CNET's Prizefight 360 vs PS3, and we object!

by Dustin Burg { Feb 9th 2007 at 6:00AM }

It's time for one of CNET's Prizefights, where they pit competing electronic products against eachother in hopes of declaring one the superior. Their most recent Prizefight has the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 dueling it out for console supremacy, but before you get too excited they haven't crowned a winner yet. It looks like they are splitting this Prizefight into multiple episodes and this is only part one. And wait one second, now that we think of it we're less than impressed by CNET's little Prizefight and how they are awarding points. So far the PS3 is beating the 360, this can't be right ... let the flaming begin!

[Thanks, Darrien]

First, they awarded points for the design category which is pretty straightforward enough, because we all know the 360 is much sexier than that bulky black mirror. But according to CNET the PS3 outstyled the 360 calling it "dark and dangerous and curved like a stealth alien ship that's come to destroy our planet" ... no, we can't make this stuff up. We aren't even going to discuss this one, we'll just grit our teeth and move on.

With the superficial design category out of the way we can move onto the features and of course the 360 excels again, or so we thought. CNET awarded the PS3 maximum points for including more USB ports, media reader capabilities, and forcing a HD format down consumers throats. We guess all those features are nice, that is if you want to pay an extra $200. The 360's UI, online feature set, and upgradable options (like the HD-DVD drive) makes it much more consumer friendly. We turn our heads in disgust CNET, don't you get it?

So that's it so far, the Xbox 360 is trailing with 8 points and the Playstation 3 is holding strong with 10 points after two categories. We have yet to see who ends up victorious in this Prizefight, but do you agree with CNET's points breakdown? We totally understand that the 360 doesn't include as many ports, lacks built-in wireless, and has a power brick the size of a shoe box, but awarding the PS3 a perfect 10 ... it seems a little fishy to us. Just remember CNET, we're keeping our eyes on you ...

Tags: cnet, microsoft, playstation 3, Playstation3, prize fight, PrizeFight, ps3, sony, xbox 360, Xbox360

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Sami Sinerv� @ Feb 9th 2007 6:40AM

That is the most worthless review I've yet to see... They are reviewing them as media units/centers, not as gaming consoles, which should be the primary focus. Then again, they will probably come into games in a coming episode... maybe... let's hope so.

stewis @ Feb 9th 2007 6:51AM

maybe they took there PS3 back after a couple of weeks due to the lack of games and can only remember the good points?

maverick_saturn_626 @ Feb 9th 2007 7:10AM

Well I wouldn't expect 360 to win in every catagory. For example while the technological side of PS3 may be better then 360's as Sony specialises in that, the software side of 360 is better, look at the countless problems people are having with their 360, some have even reported to still get the ring of death even aftergetting it replaced by Microsoft themselves, so lack of good online and a messy software side of PS3 levels out the ammount of times we will have to replace our 360s.

So I give PS3 thumbs up to technology and bluray, but I give 360 thumbs up to top notch software, online and library of games.

Bennyishere @ Feb 9th 2007 7:24AM

CNET made a comparison between the PSP and 360 and named PSP the winner. So I can't say I listen that much to CNET...

Keef @ Feb 11th 2007 1:27PM

Ok, that review is.....yeah, just bad...

The 360 killes the ps3's finger sticking look, its to...."sharp", all the corners are just squared off and not rounded and looks finnished...

and the 360's features just KILLES the PS3's....

even though we dont have built in wireless, lots off USB's, etc, it makes up for that AND some with its downloadable movies, which as far as i know the ps3 dus not have yet, its webcam chat, etc.

and i have a HD-DVD Drive and a Blu Ray player and its all HD-DVD hands down...

tim2006 @ Feb 9th 2007 7:33AM

when will the next part come out

Bangbang... @ Feb 9th 2007 7:51AM

they already did this around the consoles launch and declaired the ps3 the winner because it showed the most promise.

Richard 004PT @ Feb 9th 2007 7:54AM

If there were a style department the ps3 would have certainly wined. No argues there.
However, what they considered was the design of both consoles, and I don’t even have to finish my final year in industrial design, to know that the only good design point in the ps3, is its shell, witch as you may or may not remember, was a prototype rushed for E3 (along with everything else), and designed to attract peoples eyes. From then on it’s quite a downfall. I mean, its impractical, it looks good on it’s own, but its hard to adjust to an environment (the “reflective camouflage” doesn’t count), the few ergonomics of the controller were obliterated, and the list goes on, and on (did I mentioned you cant touch it?).
Has for the 360, sure it might not be as much of an eye candy, but its elegance and simplicity, just make it easy to adjust it to a space, both visually and physically (you could, for instance put something on top of it…. not that you would want that, mind you).
I even made an ergonomics essay about the controller, which granted it (us) top marks.
And lets not even venture to the UI.

I honestly don’t care about ho wins that crazy contest. I’ve had enough about sony and its position towards the ps3. What disturbs me the most, is that I know that all those foul plays and side strategies are eventually going to pay off. I know they did in Portugal. An article comes out after E3 in most of newspapers stating the ps3 is 2x as powerful than the 360, and the real next-gen console (basically all the rubbish sony tossed us) and I’m still seeing its repercussions.

MaxxGold @ Feb 9th 2007 8:20AM

It's funny how upset you fanboys get when you here the truth. The fight isn't over yet and the points they listed do all go to the PS3. Sorry but the PS3 unit is much more out of the box then a 360. Lets see ...Blutetooth....60 gig Hard Drive....Blu Ray...More Usb's...HDMI. I own both systems and I would have gladly paid 200 lousy dollars more for all of that. I spent that alone on the HDDVD add on for my xbox 360.

Terot @ Feb 9th 2007 8:35AM

You know I would almost join this flame war, but I won't. I will just let everyone know that I am happy with my 360 plain and simple. Oh and Wii roxers my boxers!

Dracula Jones @ Feb 9th 2007 9:29AM

"They are reviewing them as media units/centers, not as gaming consoles, which should be the primary focus."

Even as media centers, the 360 is so far ahead of the PS3. Video Marketplace? Can the PS3 stream music, movies, and pictures from my PC like the 360 can? What exactly does the PS3 do better? I'm not seeing its value at all.

Brian @ Feb 9th 2007 9:03AM

I am happy that Sony has a contender. It keeps the 360 on it's toes so it won't end up like Vista, stuffed with rubbish and flaky as hell. I am sure the next XBox 2008/9 will be all the better for competion. Nobody benefits from a monopoly and the console arms race can only benefit me...

Josh @ Feb 9th 2007 9:17AM

"...Blutetooth....60 gig Hard Drive....Blu Ray...More Usb's"

Bluetooth isn't a plus. Tons of people are having issues with their PS3 controllers losing sync or glitching while they are gaming. Bluetooth has a ton of issues with interference with other wireless devices. There is no sync button on the Sixaxis, so when you lose sync, you have to go find your USB cable and plug the controller in.

Microsoft developed their own incredibly robust custom wireless protocol for the 360. Have you ever had a 360 controller lose sync with the 360? That's a cardinal sin for a game console.

The PS3 really needs a larger hard drive than the 360 because the downloaded games are so much larger.

And all of the PS3's USB ports are on the front of the console. That also isn't a plus. I prefer to have some (at least 1) on the back of the console. That is where I have my Live vision camera plugged in, rather than having ugly wires sticking out the front of the console. Stick a USB hub in the back of the 360, and you have all the USB ports you could ever need, and they are hidden away.

Also, when you plug a wireless controller into the 360 in order to charge it, it turns the USB ports on, but leaves the rest of the console off. Brilliant. With the PS3, the whole console has to be turned on in order to charge the controllers.

The cNet article didn't really delve all that deep, it would seem.

Edge of Blade @ Feb 9th 2007 9:35AM

So far, it's a junk review. I think they are full of it, but keep in mind that the hardware round is only round one. Once they get to games, they either have to inflate Resistance beyond the level of Gears, or rely on future games to close the gap. We will see by the end who is getting paid off. 360 doesn't have to rely on Halo 3 to find good games. They are out right now. PS3....everything is in the pipeline and, knowing how Sony operates PR, you can't trust anything they say until you have the game in your hand.

DA360 @ Feb 9th 2007 10:14AM

Well, I know many people know these things but there's sadly allot of people who don't seem to know some of the actual facts of the PS3, just Sony's hype. Like the PS3 in reality actually has a WEAKER GPU than the PS3, and has half of the usable RAM for graphics (which I heard is causing issues with downloadable content and expansions on the PS3 version of Oblivion). I would not be comfortable with paying MORE for a LESS capable system. Plus, the Cell is NOT the "uber processor" everyone thinks it is. Its a real mess of a architecture in reality, one that is extremely difficult to develop for (on or pass the difficulty level of the Sega Saturn, which the development difficulty is the major thing that killed the Saturn) and its about as powerful as the Xbox 360's Xenos in real-world processing. Developing for such a difficult system is time consuming and due to that, drives up development costs. This is why your seeing some companies making their games multiplatform on Xbox 360 or jumping ship to Xbox 360 altogether (since the Xbox 360 is pretty easy to develop for, as many developers say).

Yes, it might have more USB ports but how cheap are USB hubs? Like $10? So what's the problem there. Plus, most people are using wireless controllers so the most were going to have connected to the system is the camera, HD-DVD drive and Wireless (which if you have the HD-DVD drive, all of that can connect to the drive itself, only using one USB port on the system). The only extra thing I see is a USB Storage device, such as a flash drive or USB Hard Drive.

Also, BlueTooth isn't much of a feature, its just how the controllers connect to the system. The only advantage is it allows you to use cellphone headsets, about it (and the Xbox 360 already has a wireless headset). It's also been causing allot of syncing issues with the PS3, and causing disconnects. I am actually glad Microsoft decided to make their own wireless protocol just for the controllers and their accessories since they fine-tuned it to work darn near flawlessly (with the exception of the issues some had with the wireless headsets), though I really wish they would give out the specs of it publicly so 3rd parties can make wireless accessories.

As many people know, the Xbox 360's online service BLOWS away the PS3s, the Wii has a better online service than the PS3 ATM and Nintendo WiFi Connection hasn't even fully launched on the Wii yet. The PS3 doesn't have a ceneralised online service that shows what game your playing, what games you have played, let you join into their game, a GamerScore like system, or anything. They just have a web page marketplace and a indicator that shows when their friends PS3 is turned on pretty much. I also noticed the 360 seems to be the only platform where the Marketplace system is actually part of the interface, instead of a webpage (since the Wii's shop channel is just a web page as hackers figured out, by tricking it to make it go to Google.com)

Also, the Xbox 360 also had one major advantage over the PS3 when it comes to media, it can stream the media from your PC, which most people have their media collection on their PC obviously. The PS3 isn't even compatible to the iPod which is a huge blow with how many people own iPods.

Also, the Xbox 360 has FAR more games, and faired allot better with games at this time of its life than the PS3 currently is. The PS3 had a really poor launch when it came to games, IMO.

Also, BluRay is pretty much useless for games. Its actually a very poor choice for a gaming media since it has slow read times and VERY slow seek times, making it worse (if not at times, far worse) than any DVD drive out there. Plus, I don't see any modern game using 30GB of space any time soon, infact, most are using around 5-6GB ATM.

Also, with how the PS3 cache's 4GB of the games data to the hard drive (to improve load times, kind of a "cover up" for the slow load times of BluRay, and even with this, the load times are about the same as they are on 360), I think after owning like five games, a PS3 owner would be having space issues on their hard drive as well (especally if they have the 20GB unit). So I personally feel PS3 owners will also be having issues with hard drive space. The PS3 does have one advantage though, the HDD is upgradeable, something MS needs to do once they create a bigger hard drive for the 360.

Personally, I don't think the PS3 is worth buying right now, not until some better exclusives become available for it. Because its decently not worth $600 at the moment.

With how Sony's been lying and bashing constantly to promote the PS3, and the poor choices Sony made with the PS3 hardware (and still trying to promote it like its "much more powerful than Xbox 360"), Sony made me actually downright hate a platform for the first time in my life. I always been open to all gaming platforms, but not this one...

So personally, I don't see how the PS3 would be winning any kind of "Prizefight". Unless Sony's hype machine got to them, or Sony's large wallets. Then again, I haven't been too happy with CNET as of late.

(Also, sorry for the long rant post, especally since for some or most here, allot of it is common knowledge).

fox619_master @ Feb 9th 2007 10:26AM

i want the new 360 to urry up and come out! i also want it to come in black, please find some news about it because i need to know how long i have to wait.

Blazer @ Feb 9th 2007 10:44AM

I wouldnt be surprised if Sony paid CNET for this cause lets face it SCEA needs as much help as it can get right now.

MaxxGold @ Feb 9th 2007 11:25AM

# 15
maybe you better read the new reviews for the PS3 version of Oblivion. Less load times and no stuttering like the 360 version.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/762/762108p1.html

Les Doodis @ Feb 9th 2007 12:10PM

Is anyone else appalled by the horrible spelling and grammar in most of these comments?

If the children really are our future, it's going to be a scary one.

sirpilf @ Feb 9th 2007 12:59PM

i own both and i would agree with them for the most part. im more of a sony fanboy then a MS fanboy but i can definitally agree with anyone who thinks the 360 controller was better designed. also their marketplace is WAY better then sony's garbage right now.

with that said tho, i like the console design better, i like the UI better, and i like the hardware features better. i dont want to pay $200 for an HD-DVD addon... i would rather buy it all built in because its cheaper that way. most people who bought the HD-DVD drive, would ahve bought it built in if they could have and nobody can deny it. the people who dont want the HD-DVD drive wouldnt have wanted it built in either most likely.

Merritt @ Feb 9th 2007 12:59PM

#18

Maybe you need to hear the podcast from 1up.com about the expansion, it's going to basically tweak the 360 version to run as well as the PS3.

Wa @ Feb 9th 2007 8:55PM

@18

Amazing what an extra year of development time will do, huh?

Askzander @ Mar 10th 2007 11:25PM

@20

You say you don't want to pay $200 for HD-DVD because it would be cheaper if it was built in. For some reason, though, you don't realize that you paid $200 for Blu-ray, even though it was built-in. The 360 HD-DVD player costs $200. A PS3 would most likely cost $200 less if it didn't have Blu-ray.

Although you would love to believe that the HD-DVD drive is more expensive than PS3's Bluray, you're wrong. The only difference between having the HD-DVD built-in or separate is that you actually have a choice.

In other words, Sony is forcing Blu-ray down your throat, which is why I would never get a PS3. With Xbox 360, you can actually decide for yourself.

Scott Krueger @ Feb 9th 2007 5:04PM

Relax Guys it is Only Round 1 and the Score is Only 10 to 8 in favor of the PS3.

I actually Agree with the Review because I personally thing the PS3 Looks Quite Cool and Packs a lot of Features.

When Round 2 Comes out I am sure the PS3 will win for Backwards Compatibility because well... the 360 sucks at it. But when it comes to Online Service the 360 will win because it is a more mature service that has a years extra content available and the ability to Invite Friends etc while in a game.

Bottom Line is Both are Great Systems for Different Reasons. Both Suck for Different Reasons. I own Both and Love/Hate em both.

But you guys need to relax, Set down your computer and Play a Game.

dex @ Feb 12th 2007 2:00PM

PS3 is just plain sexier.

you guys sound like guys defending their ugly girlfriends. face facts, the 360 looks like a PC from the late 90's.

James @ Feb 9th 2007 9:30PM

I will not lie, I own an Xbox 360, and, for the most part, I like it. Now, in terms of liability, the Xbox is crap! I have had 7 problems with my 360 in over one year. 5 of them were the 3 red rings of death, and 2 were with the power supply. That is bulshit in my book. Now I didn't have to pay for any of it, Thumbs up to Microsoft for that, but it still leaves this bitter hole in my heart. Everytime I look at my Xbox I wonder when the hell it will break again.

Now when it comes to design I am leaning on Cnet's side. If you were to line up all three consoles, side by side, the Xbox 360 looks at least, 1-2 years younger than the Wii and the PS3. The whole flimsy disk tray is completly last generation as well. While the PS3 and Wii have this sleek looking design with no mess.

As for what the PS3 and the Xbox 360, the PS3 is without question better equiped with much more than that of the 360. Blu-ray, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 60 GIG drive, 4 USB, and memory slots. Last I remember my xbox had Three USB Ports, and a "20" GIG drive which is really only 10 GIG. That's it. Everything else is an after thought to Microsoft thrying to rush their product out the door. I had to pay !00 freeking dollars for the stupid Wi-Fi thing, it works, but it is a pain in the butt to have it stick out in the back.

Now with the PS3 you cry once with the price tag of 600. WIth the 360 you cry a little bit less costing 400 But then you are dumped with a 300 price tag just for Wi-Fi and an HD-DVD (Which won't every play games by the way).

Personally I think the PS3 is in it for the long hall. Its like this, you go to a party, get drunk, get laid by drunk crazy chick, have a good time, pass out, wake up with the worst hang over, and also find your parents starrying you in the face. But, the PS3 is a better story. Got the party, you don't drink (and have control over what you do), Still get laid by the drunk crazy girl. Go home, and your parents still think your the perfect little angel that they raised you to be.

Which would you rather do deduct a little fun more by not drinking, have fun doing crazy girl, and look back at it for the months to come knowing you had a blast and did not make a mistake. OR 360 pay a little less by having a little more fun drinking, doing crazy girl, but later you look back at it thinking to your self with no car now that your grounding and saying to yourself maybe I made a mistake.

And that's how I feel when I look at my 360, and I have to save more to get my Future PS3.

Stridery @ Feb 12th 2007 6:25AM

The 360 controller is a much better design as it still has its rumble feature and doesn't have sync problems that blue tooth is known form. 3 usb ports vs 4? oh come on. One port cant make that much of a difference as you can buy usb hubs for close to nothing these days.
I dont care much for the built in wifi as any true gamer uses a wired approach to online gaming.