PS3 or 360... which is REALLY Better?

I own a PS3. I like my PS3. I have never played an Xbox 360. So, to be honest, I don't know what I'm missing. Therefore, I'm not missing anything. I'm fine with my PS3. Does that make me a "Fanboy?" I don't think so.
From the Urban Dictionary:

"An arrogant person who goes into an outburst every time something he likes is questioned. Fanboys usually accuse others of being fanboys. Usually use 1337 and swarm MMORPGs. Fanboys caused a lot of fallout between people when they started arguing about consoles. If you insult something that a fanboy likes, he will spam your computer up and try to insult something that you like. Most words a fanboy uses are in 1337 or end with 'X0RZ' and they spell the word 'the' as 'teh' because they think that it is 'teh ro><0|2Z!!!'"

Ok... now that I'm done proofreading that Godawful definition, I think I can safely say that I'm not a fit. However, I think EVERYONE knows someone who is.
PS3 fanboys like to go on about the power of the PS3's processor, the Blu-Ray, the 250,000 exclusives coming out in 2011, and they try and find some numbers somewhere that PROVE that it's selling faster than the 360. 360 fanboys like to bring up the popularity of their system, the sales numbers, the attach rate, and of course, "CoD is better on the 360."

I have one question for all the fanboys....

SO F'ING WHAT???

The PS3 has Uncharted, Infamous, Little Big Planet, Heavy Rain, Metal Gear Solid 4, Gran Turismo 5, Demon's Souls, Haze, Killzone 2 and 3, Resistance, MAG, Warhawk, Yakuza 3 and 4, and Echochrome.

The 360 has Halo, Gears of War, Forza Motorsport, Alan Wake, Crackdown, F.E.A.R, Fable, and Ace Combat 6.

BOTH systems have, Assassin's Creed 1, 2, and Brotherhood, GTA4, Final Fantasy XIII, Red Dead Redemption, Just Cause 2, Prototype, Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, and just about anything put out by Electronic Arts.

So which one is better? Does it matter? All that REALLY matters is which one do YOU prefer? You want to play Little big Planet? You need a PS3. Want to play HALO 3? Gotta get a 360. Want to play Assassin's Creed 2? Then FLIP A FRAPPIN COIN! Or get both. Your gaming choices don't affect me. My gaming choices don't affect you. If I want to play Metal Gear Solid 4... will that interfere with your CoD experience? If I want to play Heavy Rain, or Gran Turismo 6 1/2, or CoD 31, or Hannah F'n Montana, how is that going to affect your library?

Your opinion is your opinion, my opinion is my opinion. How is this difficult? Both systems have something for everyone. So go fire one up and play.... and have fun.

N4G's Oldest Problem:The Bubble System and How to Fix it.

The Bubble system is a great system at first. Under this system, the people who make good comments with actual thought and advanced grammar are rewarded with extra bubbles to make even more good posts with and people who troll and use indecent language are reduced to one bubble and cannot post more than once.

This works pretty good in theory. It's a merit system that rewards those who actually contribute something to the article instead of starting flame wars. Everyone starts out with the now default three bubbles and you are left to either build them up or take them away on your own. In theory, the best posters will have the most bubbles.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. The flaw of the bubble system comes in with 2 factors; the majority opinion and anonymity. If you make a post that goes against what most gamers agree with, you are sure to lose your bubbles. If someone makes a post saying that they do not like gears of war or uncharted does that mean they deserve to lose bubbles? The person was not trolling or using bad grammar but the majority of gamers here will take away his bubbles simply because they dont agree. Many members of n4g have chosen to interpret the bubble down button as a disagree button, which is not how it was intended to be used.

The second factor is what really destroys the Bubble system. Anonymity means that you can take a bubble from someone and get away with it because he doesn't not know that you did it. There is no way to report people who take away bubbles for unjust reasons so the majority of the website can freely control who gets more bubbles and who doesn't based on opinion alone.

This can call be fixed by removing the anonymity. If someone takes a bubble from you, you will receive a notification for it much like you do when someone replies to a message. If someone has bubbled you down for an unjust reason, you can report it to a mod. Then the mod will review it and decide whether to remove that vote on you or not. Under this system, no one should lose bubbles for no reason.

That is the easiest solution I can find for this system. The bubble system is not a bad system, its just a broken one that can be fixed. If you disagree with my solution to the problem that is ok but one thing you cant disagree with is that the current system has been exploited by the members of this site and must be fixed.

Console Gamer meets Cloud Gaming

User blog

It's been claimed to be a revolution in the gaming industry so naturally I couldn't resist trying out Onlive to see if it really does live up these big claims.

Onlive just recently launched in the UK and are offering a nice introductory order of one game for £1. The process was surprisingly simple, I created an account, downloaded the app and then before I know it, I was drawn into the world of Onlive.

The user interface was nice and friendly and my first port of call was the arena to check out what everyone is up to. This is probably one of the best features and that's purely because I can sit there and watch whatever game I want and really get a feel of a game - unless they quit and then of course I'll have to find someone else to stalk.

I can see that it isn't much different from just watching a few clips on Youtube, but you're diving straight in. It's a great experience and you get a great sense of what the game is like.

So next on my list was the marketplace. There were some games that had free trials which was pleasant so I started off with Assassins Creed Brotherhood. A couple of seconds later, I was playing Assassins Creed and it was just a bit of a 'wow' moment. Wow in the sense that it only took a couple of seconds and I was straight in.

Now Onlive is really a mix bag for me because there were two main scenarios when I was playing; scenario one is noticeable blurriness and input lag and scenario two, nice crisp visuals and smooth gaming. It quite often switched between one or the other.

So that is only a small snippet of what I experienced with Onlive. Do I believe it is revolutionary? Not yet, but it has so much potential to be something so revolutionary. If they nail those visuals and improve latency, I can see it as being so fantastic.

Have you experienced Onlive? Maybe you have the microconsole? It'd be great to hear from others about their Onlive experience, especially those on the other side of the Atlantic who have had it longer than us Brits.

Eurogamer 2011: PS Vita, Getting a Feel For It

I was not only lucky enough to catch the last group of the day to go hands on with Sony’s Playstation Vita but it was also a lightly extended session since the queue had closed behind us. Still, not enough time was given to ask ALL the questions and try EVERYTHING out but I did manage to get that all important ‘feel’ for the device. What I mean is, even in the relatively short time we were allotted, I got comfortable with all of the physical features of the hardware. This is what I’m going to try and describe to you now in hope that those of you interested in the powerful handheld can get an imaginative insight into what it’s like to use. I will use Little Big Planet as the reference game as it was the first thing I tried and it uses most of the PSVs features very nicely. Most of you may have read about all of this beforehand but I’d just like to share my personal experience with you anyway.

The first thing you notice about holding the device is also the thing with the most ambiguous future I’m afraid, the weight. I was shocked at just how light it was, when the girl handed me the PSV I held my hands out underneath expecting something as ‘stuffed’ with hardware features as this to give my wrists a slight need to adjust to counterweight. However it feels almost effortless to grasp but not so lightweight that it threatens to break or fly out of your hand. I immediately found myself trying to hold the device in one had then the other with surprising success. I asked if the model I was holding would be the same weight as the final build and was disappointed to hear that there would be a slight change with no indication as to whether it would be heavier or lighter. The demo model did in fact have the battery inside, according to the rep, and the weight change would probably be so slight as to be unnoticeable.

Now to find the buttons! Having owned a PSP, I was relatively aware of the basic button setup however I soon discovered that this may be more of a problem than an advantage. The inclusion of dual analogue sticks, while probably the greatest feature to hit handhelds ever, has forced the usual face buttons to shrink. It took me a few attempts to jump a small gap in LBP because I kept pushing the second analogue stick, thinking that it was the ‘X’ button. Once I got used to this though everything else snapped into place, the D-pad even seems to improve on the PSPs already good one, and it was now time to try out the touch screen.

My first touch evoked a mild feeling of disgust after realising just how grubby the screen had become. We can’t really blame the Vita for falling victim to the touch screen weakness though; you’d feel dirty too if 1000+ strangers queued up to fondle you all day. Returning, after a quick wipe, to the very first room in LBP which contained some of the ‘touchable’ blue material I had learned about just hours before in Sony’s PSV developer conference; I moved the object around just like I had done countless time before on various smart phones, it’s as intuitive here as it was then. There’s a certain small awe that comes with moving an object in a world as detailed as LBP using your own touch. The rear touchpad also came into use during the demo, where I was challenged with building a staircase for Sackboy by pushing ‘Tetris-like’ blocks out from ‘behind’. It’s a strange but immersive experience, which left me, optimistically, wondering about the possibilities of such input. Both front and rear touch screens are multi-touch and feel incredibly responsive, easily on par with top level smart phones.

The next challenge to put the PSV through its paces involved the six-axis function. I needed to tilt the device in order to bring a bridge across for Sackboy to jump onto; it works exactly how you would expect, after using both Move and DS3, you should feel very comfortable with this.

The dual analogue sticks seemed tiny at first, I worried that their decreased size would affect the range of control you had over manipulating the camera or minute aiming adjustments. However my concerns were put to rest after only a few short minutes of use I felt a common connection between the PSV sticks and the DS3. It might sound silly but it really did feel like I was playing a mini PS3 in my hands; which, in my opinion, is no bad thing, especially when you consider all the extra input and features available on the Playstation Vita.

I left the expo confident that Vita would be usable for me after being worried that my large hands (I’m 6’4” and can hold a basketball upside-down with arm outstretched) would be a problem. From build quality to responsiveness, Vita FEELS like a winner.