lol Xbox is for casuals
But hey already said it many times, consoles are becoming more and more PC's.
Why not just buy a pc then?

The 360? No way! I only use my PS3 for streaming movies (HD), listening to music (streaming MP3s over my LAN) . It has a direct connection to my pc. The 360 is for games only. If someone claims, the 360 is better for media than the PS3 - please tell me why!

Solaris17when were consoles ever good for gaming? It was great back in the day of the PS2 PS1 even the OG xbox. but nowadays its a mixed bag of fail. Instead of developing for the console or PC itself they mix both worlds which leads to at launch bugs for both platforms. skyrim crashing on every console known to man. and PC games with almost 0 graphics tuning options because their "ports" imo it isnt "is PC gaming dead" its turned into "is gaming dead?" Lets take a look at trends for a min. What pops up on forums 2 weeks after a game launch. From what iv seen over the past several years it goes something like this.

1 week prior: Now announcing whicked cool game that might have this this and that

Launch day: Wicked cool game review including changes from the pre-release demo

1 week after: After playing the game for a week we reviewd it some more the replay value is this. its a system killer and we have a bunch of screen shots

2 weeks after launch: Help i fell through the floor and I saved what do? Help it crashes ever 10min. Help my xbox blew up. Help my PS3 hardlocks 20min into game.

3 weeks after launch: Patch/Patch/Patch/Patch/Patch

1 month After launch: Patch/Patch review on looking back and how the game is still f@#$%d also $300 DLC 10+ minutes of game play, and if you order now we will ship you a pair of scissors with wicked cool game engraved on them!

+1 to this.

The problem is not enough gamers complain about it, and that we keep buying games that years ago would be considered to be in beta. So of course companies are going to keep pumping out games in their current state.

kid41212003When i had my PS3, I used it to watch netflix 90% of the time.

I gave it to my mom, and she's been watching Netflix on it... 100% of the time.

There you go.

If that was the case you can buy a Netflix enabled Blu-Ray player for half the price of a PS3 that would have also gotten you better PQ vs. the PS3.

TannhäuserThe 360? No way! I only use my PS3 for streaming movies (HD), listening to music (streaming MP3s over my LAN) . It has a direct connection to my pc. The 360 is for games only. If someone claims, the 360 is better for media than the PS3 - please tell me why!

You've been missing out of best possible Picture Quality, something the PS3 lacks. You are better off buying a good Blu-Ray player that does what you need.

I mostly use my 360 to stream video content from my computer so I can watch it on my old tv.

I don't think that gaming is dying, I simply think that people do way too much of everything for a console to only bve used for one thing. This isn't the days of old school atari where you bought the game console all in one and hooked it up to your tv and then when you wanted to play a different gameyou had to buy another game console.

So basically most use consoles as media center PCs I'm cool with that. This means that it will make more sense for console makers to mold their consoles to PCs rather than making them unique gaming machines. This will make porting alot better and make services that might have been exclusive, available on everything.

gaming isn't dying, pc gaming isn't dying. They're just molding to modern needs and unfortunately attention spans. (hence the slew of sub 10 hour games)

Super XPYou've been missing out of best possible Picture Quality, something the PS3 lacks. You are better off buying a good Blu-Ray player that does what you need.

I though it was the other way around? I've used both my 360 and PS3 to stream HD content and haven't noticed a difference, but that's just me. It was always my understanding that the PS3 mopped the floor with the 360 in terms of picture quality.

Well I use my Xbox 360 for only gaming, that is just my 2 games Forza 4 and borderlands.

I see where they are coming from though the 360 and PS3(my sister only uses it for Netflix 90% and game 10% she doesn't even turn on here 360 Elite anymore) have gotten very boring they have been out so long. I hope this doesn't make them think that for the next gen console the primary use will be TV, Movies, Music ETC. and game secondary.:banghead:

To think that consoles are now primarily used for its online services is ludicrous.
The internet is taking over EVERYTHING. Pretty soon we will all have the outer shell of our houses lined so that we can input a user name and password at the front door in order to get in, and if your isp is down, your SOL :banghead:

DaMobstaYou've obviously went through hell with these consoles, I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm pretty sure not everyone's had the same experience as you. Needless to say I do agree that the current gen is already bad for its intended purpose.

I think you assume far to much. Infact I myself have never had a problem with a game on a console. On any including the current gen. I do however love to read news articles and reviews ALL the time.

I use my PS2 just for gaming :P It's not even wired to the net. I just use it for offline singleplayer games.

xenocideThis is the most important factor. Pushing for that 7-10 year life cycle on consoles makes it so people stop gaming on them because there is nothing new or original after 4-5 years.

Or it could also be because programming on consoles now is EASY MODE compared to years ago. Even at the end of it's life new stuff was coming out on SNES that everyone would have thought to be impossible to run on it back when it launched.
Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, and then those awesome ports of Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter Zero/Alpha.

PS2 was also pretty hard to code for, and GT4 looked HEAPS better than GT3 and most other launch titles. Again, if you saw what the PS2 was doing at launch, you would've thought GT4 to be far beyond it's capabilities.

But these days when a new console comes out it'll have a nice SDK. There's a lot less of that hacking directly into memory stuff that used to go on long ago.
I'm not saying we should go back to the old days, but i'm just tossing my thoughts out there as to why consoles become dated so quickly these days. We live in an era of easy mode.

I have a PS3 and an Xbox360, and I can agree with Microsoft. Both primarily are used for streaming video, either from netflix or my own collection. In fact I moved the PS3 from the living room and replaced it with one of these Sony Network Players and havn't noticed the difference. It even has the same interface as the PS3.

Dos101I though it was the other way around? I've used both my 360 and PS3 to stream HD content and haven't noticed a difference, but that's just me. It was always my understanding that the PS3 mopped the floor with the 360 in terms of picture quality.

I'm with you. Really when watching movies I don't see how anyone can say one has an advantage in picture quality over the other, and with games the argument can go both ways. With movies I don't see how there could really be that much difference, they are both just taking a digital image, and sending it digitally to the TV, I don't see how there could be a major difference assuming that they aren't applying some kind of affects to the image, which IMO always makes them look worse anyways.

TheMailMan78These systems (some flops) had a kinda "magic" to them. These new consoles just feel like water down PC with one or two exclusives that are not system sellers. I want a REAL console for a change. I guess this is why I enjoy my 3DS so much. The games just "feel" right. IMO the last real console was the Dreamcast.

getting rid of cartridges ruined it imho:)

and they use gfx chips from different sources and im sure that the gpu's in question have/had different bit depths etc and either way nvidia v amd ,regardless of which you prefer ,most notice a difference between images on them, imho amd's colours are better and the picture looks less grainey to me but that my opinion.:)

I use my xbox as a brick to raise the cable box/HTPC up so the remotes works since I refuse to buy anymore since ive had 3 RRoD on me and all I play is racing games and hockey infrequently.

Prima.Verathat netflix is ~10$. I pay the same amount here for 100+ cable tv channels + phone + 50Mbps Internet....hmmm....

What does here mean? Let me know the package you are signed up for so I can get all that for
~10 dollars. May be you are one of the .00000000001% of the population that gets such a deal.

Dj-ElectriCA gaming Console... not for gaming

files.sharenator.com/1_I_Dont_Want_to_Live_on_This_Planet_Anymore-s500x282-295658-580.jpg

So you don't like a smallish box that can do anything related to entertainment PLUS play games? WTF is wrong with you?

TheMailMan78None of these new consoles have the magic the older generations did.

1989: Sega Genesis
1989: TurboGrafx-16
1991: SNES
1993: Atari Jaguar
1993: 3DO
1994: Sony Playstation
1994: Sega Saturn
1995: Nintendo Virtual Boy
1996: Nintendo64

These systems (some flops) had a kinda "magic" to them.

So true and games for them were simple but so interesting and addictive.

I still play NES and Playstation games from time to time. Looks like these old consoles will never die. ;)

btarunrlistening to music, and watching TV through their Xbox 360 consoles. Gaming on it, comes next.

Yeah im sure music sounds great with the hairdryer fan noise of the xbox... lol

I was planning to buy one to use as a MS media extender. No games.

Gaming is one thing... but then it does almost a dozen other things. I can see why the Xbox is no longer a gaming machine.

newtekie1I'm with you. Really when watching movies I don't see how anyone can say one has an advantage in picture quality over the other, and with games the argument can go both ways. With movies I don't see how there could really be that much difference, they are both just taking a digital image, and sending it digitally to the TV, I don't see how there could be a major difference assuming that they aren't applying some kind of affects to the image, which IMO always makes them look worse anyways.

Wasn't Microsoft accused a while back of making third party video services video quality inferior to their own offerings? I could be wrong but I swear there was a big thing about that when they updated the 360 to its current dashboard. But yes, apart from the PS3 supporting more video formats, there really isn't a quality difference between the two.
Then again I use PS3 Media Server so all the decoding is done on my WHS, so I'm getting the same signal to both my 360 and PS3 regardless.

Gamed on Sega Master System II, NES, SNES, PSX, N64, Xbox [<--modded with XBMC while all others were purely game boxes, still own but the move on to higher def media has outdated it so it's rarely used any more].

Were more robust that todays consoles (YLOD/RROD and other issues commonly mentioned on the net today) hence why I saved and moved onto my current PC that I've been happy with ever since (I had a P4 alongside those consoles so I haven't slacked off on my IT skills :) ).

Anyway, consoles from me are mainly for gaming (when I just wanted to sit down and play without fiddling with settings etc) and PCs are for when I want to fiddle with everything :)

Dos101I though it was the other way around? I've used both my 360 and PS3 to stream HD content and haven't noticed a difference, but that's just me. It was always my understanding that the PS3 mopped the floor with the 360 in terms of picture quality.

They are not 1080p native, they are both 720p native, but upscale to 1080p. But the updates to the firmware have provided better PQ versus when they got released.

Cheesus, what is with you people... lighten up a little. :laugh:

I'm a gamer. I love games! I have found numerous games I enjoy on everything from the PC, PS3, 360, everything in-between and all the way back to the Atari 2600, Coleco, and PC (TX). :toast:

Sure not everything that comes out is not a AAA Blockbuster. But that's no to say there aren't dozens of gems and tons of fun to be had!

And on a side note, I use my 360 mostly for streaming Netflix and Hulu these days. That's mainly b/c I've been playing Skyrim, Deus ex, and BF3 (god I hate "battle log"...) on my PC. :toast: