Takes under 10 mins to install a game, saves on noise and also on heat generated by the drive. Its optional as well.
Mine still sounds like a turbine even with a game installed, can't see it reducing heat all that much, instead of a spinning optical drive you have a (slower) optical drive and a hard drive going full pelt. Quite a lot of PS3 games have optional installs (not mandatory), but then never let the truth get in the way of a fanboy argument.
Weird, since my PS3 (40GB model) is quieter than my 360 (all 3 xenons I had plus the falcon I have now). I don't remember offhand, but I think the stock hard drive is a 5400 rpm drive, which runs cool enough. What's nice for those with PS3s and use Toslink for the audio is that there's a port on the console vs having to check if your a/v cable has the Toslink port on it. And God forbid if you use HDMI for video and want to use Toslink for audio...either you pony up for a stupid adapter or you hack a connector shell to slip the HDMI connector on to the 360. Just dumb on MS's part.
I mean my 360 still sounds like a turbine, my PS3 is that quiet I have to look at the LED's on it to see if it's turned on in case my nipper has sat on the BlueTooth remote (again)
I've installed 10 games on my elite 360 with none taking more than 7 minutes including the two discs of Forza 3. Installing is the way to go. saves on a shit load of niose and drive wear. I don't even notice any sound from my 360 when playing games from the HD :thumbsup:
I've found the opposite. That the 360 is *much* more lenient with what it'll play back. Things that the PS3 refuses to touch the 360 happily plays. I've had personal DVD -> MP4 rips fail on playback (or more annoyingly freeze halfway through) on the PS3 whereas the 360 plays back the same files from the same USB drive perfectly. My other big complaint about the PS3 is how SLOW the UI is compared to the 360. Holy shit you have to wait for E V E R Y T H I N G on the PS3. Want to get back to the main menu? Wait a few seconds for whatever you're doing to close. Want to play a demo after you download it? Wait for it to install (I still find this bit annoying). Want to play a new game off disc? Sorry, you have to wait for the install to finish (to be fair not all games are like this but many are). With the 360 I can flip back and forth between whatever I'm doing quickly. On the PS3 even the XMB takes a few seconds to pop up unlike the guide blades on the 360 which shoot up right away. Having all games region-free = PLUS. No option for PS2 BC (not even limited PS2 BC) = NEGATIVE. Oh and the other pet peeve (same one I have with Apple's iPods, iPhones and new laptops) = NO USER REPLACEABLE BATTERIES! I mean, WTF Sony?!? What blooming IDIOT thought it would be a good move to make the primary controller have batteries that CANNOT BE REPLACED when they fail? Sure, it's a good move for the bottom line when the consumer has to drop an extra 50-60 on a new controller but it's certainly not consumer friendly. -hl718
You don't have to be signed into Live to use the console license on a XBLA game on a 360. And the GamerTag license has no console limit. You can use your GT licensed content on *any* 360 you want and on as many of them as you want. And if you want to transfer the console license, that's not difficult to do either. With the PS3 you have to have access to the original console to deactivate the console license otherwise you're SOL. And while you get 5 console licenses on the PS3 (compared to only one on the 360) you get -zero- licenses that are tied to your username. So there's no roaming like on the 360. Basically, if you're at a friend's house and want to play DLC or XBLA game you bought: 360 - Just sign in to your GT, download and go to town. PS3 - Sign in to PSN, activate the console (using one of your licenses), download and go to town. Now with the 360 route, when you leave the license automatically goes with you. With the PS3 route you have to manually remove the license otherwise it stays on the console. You can easily do content sharing with both systems. Which licensing scheme you prefer will depend on situation specifics. -hl718
you must be absolutely joking! it 2000 times the other way around! are you sure you didn't forget to install/activate some codec in the ps3?
For me the 360 will play every resolution avi encoded in DivX or XviD. It plays all DVDs fine including dual layer DVD-R discs that none of my players will play apart from the PC. It also plays MPEG2 files from USB without a problem. The only problems I've had with the 360 is mkv files or mp4 which need to be converted to avi but after that even at 1080p they'll play fine from USB or streaming fromn the PC. If Microsoft add support for mkv and mp4 that would be fantastic but as it stands I use my 360 to watch most downloaded vidoes. Yakumo
mkv is just a container. They'd need to add support for all the other codecs that don't currently work when used in an avi container either. Don't see that happening tbh, but then I never expected them to add MPEG-4 ASP (divx/xvid) support, so who knows. hl718, you might know the answer to this: why does the 360 not support reading from NTFS partitions? Never made a jot of sense to me.
My guess would be that when it's streaming content over the network it isn't "seeing" NTFS at all, just the Windows File and Print sharing protocol or whatever it is.
Nope, not kidding. I've had multiple MP4 files fail to play back on the PS3 whereas on the PC and the 360 they play happily. Xvid AVIs are the same thing. If you have a Divx file made with the Divx tools, it'll play fine on the PS3. But if you have an Xvid file chances of PS3 playback can be spotty whereas the 360 will just play it. The Xbox 360 does support MP4 files. You simply need to download the media update from Live (Silver Membership works for this). Try to play an MP4 file and it will tell you you need the media update. Follow the prompt to download the update from Live. After that MP4 and AAC will both work without issue. What is doesn't support is 5.1 AAC. If you want 5.1 you need to either convert to WMV or stream across the network. For TV shows and most movies however I just convert to MP4 with H.264 video and 2.0 AAC audio. The original Xbox 360 flash had limited space for the OS. Supported items needed to be carefully chosen. FAT32 has no permission issues. NTFS does. Had NTFS been implemented, then MS would have also had to implement support for permissions as well as overriding said permissions. Those lines of code add up and eat valuable space. Not to mention the customer support calls that would arise. FAT32 is just "dumb storage" and it is also something that is supported across Windows, Linux and OS X. MS went with the "Keep it simple stupid" route for removeable media here. -hl718
Mine is 2 years old and still holds a charge for about 2 weeks of regular use, far longer than my brand new 360 charge and go kit. By my reckoning by the time the battery is useless in it we will be moaning about which is better, the XBOX 720 or the PS4. @Yakumo I have an old old model of 360, it's not just the drive that's noisy on mine, it's the fans as well, even when playing DVD's in "quiet mode" it's still twice as noisy as the PS3 going flat out.
My 360 is here =) Amazon didnt even estimate dispatch until tommorow. And Im supposed to be revising!
