Having just had an HD projector made available to me, looking for a games console to go with it. So, do I get the PS3 (and enjoy the Blu-ray capability), or get the cheaper Xbox 360?

PS3 obviously

XBOX obviously.

360

Pikeys!

lol!

What do you want to do with the box? Play games or watch movies? The answer will ultimately decide your choice. As games playing machines there's bog all in it. Games for the XBOX are generally a bit cheaper, esepcially second hand ones, but the PS3 plays Blurays. The XBOX live experience *can* be better than the PS3 one (especially is Sony manage to cock up their upgrade system), but you pay a little bit for XBOX live to offset that.

Some people say xbox's are noisier but I never notice the noise of ours.

3 things to consider

1) How much do I want to spend

2) What do I want it to do

3) What have my friends got

my lads are both selling their 360s if you consider buying second hand.

What do you want to do with the box? Play games or watch movies? The answer will ultimately decide your choice.

^ This. 360 is generally the winner in terms of performance on multiplatform games, but the differences are generally quite slight. Also think about exclusives – would you rather have Gears of War and Alan Wake or Little Big Planet and Uncharted? All awesome games, btw.

Also remember Microsoft are launching a new slimmer 360 this autumn, which means the original style models will come down in price. Main difference are the looks and the new one has a Kinect port, so if you get Kinect it won't need a seperate power supply.

As you have a projector it would make sense to go with the bluray PS3 option IMO

3) What have my friends got

For me that is the deciding factor as I much prefer to have a game with friends than strangers. If you don't have friends get the PS3.

XBoxes are v v noisy, although newer ones are meant to be a bit better. You can play PS3 games with other people as far as I know too.

PS3s also come with BBC iPlayer built in, which is nice.

Playstation store is good, but I dunno what the XBox alternative is.

XBoxes are Windows Media Centre extenders too, which means you can stream stuff from a PC elsewhere, be that music or movies or whatever you've downloaded. Although the fan would put me right off that.

You can do the same with a PS3 molgrips – although it is a fiddle

Xbox's are not THAT noisy, but I'll admit that you can hear the fan when there's no other ambient noise or sound in the room.

I like the fact with PS3 that the interface feels a bit more'adult' and that you can use iPlayer.

For hardcore gamers I think that xbox is the way to go and Live is a superior experience, no doubt, but you do have to pay for it.

Go for whichever your friends are already on, as ultimately that will be the most important factor imho.

To me it comes down to the fact I don't feel like a nerd using a PS3 and will happily use it for music / blurays when in the company of women.

I use a PC for any actual gaming, mind.

You can do the same with a PS3 molgrips – although it is a fiddle

Technically you can, but most codecs seem unsupported. I've tried, and I'm a right geek.. and it was a thorough faff and a very unsatisfactory experience. Never tried it with an XBox tho so dunno if it's better although it ought to be.

Xbox's are not THAT noisy, but I'll admit that you can hear the fan when there's no other ambient noise or sound in the room.

Seems to be some variance with various machines.. but as a PS3 user I was shocked by how noisy my mate's XBox was. Very intrusive, I would definitely NOT want to watch a film or listen to music on it.

PS3 media server streams anything from your computer to the PS3 and it's easy to set-up. Can't comment on the XBOX as I've never owned one but I'm happy with my PS3. Mine is used 70% for media and 30% for games.

Does that thing re-encode stuff on the fly? The PS3 only supports so many codecs, notably NOT the one that BBC iplayer downloads use.

You can do the same with a PS3 molgrips – although it is a fiddle

It's not that much of a fiddle. Install one bit of sofware on your PC and it works. Takes a couple of miuntes.

I Use Tversity media player with my PS3 (and Wii in the children's playroom) nd have had no issues.

Perhaps I've been lucky

Gran Turismo 5 is tempting me to buy a PS3

^ This. 360 is generally the winner in terms of performance on multiplatform games, but the differences are generally quite slight. Also think about exclusives – would you rather have Gears of War and Alan Wake or Little Big Planet and Uncharted? All awesome games, btw.

It was the winner when firms were new to the PS3 and just porting Xbox games straight over. Now it's swinging the other way and that before you take into account that the PS3 uses blueray – because it can take much higher levels of data it only uses 1 disc. So in multiplatform games, some Xbox games are reduced in quality/content and others need 2 discs or you have to download extra content.

If you want to play with mates, get what they have. Otherwise I'd suggest PS3.

I was connecting it to Windows Media Player. It was pretty slow, and nothing I had downloaded would play…

Hi guys,

Thanks for the advice – picked up a used PS3 at Game yesterday for £220 and it's working nicely. Had a bit of a struggle to find a HDMI to DVI cable (got one at the Apple store in the end for £15). I've got my entire media collection going to it from my computer over the network using NullRiver's MediaLink app, which is pretty impressive.

No problems handling all the video I've thrown at it – some of the MKVs are transcoded on the fly but I've not seen any performance or quality drops.

Two thumbs up from me. 🙂

So, what's in your media collection then that works well?

I have tried my photo album (via Picasa) and music (via iTunes) on a machine running Windows 7 Home. And that was only because I was bored one morning and thought I would give it a whirl. But the point is that it does work.

notably NOT the one that BBC iplayer downloads use.

But a PS3 has iPlayer built-in so you can just play stuff off there anyway – no reason to stream it via a PC and a wireless network.

Everything. DVD rips, iTunes library, divx, MKV… you name it, it'll play it. I have a 1TB NAS drive which the computer accesses with all the video on it.

Not iPlayer downloads then?

Incidentally how much space does a DVD rip take up at equivalent quality? I'd like to have all my stuff on hard disk…

But a PS3 has iPlayer built-in so you can just play stuff off there anyway – no reason to stream it via a PC and a wireless network.

MF I want to download stuff and store it up for a while so I can watch it later than the week you normally get. I appreciate this also means some kind of DRM stripping which is apparently easy with the WMV downloads.. but not all iPlayer stuff comes in WMV.

Not iPlayer downloads then?

No idea, not tried that – and why download it anyway? It only stays on your machine for 30 days doesn't it? (Or has that changed).

EDIT – fair enough if you want to keep things a bit longer – never been in the situation where I have needed to do that though.

I am not having much luck DRM stripping the iPlayer specific format mind. I don't want to pirate it as such, just keep it a bit longer!

PS3. Fat PS3 Suffers badly with fan noise, runs really hot too(could quite litrally heat a room!!!).

My FAT(launch model) packed in last week I went straight out and bought a slim(new version) OMG quite as a mouse and gets no were near the temp my FAT did.

PS3 doesnt look out of place in the livingroom with the rest of the AV gear, Xboxes are ugly as hell and belong in a kids bedroom IMO.

I would say the streaming from your pc is much good tho In my experience mines is always buffering(stop starting while playing).

Blu ray player and games, media all in one box also you can turn it into a sky+ box and record tv straight to the hard disk!

Oh and I just found this out, Sony done a software update which supposedly made all PS3's 3-D READY!!!

Awesome tool.

Fat PS3 Suffers badly with fan noise

This depends heavily on where you put it. Mine (and millions of others it seems) is whisper quiet even when gaming.

mines is always buffering(stop starting while playing).

That's your network that's the problem

Oh yeah, if you are a terrestrial digital TV viewer you can use Play TV to make it into a DVR which is awesome.

But the most awesome thing is Remote Play on a PSP…!

got an old fat and a new slim PS3, both are pretty quiet, infact the disc whirring round in my old PS2 slim that sits next to the fat PS3 is louder than the PS3 fan.

John – How do you use a PS3 as a SKY+ reciever?

I think he means PVR rather than an actual sky receiver.

PS3 if you want this….

GT5

Holy crap.

That

looks

amazing

Holy crap.

That

looks

amazing

Yep – the long awaited and keenly anticipated GT5.

Due out November – PS3 exclusive.

Much, much more on here…
GT Planet

Due out November – PS3 exclusive.

We hope 😉

We hope

Well, there is that – a different story altogether… 🙄

We have all three consoles. Wii is great for parties. I love my PS3 especially the Blu Ray. But the boy loves the Xbox 360. Full internet access on PS3 is good once you get used to it. And as said earlier GT5 is going to be worth the wait. It'll take Forza 3. Place it at the bottom of the Burj Khalifa. Go to the top and sh*t on it from the very top of the spire!