Since I own a Wii and only a Wii, does that make me a more objective judge in all of this?
The Xbox 360 is the better system, IMO, and the public seem to be voting in agreement with their wallets. In fact, in several months' time the question posed by this thread may become moot -- many would-be PS3 owners have been sitting on their hands waiting for their favorite exclusive to come out (including GTP members waiting for GT5), and if Ace Combat and Devil May Cry are any indication, Sony may lose enough exclusives to lose much of its fanbase, as those would-be owners decide to buy the 360 with its easier-to-swallow price.
Even if that doesn't turn out to be true, those would-be owners are still putting Sony between a rock and a hard place. Game developers look at console sales when deciding whether or not to release for a system, but consumers look at game releases when deciding whether or not to buy a console. If consumers don't buy enough consoles (and the PS3 isn't doing particularly well), game developers will avoid the platform (or at least exclusivity deals), which will in turn cause consumers to avoid the console, causing more game developers to avoid the platform.
I'm afraid the PS3's situation may already be snowballing into this, and it won't have the low price that helped the GameCube maintain a faint pulse throughout its similarly-plagued run.
But enough about sales and public opinion. Here's my own:
From what I understand, the PS3's Cell processor, despite its multiple cores, collectively runs at 3.2Ghz (as listed at
Wikipedia). If this is true, the hardware capabilities of both systems are roughly the same, and the whole "superior hardware" argument can be thrown out as far as I'm concerned. This is certainly supported by the games that have appeared for each system thus far, which all look about the same. PS3 developers have yet to pull the rabbit out of the hat and produce anything that indicates a huge reserve of power.
If I think the hardware is comparable, why do I think the 360 is better? Good question. Well, first of all, although the 360 had its own hiccups early on, I've never seen a game console bog down and freeze as often as the PS3 does at my local EB. It isn't even turned on half the time, because there's almost no point in bothering -- playing MotorStorm at a slow-motion 10 frames per second or less isn't fun for anyone. I know the problem is being caused by overheating, but the 360 (apart from the first few weeks) and Wii don't seem to be having any problems in their enclosed cases, and the old PS2 they used to have
never failed, to my knowledge, despite living in a case that was even worse-ventilated than the PS3's.
Then there's the quality gap between the excellent Xbox Live and the PS3's online system, which from what I've heard is
goofy, at best. Speaking of quality, although I love my PS2 and a friend of my loved his PSP, they're not what I'd call "well-built," particularly the controllers and the PSP's buttons/stick/d-pad. Even beyond the cheap controllers, my PS2 reminds me of something like an old Alfa Romeo -- absolutely wonderful,
when it's working. Sometimes it'll DRE a basic PS2 CD. Sometimes it'll load GT4's dual-layer DVD instantly. I don't understand it. This uncertainty combined with the brand-new technologies in the PS3 have me worried.
Maybe it's just because of their daunting size, but the Xboxes have seemed much more durable than any Sony product, and the only Xbox/360 controllers my friends have ever had problems with were third-party ones, which always fail the same night that you buy them.
But most important (as it seems to be with everyone's opinion of the PS3) is value. I don't even need to say anything other than "$600 USD." Just...no. I didn't even want to spend the dough a 360 commands. I just use my friends' whenever I'm hanging out with them.
So, to sum up, I think the 360 is superior because the PS3...
- is overpriced,
- doesn't have much more potential (if any more) than the 360,
- appears to be too prone to overheat and screw up,
- is overpriced,
- has a yet-unproven and reportedly goofy online system,
- uses relatively untested technologies, including a revolutionary processor and new-format disc drive, yet was built by
Sony, and
- is overpriced.
...and the 360...
- is decently priced,
- doesn't have much less potential (if any less) than the PS3,
- appears to be about as prone to screw up as any Microsoft product (which, if I'm honest, really isn't
THAT often)
- has a proven and well-fleshed-out online system,
- uses more-dependable technologies and has proven to be acceptably durable, but most importantly,
- has a great game library that interests me more than the PS3's, and it's only getting better.
Honestly, if the 60GB PS3 retailed at, say, $300, I think the public would be going wild over it like they did on launch day, but because they
want it, and not because they want to turn around and make a huge profit on eBay. Its price is its biggest flaw. It just happens to have other, smaller flaws that make the price seem that much worse.
) one would be the lesser without the other...
But going by pure stats, the PS3 has the edge on a technological basis. It may appear slight now, but who knows what developers will be able to do with it in a year or two.
) and others, I can wait until the end of 2007 if not later, to get into the next gen world. 
