Editorial: Will The $299 Xbox 360 Elite Be Tough Competition For The $299 PS3 Slim?

As we steer forward into the holiday season and Sony has showed what they are bringing to the table (lower PS3 price, PS3 slim), it is natural to see response from their rivals and Microsoft has aimed to fight back hard. Rumors are circulating on the Internet that Microsoft is poised to drop the price of the Xbox 360 Elite to $299 very soon, and engadget has received a clipping from a Wal-Mart ad showing a reduced price of $299. The Elite is the most feature-rich, and expensive standard variation of the console to date. It includes a 120 GB hard drive and a matte black finish. The Elite retail package also includes 1 month Gold trial Xbox live membership, HDMI 1.2 cable, HD/SD cable, and a wireless controller with headset that match the system’s black finish. Microsoft cut Elite’s price tag from $449 to $399 back in September 2008, which is almost a year ago and definitely strengthens the possibility of this happening.

I’ve played the Xbox 360, and while I never really grew into it I’ve always respected its offerings and community. It’s a great device, and the number sold have proven that. Many of my friends have them and what has built its popularity is that if your friends have one, you have to get one. The controller is good, but I have used both and I prefer what comes with the Playstation 3. Some like both, some prefer the 360 controller, some prefer the Playstation controller. There isn’t a way to say which one is better. I just happen to think that I perform more fluently on it because I have muscle memory from using it while owning a Playstation 1 and 2.

The Xbox 360 Elite sold at $299 will be very difficult for the PS3 Slim, only because people will blindly say that they are much more similar in features (games, hard drive, wireless, etc) and the Xbox Live community is better. The communities are not better than one another in any sense – when I am playing a popular title, it is not difficult to get online with the PS3 and have multiplayer opponents within a few minutes of starting the game. I’ve proven that with a video I shot called “Five Minutes Of Battlefield 1943 on the Playstation 3,” which shows me on a boat, in a tank, and in a plane all online killing people in less than five minutes from launch.

I honestly have found many mature and immature people on Xbox Live, and the same on Playstation Network. It’s like hanging out in the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars. Some have said that there seems to be a higher concentration of mature players on the Playstation Network, which is generally true in my experiences, but then again you will come across juveniles in Playstation Home or other socially enabled games. However, what remains true to this day is that Xbox Live is a paid service, and the online capabilities of the PS3 is free. That is a value that you cannot deny, and please don’t sit here and try to tell me that you pay for what you get, or that the quality of the online experience is better. As the Playstation Network fleshes out beyond how it already has, I feel that Sony will continue to demonstrate that their free service is worth a gamer’s time. You don’t need to pay money to have a good time online with a console.

I also wanted to comment to some of the online services Microsoft has implemented with the Xbox 360, such as Netflix, Twitter, Facebook, and so forth. While some of these services are unique and valuable, I can also access some through the PS3’s web browser that has flash support. So, while a built-in client is nice, its not impossible on the PS3. I would like to see Sony embrace more social media avenues with the PS3, and it’s unrealistic to say that Sony cannot do that. It is most certainly possible with the PS3.

Another point is that the 360 doesn’t use Blu-ray, which is extremely advantageous to Sony because it allows a game, such as Final Fantasy XIII, that could take 3 discs on DVD’s for the Xbox 360 to only be one Blu-ray disc for the PS3. I hate changing discs. Plus the movies look unbelievable – I’ve seen Comcast HD VOD, ripped HD discs, Comcast HD cable, and other “HD” and there is just something about Blu-ray quality that in my mind is superior than the rest of the generic offerings today. See Blu for yourself on the proper set up (big screen, HDMI, correct color settings, good audio) – it really is the ultimate experience. Anyone who has watched a Blu-ray movie at my house and has seen HD elsewhere is usually stunned by the quality, and those people are usually the ones who aren’t phased by such things. Why would I want to bind myself to a console such as the Xbox 360 that only has DVD capability, when the PS3 has Blu-ray and DVD. It’s a no-brainer.

The hard drive argument is really irrelevant. The PS3 allows you to replace your hard drive with any compatible sized equivalent at ANY capacity (such as 500GB, 1TB, etc). The sky is the limit. So yes, both consoles going forward will have the same hard drive space, but I can expand the PS3 and to do that on the 360 is a very expensive and proprietary situation. As for software and upcoming hardware, I won’t say one thing or another about Microsoft’s Natal for the 360 nor will I really delve into the PS3’s upcoming Motion Controller. Those are still in progress, and to say one is better than the other without using the final product is silly. Natal is very exciting, and is sometimes overall more exciting, but I also see great strengths in the accuracy and the know-how Sony already has with the EyeToy.

It’s tough to compare games, because that is a very biased argument, but I can assure you that there is definitely something for everyone coming to the PS3 in the next six months and it will push the bar beyond what is available now. The line up of upcoming PS3 games is simply unbelievable. I understand that not all of them are exclusives, but they are there. I honestly think when we see a MMO or two in the next year that is only possible on the PS3 then you will see what advantages this hardware really has. A 256 player FPS on one server games such as MAG is really the beginning of large scale gaming that the PS3 will use to gain more users down the road, and upcoming MMO titles such as Final Fantasy XIV (an area in the game is pictured above) will absorb millions of reoccurring users. I don’t see that kind of longevity, nor sheer size with games in the Xbox 360. I think that if anything, investing in a 360 is almost useless at this point because it sure seems possible Microsoft is going to do a significant hardware refresh within the next two years, and I don’t see Sony doing that to the PS3 for at least another four.

With these facts and thoughts in mind – which I’m sure make sense to many people – I’m just not sure why its even a competition at all.