extremely well implemented from day one, and have now become a de rigeur part of so many gaming platforms.

    The pad? Friggin' awesome. It felt light years ahead of the PS2 one I'd been using. And you could turn on your console from the sofa by holding the X button! Wirelessly! Amazing.

    Honestly, I dig the 360 so hard, particularly for what it was back in 2005. It was a terrific product.

    Much later, I bought a Super Slim PS3, and loved it for different reasons. The slick and classy interface was more like AV equipment than a games machine, and a welcome break from the ad-fest the 360 had become, and it had tons of great exclusive software like Uncharted and Yakuza. But the 360 gets the 'personal fave' award from me. That machine blew my mind in the early years. It was wonderful.

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      #17
      I agree with everything [MENTION=5490]wakka[/MENTION] said apart from the exclusives being better on PS3. Very nicely written summary. It's terrible to talk about 360 in a PS3 thread but it's probably true that Sony's main competition was at it's strongest whilst Sony made mistakes with the PS3.

      And I would add that on 360 all my friends tended to play online. Where as anybody I knew with a PS3 tended to just play single player games. That's probably just reflective of the each machine's strengths.
      Last edited by Digfox; 25-07-2019, 11:40.

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        #18
        Originally posted by Digfox View Post
        I agree with everything @wakka said apart from the exclusives being better on PS3.
        Now that the generation is well and truly over, it'd be interesting to put the main 20 or so exclusives into two lists and see how they stack up, side-by-side. When I think of the 360, I tend to think of games which were actually multi-platform like Mass Effect 2. I struggle to think of 360 exclusives; my mind tends to snap to Halo 3.

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          #19
          Someone did that once on NeoGaf (https://www.neogaf.com/threads/lets-...sives.1218723/) but not really in an easily digestible format.

          I imagine your view of 360 exclusives can depend on what you thought of Gears, Halo and Forza. Personally I think some of those alone are some of the strongest games of the generation. But I think it's fair to say 360 was more than just those games. I also feel Sony delivered some great games towards the end of the generation as MS lost it's way with Kinect and preparing to talk about consoles that do NFL and Star Trek.

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            #20
            It's interesting looking at those lists. I really feel that the story of last gen for me was that Xbox was about 1000 miles ahead for the first half, with a better console with better, more thoughtful features, and really great exclusive software that felt like a huge leap over the previous gen (Dead Rising, Gears of War, Crackdown).

            Then in the second half, the Xbox interface became laggy and ad-filled, practically every launch buyer had had about 4 machines die on them, and software exclusive releases were dominated by underwhelming sequels (Gears Judgement, Crackdown 2).

            Meanwhile, the PS3, which early on was overpriced, had poor online and a poor controller, came into its own with a refined operating system and hardware, a lower price, and a really strong software line up that ranged from the quirky and unique (Journey, to a lesser extent Puppeteer) to the megaton blockbuster (Uncharted 2, TLOU, God of War 3).

            For my money, last gen really was a game of two halves.

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              #21
              X360 was definitely the stronger out the gate but I don't even get halfway through the lifespan of the system on those lists before the X360 drops off a cliff for the most part. By late 2008 you can tell the number and quality is drying up fast and it's arguable that the system was superior for maybe as little as a third of its lifespan on that basis.

              The list just confirms to me that the PS3 was ropey in its first 18-24 months then floored the 360 when it comes to exclusives as MS leant far too hard on Kinect and spooling out the same brands. With PS3 the exclusives might not always be astounding but more frequently they can manage interesting. As soon as 2008 you're headed deep in the territory of how Xbox has been this entire decade which is to say largely appalling.

              I mean, the key factor here is of course the Wii. It completely seduced Microsoft at the expense of the companies clear sightedness and development portfolio allowing events to lead perfectly into the XBO mess but the way I see it is if you were there in the early days of the 360 and you and your mates got well into that ecosystem it's not hard to see how the 360 met your needs given the amount of multiplatform releases that came out. The PS3 would have depended on selling itself to you based on its exclusives alone which is where a disconnect for many comes in.

              Otherwise the PS3 landslides it, content wise you had to either be very tied to the XBL ecosystem or care a lot about Gears/Halo/Forza as the system offered so little else the PS3 didn't eventually do so too. Based on that list I think I'd only give the 360 the advantage in 3 out of 10 years and the PS3 wasn't even on sale for one of those. It's not so much to take away from the X360 itself as a console but it highlights to me just how long MS have been weak as a first party software provider.

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                #22
                Yeah, that's probably a good call actually. My own view is probably muddied by relying on its healthy library of multiplats in the later years of the gen.

                Still, it was a superbly thought out product. So many terrific features. It really was groundbreaking in terms of providing for the first time so many things that we take for granted today - and doing it well, right from the off.

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                  #23
                  I feel similar with the original XB. I get nostalgic for it then look back at its line up and find it pretty sparse on stuff I'd want to revisit, really my fondness comes more from the fact the console itself was just really b****y good

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