PS3 vs. XboX 360

[Sigurd]

I need advice some advice on this.

There might be a window of opportunity of getting me one of these game consoles. And I need to have made the choice of which to choose before this window presents itself.
I have tried to look at the specs and trawled youtube for "helping" comparisons, but I am not the wiser.
I have a friend who thinks the Xbox would be the better choice. But I need to be sure I will not regret the choice after it is made.
For the record, I have never owned a gaming console before. We had a XboX 360 at my former job and I borrowed it once or twice. I have never tried the PS3.

Anyone with owner experience that would like to share their advice?

[Husar]

I personally chose the PS3, why?

I read it's a bit more powerful than the 360, not much, but a bit.

3% failure rate vs. 13% failure rate or something similar, maybe Microsoft improved it I'm not sure but the 360 also seems louder

more people in the .org chat have it, and we can play games in MP, ok not everyone all the time but when we do it's a lot of fun. maybe I'm the only one who would see this as a good reason but for me it was one, I prefer to play with people I "know" instead of random strangers when possible

BluRay! got kingdom of heaven on bluray and the additional details and crisp image are very nice, plan to buy a few more bluray movies later

so far the thing is working really fine for me and I should get my copy of battlefield: bad company sometime around this weekend
the demo of bad company surprised me how good playing an fps with that controller can work.

[Craterus]

PS3, Sigurd.

If only so you can play MP games with us.

But also because it's the better console.

[Fragony]

PS3 is soooooo quiet while the xbox360 sounds like it wants to lift of and fly away, no matter how good a set you got the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz penetrates everything, and worst of all they are very prone to hardware death. Graphics look better on the xbox360 but the ps3 is (supposedly)more powerful. Ps3 all the way if you ask me, especially as a long-term investment.

[TB666]

As a owner of both consoles I say the Xbox360.
Large library of games most of them better then on the PS3 were the common problem is long loading times and frame rate issues.
The controller is nicer on the Xbox360 even tho the sixaxis is pretty sweet when implemented right.
The main thing that the PS3 has going for it is that it's "live" is free which is very nice indeed but Xbox live despite the price(which is cheap if you compare to let say MMORPG monthly fees) is better then PS3.
Just downloading DLCs is just such a difference in speed. It took me 10 minutes to download a 10mb patch on PS3, the same size would only take a minute or 2 on Xbox live on the same connection.
Of course you can't argue with the actual price of the console where the Xbox360 goes for the same price as a Wii and the PS3 costs almost as much as 2 Xbox360s.

Reliability of course is still a problem with the 360 but with the latest hardware it is more quiet, cooler and more reliable(PS3 is of course more quiet, cooler and reliable).
Problem with RRoD is there still but they have increase the lifespan of it and the latest hardware that should come out in august or so should get rid of the problem for good(well according to guesses by the experts).
Naturally this is provided that you take care of your Xbox, keeping it in a unstable and enclosed area is a one way road to RRoD or other issues.
Keep it on a stable table where air can flow freely and you should have no problem.

If you are short on cash then Xbox360.
Got lots of money ?? Get a xbox360 and buy more games to it.

[Sigurd]

All good advice there friends...

Just to pinpoint the choices I have.
It is between the Xbox 360 Elite with 120GB HDD
and the only version they sell here which is the PS3 40GB version.

The price difference is around €100 EUR in favour of the Xbox.

And I saw a flick on youtube about the graphic difference. The uploader changed some display settings on the PS3 and showed us the difference (before changes and after). It looked like a redux of Assasins creed Xbox360 vs PS3.