I dont have much experience with the 360, but I'm in love with my PS3
Pros:
HD games are just incredible, motor storm is probably the best racing game I've seen, (physics wise at least), and GT5 is going to be nuts.
having your a huge music, picture, and ripped movie library is the best feature about the PS3, Whether you support pirating or not. PS3 +
www.phazeddl.com, and the PSP video 9 converter, and youhave a knockout combination. Its blockbuster on your media center. I know 360 can do the same so its not really anything spectacular, but just being able to bring the PS3 to a party and have everything you need all sorted and ready to go is so convenient.
the wireless controllers take only a short time to charge and will last about week- 2 weeks of on off play. they're soon going to add the rumble feature back into the controllers so that should add some much needed weight and feedback. Also the motion control is kind of a nifty feature, though offers nothing near what the Wii can do. The PS3 can register up to 7 controllers which might be a little overkill, but if any games should come out that can utilize this, it would definitely be sweet.
I believe they're going to release a wireless camera for the PS3, so you will soon be able to video chat with your buddies which will be cool.
They're also comming out with a Wii, virtual persistant world where you can create an avatar and have your own custom house. The coolest feature being that you can take your media saved to your ps3 (say a movie), and play it on your virtual TV for all your friends to watch ingame. (whether you have a problem with watching a movie on a virtiual tv, on your tv, its still cool and a nifty way to share your content with everybody). They're also going to use this virtual world as a method for advertising. People will be able t o post moving advertisements and websites on walls in public places.
If you sync the PSP with the PS3, you can use a feature called remote play, where the PSP will switch to the PS3 menu, and you can access all of your content on the PS3 on the PSP wirelessly, which is sweet if you want to take your PSP to another TV, hook it up and watch a movie or whatever that way. They're also adding features like in game PSP sync capabilities, where like the PSP screen will act as a rear view mirror for racing games etc.
The games comming out this christmas are going to be the real make or break deall for the PS3 and the other systems. For PS3 you got GTA 4 and MGS4 comming out. For Wii - smash bros , and xbox has halo. if sony can get the cost down for around christmas, I feel they may have a chance at pulling ahead in th emarket, but who knows when that will be able to happen. I've looked at some of the games comming out in the future and there are some really incredible titles comming out. One game is going to feature the ability configure a battle anyway you wish, want to see what would happen if you had a rocket launcher vs a batallion of WW1 bolt action rifles. Or how about an Uzi vs the british Bren gun. theres something like 200 weapons modelled, and the single player is all about travelling through time to fight battles in history with different weapons. If anyone has looked into the new medal of honor- airborne, its going to feature airdrops with completely nonlinear gameplay. You can land in a different place everytime and have to fight your way to your teammates, should be cool. I would compare Resistance Fall of man to the Playstations version of Halo. The multiplayer is just money, its got voice chat and rediculously huge maps. The different weapons also add a great twist to standard multiplay. One weapon can shoot through walls, another can shoot a tracer round that if it strikes its target, all of the bullets will be drawn to the target, even if they're behind a wall. The aliens can jump higher and run faster with a hit of the R2 button, but the humans have superior fire power. In full HD its just incredible IMO.
The wireless internet is a great feature, but nothing spectacular. It operates fairly smoothly but doesnt replace a computer by a longshot.
I personally haven't tried it for fear of damaging my system, but being able to run Linux looks real cool. And you can easily switch between the standard os and linux on startup so you're not stuck with just one or the other.
Now for the Cons:
the motion sensor on the controller is just kind of akward. When playing gmes like call of duty you sometimes have to use it to twist a primer for explosives, and the weird method of twisting the controller around is really akward feeling. Its almost useless in games like motorstorm seeing as how its impossible to get decent response when going aroudn turns and whatnot. It depends on what they do with it in the f uture but right now its a total failure.
To get movies onto the PS3 is a nightmare, you have to convert them to Mpeg4 and if you use mpeg4 sp, a third of the time the video will fail and the PS3 wont recognize it, or the audio wont sync up correctly, sometimes its worse than others but I've watched movies where the audio was almost 30 seconds off. This can be fixed if you use mpeg4 AVC, but it takes up to 2 and a half hours to convert an hour and a half long movie.
As of right now there are only 2 visualizers that the PS3 features for your songs, which definitely get boring after a while. hopefully they'll release more in the future but as of right now its just no good. Also with the music, theres no way to set it so that the music comes up at the individual songs, they will only appear as the default albums which gets annoying after a while.
The cost of everything is just rediculous now. Games are around 60, controllers and the HD cable are around 50, and it really is not worth it. Even with the high price, they're still producing the units at a loss, which makes me fear that the PS3 might go the way of the Dreamcast, though I sure hope not.
The PS3 is also notoriously difficult to program for, and cross platform games I've heard are just a nightmare trying to convert to the PS3. This could contrbute to the lack of decent games on the market as of yet. But there is some good news, sony is soon to release a new Dev kit that will ease a lot of the problems that the system has been having, so hopefully that will convince more developers to look at this system in the future.
The system is designed for internet multiplay, and so far there havent been many home multiplayer games to enjoy with your friends which is a drag. For now at least its pass the controller play.
The biggest drag for those of you with a dated HD television is that 1080i is barely supported by any games. so unless you want to shell out another thousand on a progressive television, you might just have to settle for the screen constantly scrolling up on 720p setting if you have an HD I tv.
Final Comments:
The PS3 definitely has its ups and downs. The cost, lack of developer support, and the stubborn codec support for movies really bring this system down, but the incredible games, internet features, and easy to use library are just way too much fun. I would say the system is incredible, the company behind it is not. For any of those people are saying this system is a complete failure havent had a chance to really try everything out. And those who swear by it are just fanboys. Its graphics are not that much better than the 360 so far as I've heard, which kind of was the systems main draw. But definitely time will tell who comes out on top. Personally I feel the Wii is a lot of fun now, but just wont have the staying power like 3 years down the road. from what I've seen, its graphics are not that much better than the gamecube and theres only so much you can do with that controller, not to say that it isn't a good option for passive gamers and children ( and if your drunk, wii bowling is just money).
So theres my review. I would give the PS3/PSP combo a rating of 7.5/10 right now. Once some more features come out and the game library and internet features are added, I'd say it would be closer to an 8.8/10. Only time will tell tho.
Cheers