When it comes down to it, both consoles are decent. The 360 has matured enough to consider it somewhat stable (note: it’s still not 100% in my eyes), no red ring of death (yet), no major surprises there. I’ve had the 360, like I say, for about a week, but so far, I’m impressed with it completely. Here’s just a brief overview of what I’ve seen, what I like, what I don’t like.

I’m not a fanboy of either system, so it’s not really hard for me to be unbiased and unprejudiced. Both have their ups and downs, and both have their unique points to them. This week, I’ll take a bit of time and go over hardware, customization, and controllers:

The ps3 is very, very customizable when it comes to hard drives themselves. One of the first things I did on the ps3 (within a few months) was upgrade the beast to a 320 GB drive. This way, of course, I wouldn’t worry about deleting downloadable content (demos, addons, network purchases, etc). Of course, I’ve eaten up a bit of that drive (it’s now got around 200 GB free), but that’s ok, I’m nowhere near the point of being worried about space.

The 360, unfortunately is NOT very customizable as far as the hard drive. Right now, from what I can see, you’ve got to purchase a hard drive specifically built by Microsoft, and those only come in 60 and 120 GB sizes. So, I can’t, say, purchase a drive from newegg and throw the beast in there. It just won’t work, which is pretty sad .

As far as controllers, I thought that getting used to the 360 controller would be a bit hard. I’ve never owned an X-Box of any kind (I really dislike the idea of giving away more money to monopolistic organizations), so I’m used to the ps2/3 (they’re virtually the same) controllers. I find, however, that the 360 controller was built a bit more for my larger hands, and it just feels more natural. Score one (at least for me) for the 360!

When it comes to “next gen” stuff, you expect more content, beefier stuff, more substance. Thusly, you’d think the dvd drives would be upgraded to some sort of “next gen” dvd player, right? Well, here, again, the PS3 outshines the 360.

Instead of putting in their proprietary HD-DVD player, Microsoft threw in a standard dvd player, which, quite honestly is a bit depressing. Take, for example the Star Ocean game, just put out by Square Enix (the final fantasy developers). This was one of the reasons I picked UP the 360 (aside from the obligatory halo, etc, but we’ll get into unique content in a later post). The game reminds me of an earlier FF, where you had to constantly switch discs for the ps. Guess what? 3 dvd’s worth of content. You lose one, you’re genuinely screwed!

The PS3, however, has done things properly here. You don’t get a dvd drive, but a Blu-Ray drive (and the only Blu-Ray drive you’ll ever need). This means your storage capacity for data (videos, music, etc) on the disc itself, and that means much, much better content from the developers!

Speaking of optical drives, what’s up with the SOUND on that 360 drive? My god, you could hear that thing from my bedroom. I swear to God it’s louder than my PC, and that sucker’s got a good 6 fans in it!!! The ps3? Nice and quiet. I just can’t get over that!

Now, let’s get into the power supply here:

The PS3 has the power supply built into the console itself. 360? Yeah, you’ve got to go back to a 90′s laptop sized power brick that’s just ugly, nasty, and crazy! More stuff to trip on is not a good idea!!!

Graphics are pretty much the same, both are superb on a 42″ plasma running 1081i native (though the 360 has few 720p+ videos available), and the sound, again, running through that plasma is just stunning.

The first week (hardware), the ps3 wins hands down. While the 360 is pretty decently put together, it’s loud, completely uncustomizable as far as the hard drive goes (without throwing Microsoft more $$$), and much , much louder than the PS3. Couple that with the (admittedly earlier) fire hazzards and system failures and you’ve got yourself a very poorly done system, at least hardware wise.

Next time around? Online content and profiles!! Check back later for that one!!!

Tom

What you’ll need
To successfully upgrade your PS3 hard drive (without losing data), you’ll need a few things:
1: A Thumb Drive
2: Two DIFFERENT phillips screwdrivers (I could not do it with just one, the screws to be removed appear to be two completely different sizes)
3: A new Hard Drive (2.5″ SATA @ 5400 RPM)
4: A USB SATA Enclosure and an extra drive formatted as FAT32, with appropriate USB cables.
5: A kitchen knife (or flathead screwdriver)

Now that you’ve got all this assembled, let’s get down to the brass tacks, how to do this:

Step 1 (with external hard drive and enclosure)
To start with, put the extra hard drive in the enclosure, turn the power on and plug it into the PS3′s USB port. How to do this will vary from enclosure to enclosure, so I’m not going to go into details to putting it together.

Now that you’ve got the drive plugged in, it’s time to back up the PS3. Go into the PS3, exit out of all applications and games, and in the XMB, navigate to Settings. In there, find the “system settings” menu, hit X, then scroll down to Backup Utility. Hit X again, then select Back Up. This should pull up a couple of warnings. One will be about trophies (follow their instructions there), another about wanting to do this, really. Select Yes, and your PS3 will start looking for a place to back up to.

If your PS3 DOESN’T recognize the drive, you have to reformat it as a FAT32 disk, or you can simply create a partition (or a number of them) using Windows on this disk that are fat32. I won’t go into the ‘howto’ of that now, but maybe later.

Step 1 (with just a flash drive!)
Plug your flash drive into the USB port
Using your PS3, go to the Game menu, then down to the Saved Data Utility menu.
Scroll down to each item in the “Saved Data Utility Menu”, click Triangle, then ‘copy’ data do your flash drive.

Now that we’ve got Step 1 out of the way, let’s go to step 2
If you used your flash drive to get the data backed up, you will need to remove it from the PS3 and place it in your PC. If it’s not in your PC and you DIDN’T use your flash drive to back up data, then plug it into your pc.
Pull up your web browser, and view this page. Follow their instructions specifically on downloading the latest firmware (to a PC), because you’ll probably need it.

Now, let’s go to step 3
On the PS3, go to Games, then select trophies. Wait for your trophies to sync!
Turn OFF the PS3, unplug it, then remove it from all devices (tv, stereo, etc)
Take the PS3 to a clean table or surface
Using your kitchen knife (or flathead screwdriver), pry the black hard drive enclosure cover off the side of the ps3. It will be a noticable cover, on the left side (if you have the ps3 front facing you).
Using the phillips head screwdriver, remove the first (blue) screw from the drive case
There will be a lever, or latch that you will need to use to pull the PS3 drive from the case itself. Using that, pull it out (don’t force it, it should come out easily enough).
Using the phillips screwdriver, you will want to unscrew ALL of the screws holding the drive in the drive tray.
Finally, remove the drive itself from the tray.
Once the drive is removed, store it somewhere safe, because you MAY need to return the system to sony, and you don’t want to give them your larger drive;)
Put the new drive in the tray, and put the screws back in. Make sure it’s in EXACTLY how it came out!
Replace the tray in the PS3, and put the latch back in, then screw the Blue screw in.
Put the cover back on the drive bay.

Now, the drive is replaced, let’s go to step 4:
Plug your system in, connect all devices, but do NOT turn it on (yet).
Find the flash drive that you used to get the PS3 system update, and plug it into the USB port
Find one of your charging cables (for controller), and connect a controller to it.
Turn the system on.
If all goes well (and it should), you will have a short pause while the system loads the current firmware, and you’ll be good to go from there.

Step 5, restoring data
Once your system is backed up, it’s time to restore your data. To do this, make sure that you have your flash drive (or USB enclosed drive) handy, and follow these steps.

Plug the drive into the PS3 USB port
For Enclosed drives, you need to go to Settings -> System -> Backup, and choose RESTORE
For flash drives, you need to go to Games -> Saved Data , choose the FLASH DRIVE, and individually copy each data to the PS3.

Now, for the caveats!
Caveat #1: The system will NOT copy all of your downloaded content. This has something to do with Sony’s licensing, and it’s fine, because you can download it again (up to 5 times per item).

Caveat #2: The system will NOT back up all game save data. There are a FEW from EA that do not back up (specifically the Need for Speed franchise), and I’m sure there are others. This is a game manufacturer choice, and, quite frankly a poor one.

Caveat #3: The system will NOT back up ANY of your ‘game data’ (the stuff copied from the disk to the hard drive), updates, etc. This is something you will need to do individually for each and every game. Had I known this, I would have simply used my flash drive, instead of buying a HD enclosure, but I had a spare HD anyways

Caveat #4: Sony claims that changing the hard drive may void warrantee. I’m sure that’s just a gimmick to get you to buy their bigger hard drive systems, but hey, you’ve been warned!

All in all, the hardware upgrade was the easiest thing about this. Getting data back on the system from 30+ games was a MAJOR pain in the ass, and restoring was quite simple. Of course, now I have a PS3 with 200+ gig free, as opposed to a PS3 with barely 30 gig free like before. More space = more fun, more games, more entertainment!

Firstly, for all the playstation haters out there, go elsewhere. I dun wanna hear about how l33t your 360 is, take it and burn it (or wait for it to do that itself).

That said, a few observations so far.

Online gaming:
I haven’t really gotten into that at all, I mean, yeah, I WoW, but I don’t ‘group’, I can’t stand childish idiots, I love gaming, I love ONLINE gaming for ‘content updates’, butt that’s about it. Being forced (thanks EA) to save a score of my game online is just absolutely ridiculous.

Demos:
This part of the system I like. I mean, FINALLY I can download the game, test it out BEFORE I buy the damn thing and figure out it’s a POS I don’t want to pick up. I’ve already got a few added to the list that I want to pick up (the new Star Wars for one, the new NFS, Overlord), on top of the 6 (yes, you read it right, 6) I have already for the system.

I’ll say it again:
Demos are probably one of the BEST parts of this damn system, I LOVE them!

Titles:
So far, the system is behind, but from what I’ve seen, that won’t be the case for long. What do you expect though? M$ had the time advantage this time, Sony did last time, it’s only fair.
The titles they DO have out though are pretty damned good!

Hardware:
The hardware is ok, it’s nothing ‘fabulous’, but it’s better (by far) than a PS2. A few problems that I’ve noticed though, at least with the ps3.

There is no ‘eject’ button. yeah, I know that things can be ejected through the XMB, but sometimes software does not work damnit! Never, ever rely solely on software to get a ‘stuck’ cd or dvd out!

Usability / Playability
One of the reasons I waited for the 80GB to drop in price was I’m looking to import my cd’s (or enough of ‘em to make the system “mine”, through playing audio, etc). Well, with 60+ cd’s imported, what sucks is that there IS no physical way to do ANYTHING else on the system. So, you’re stuck just letting the system rip the cd, which can take up to 5 minutes. Not really the most impressive way to do things. maybe I’ll find a better way to import music, like mp3′s? dunno yet.

I’ve also discovered a ‘content’ issue .
Let’s say you’re putting a disc in for the first time (NFS: Pro Street for example).
That disc will most likely be an OLD version of the game, requiring an update (In the case of NFS: Pro Street, a 800 meg update!)
While the system is ‘updating’ this, can something be done? Nope. It insists on taking priority, soooo, you’re again, screwed. Let’s just hope you’re not behind a dialup connection (hey, it happens, broadband aint everywhere!).
The same can be said for installing larger demos. Again, 3-5 minutes (sometimes longer), and you’re able to do nothing at all!

Now, I realize that the content updates and system itself are pretty ‘new’, and this isn’t supposed to be as “powerful” as the modern computer, butt hey, come on, Sony , give us a break!

I still love the system, the graphics are stunning, the audio, can’tt really tell (right now it’s piping through the TV till I get the optical audio cord this week), but it’s a GREAT system. There are just a few major software flaws for hardcore geeks!