The reason for why the Zune failed is exactly what I said--network effects.

There's about 100x times more accessories for the iPod. The iHome, Car stereo interface/chargers, more cases, etc. etc.

The itunes music store. Far better than anything MS had.

Coolness. The iPod was definitely more stylish and just cooler. I know people who swear by the shuffle even though the shuffle is the most ridiculous overpriced mp3 flash player that ever existed.

Spend five minutes on google and search for review comparisons of the iPod vs the Zune. Almost all the reviewers agree that when it came to hardware, the Zune was much better.

To go back to what TDJ said--same thing with Betamax. Much better technology, but Sony made mistakes in licensing. The reason why Sony was able to get Blue Ray to win the format war was because they bundled it with the PS3 and sold the PS3 at a huge loss initially. This got the technology into consumers' homes and allowed network effects to work--the more people who had Blue Ray players, the more studios would focus on Blue Ray, and so on in a repeating cycle.

MS big mistake was not including a free HDDVD player in the Xbox 360. If they had, I'm sure it would be the dominant format today.



Maybe when the 360 came out, but you can build a gaming PC today for less than $400 that can run Arkham Asylum, Assassin's Creed, BioShock, etc. etc. The PS3 also has better exclusives.

Also don't know what WJB is smoking but iTunes is a great program. Loyal user for years. Was a total memory hog in its early incarnations, but really just a great music player.

I still fail to see how the technology in on 30 gb mp3 player is better than the other. They were the same thing, except the zune had wifi (which was pretty much useless). And for the reasons you mentioned, the iPod was the dominant product. The ps3 isn't a better product than the 360 (I've had both and traded it for a 2nd 360 and a blue ray). The ps3 was awful online (which is my entire gaming experience (stomping noobs on battlefield and COD)). The only thing PS has is blue ray, which is fixed by an average $100 blue ray player

Oh, and definately agree about the early iTunes being a ram eater, it was awful

I still have my zune although I don't use it. The $15 a month unlimited music > 99 cents a song any day, but not being able to get accessories like there was for ipods was what killed it.

I still have my PS3 and would pick it over my xbox360 any day and i have both. Xbox is just collecting dust. I used my PC for online gaming so that could be why I stuck with PS3. And the quality of the blu-ray player, which has been firmware updated to play 3d also, is the same as a $300 dollar unit. Buy a cheap player and sit through the 2-3 minute loadups and you'd rave about the PS3's too. If i played online, besides madden, I might have used the xbox more though.

the PS3 is by far a supior machine. they're not even close spec wise. and the FEW games that are PS3 exclusive are some of the best in gaming. (much like nintendo liscenced games). That being said Xboxlive and it's internet gaming community just destroys the pathetic attempts of the PS3. I actually turn on my xbox and voice chat over that while im playing my PS3, because xbox is so much more user friendly to everyone. most peole I know are pretty serious gamers and have both. we ALL prefer xboxlive over PSN.

and NJ....dont suppose you play DC Universe Online do ya?

Actually, the 360 is by far superior in terms of GPU specs - framerates, shading, textures, fill rates, etc. The PS3 has a slightly faster graphics processor, but not by much, however, it lags in most categories, as I mentioned. Not to mention, a 250 gb hard drive w/4 gb flash and built in wifi. Not to mention, the PS move is complete garbage compared to the kinect

As far as the exclusive PS3 games, sure, there are some like little big planet that people love, but the Halo series has outsold all PS exclusives. It's completely a matter of preference.

Is Microsoft paying for your endorsements and trashing of Sony?
We get it, you're an Xbox guy, big flippin whoop-dee-doo; do you really feel the need to constantly bash the PS3?
Fanboy much?

sorry wags, I'm only correcting misinformation. Blueskies started by saying the zune was superior to the ipod and how the PS3 is superior to the 360 (not really sure how this even came into discussion, since neither are an apple product...). However, neither comment is necessarily true, especially the PS3 being superior to the 360. Given the fact that both are steadily losing the market and the zune has completely failed.

Also, sorry if looking at the specs of a machine makes me a "fanboy". Get a freakin' clue. If you don't like it, go away and don't read it.

How?

It may be now, it was horrible when it came out.

agree the thread got derailed (for whatever reason)
The only way to prove any point about specs is to post the specs. Anything less than specs is opinion. And market share does not necessarily equate technical superiority (see betamax)

the fanboy comment stems from your constant support of XBox and bashing of PS3, and no, you're not the only one acting that way in this thread. Post the stats/specs/facts showing any product is better than the other, otherwise just speculation and opinion...that's all I'm saying.

Sorry man but the bolded part IS prettymuch fanboy spew. some of it isn't true, some of the things you listed both machines have... the exception is the Kinect. I am very excited about where the kinect may lead us in gaming.

Another downside to the xbox that i just remembered, since we're talking about the superiority of the machine itself, is this: I know a TON of guys who have played 360 for a long time. I dont know ANYBODY with a machine over 2 years old. Those machines are just not built to last. I personally am on #3 and don't know anyone who's been gaming for longer than 2 years who is still on their first machine. MAYBE the new model fixes this...im inclined to think not. Microsoft makes money on the machines themselves, not so much the games on it. It's the same tactic that Sony used on the original Playstation. ( I mean common! the only heat vents were UNDER the machine?? really? riiigghht)

Lets be real here Xbox is clearly winning this generations console war, but it is not due to hardware.



Aaaaannnnddd crap I've just completely derailed this thread...sorry.

Хboх 360 System Performance

Custom IBM PowerPC-based CPU
* 3 symmetrical cores running at 3.2 GHz each
* 2 hardware threads per core; 6 hardware threads total
* 1 VMX-128 vector unit per core; 3 total
* 128 VMX-128 registers per hardware thread
* 1 MB L2 cache

CPU Game Math Performance
* 9 billion dot product operations per second

Custom ATI Graphics Processor
* 500 MHz
* 10 MB embedded DRAM
* 48-way parallel floating-point dynamically-scheduled shader pipelines
* Unified shader architecture

Polygon Performance
* 500 million triangles per second

Pixel Fill Rate
* 16 gigasamples per second fillrate using 4X MSAA

Shader Performance
* 48 billion shader operations per second

Memory
* 512 MB GDDR3 RAM
* 700 MHz DDR
* Unified memory architecture

Memory Bandwidth
* 22.4 GB/s memory interface bus bandwidth
* 256 GB/s memory bandwidth to EDRAM
* 21.6 GB/s front-side bus

Overall System Floating-Point Performance
* 1 TFLOP

Storage
* Detachable and upgradeable 20 GB hard drive
* 12X dual-layer DVD-ROM
* Memory unit support starting at 64 MB

I/O
* Support for up to 4 wireless game controllers
* 3 USB 2.0 ports
* 2 memory unit slots

Optimized for Online
* Instant, out-of-the-box access to Xbox Live features, including Xbox Live Marketplace for downloadable content, Gamer Profile for digital identity and voice chat to talk to friends while playing games, watching movies or listening to music
* Built in Ethernet Port
* Wi-Fi Ready: 802.11 A, B and G
* Video Camera Ready

Digital Media Support
* Support for DVD-Video, DVD-ROM, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/RW, CD-DA, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, WMA CD, MP3 CD, JPEG Photo CD
* Stream media from portable music devices, digital cameras, Windows XP PCs
* Rip music to Xbox 360 hard drive
* Custom playlists in every game
* Windows Media Center Extender built in
* Interactive, full screen 3D visualizers

HD Game Support
* All games supported at 16:9, 720p and 1080i, anti-aliasing
* Standard definition and high definition video output supported

Audio
* Multichannel surround sound output
* Supports 48 KHz 16-bit audio
* 320 independent decompression channels
* 32-bit audio processing
* Over 256 audio channels

System Orientation
* Stands vertically or horizontally

Customizable Face Plates
* Interchangeable to personalize the console

PlayStation 3 Specifications and Details

Product name: PLAYSTATION 3

CPU: Cell Processor

* PowerPC-base Core @3.2GHz
* 1 VMX vector unit per core
* 512KB L2 cache
* 7 x SPE @3.2GHz
* 7 x 128b 128 SIMD GPRs
* 7 x 256KB SRAM for SPE
* * 1 of 8 SPEs reserved for redundancy total floating point performance: 218 GFLOPS

GPU: RSX @550MHz

* 1.8 TFLOPS floating point performance
* Full HD (up to 1080p) x 2 channels
* Multi-way programmable parallel floating point shader pipelines

Sound: Dolby 5.1ch, DTS, LPCM, etc. (Cell-base processing)

Memory:

* 256MB XDR Main RAM @3.2GHz
* 256MB GDDR3 VRAM @700MHz

System Bandwidth:

* Main RAM: 25.6GB/s
* VRAM: 22.4GB/s
* RSX: 20GB/s (write) + 15GB/s (read)
* SB: 2.5GB/s (write) + 2.5GB/s (read)

System Floating Point Performance: 2 TFLOPS

Storage:

* HDD
* Detachable 2.5” HDD slot x 1

I/O:

* USB: Front x 4, Rear x 2 (USB2.0)
* Memory Stick: standard/Duo, PRO x 1
* SD: standard/mini x 1
* CompactFlash: (Type I, II) x 1

Communication: Ethernet (10BASE-T, 100BASE-TX, 1000BASE-T) x3 (input x 1 + output x 2)

Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11 b/g

Bluetooth: Bluetooth 2.0 (EDR)

Controller:

* Bluetooth (up to 7)
* USB2.0 (wired)
* Wi-Fi (PSP®)
* Network (over IP)

AV Output:

* Screen size: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
* HDMI: HDMI out x 2
* Analog: AV MULTI OUT x 1
* Digital audio: DIGITAL OUT (OPTICAL) x 1

CD Disc media (read only):

* PlayStation CD-ROM
* PlayStation 2 CD-ROM
* CD-DA (ROM), CD-R, CD-RW
* SACD Hybrid (CD layer), SACD HD
* DualDisc (audio side), DualDisc (DVD side)

DVD Disc media (read only):

* PlayStation 2 DVD-ROM
* PLAYSTATION 3 DVD-ROM
* DVD-Video: DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+RW

Blu-ray Disc media (read only):

* PLAYSTATION 3 BD-ROM
* BD-Video: BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE

FYI - My elite is 5 years old, no issues. Also, of the 40 people in my black ops clan, 2 have had RRODs. 2/40...wow, that's a ton.

Oh, and the slim models cannot get the RROD (they can't overheat, MS remedied that problem, but also, they don't have red LEDs!). So, you're inclination is wrong, again.

never said anything about RROD did I? I said the systems dont last. so far you got 2 out of 40..how many of the others had their disk drive die? hard drive reader fail? System overheat? just to name a few. While i find it hard to believe that your system is 5 years old, I find it utterly rediculous that you have no idea what im talking about with the systems breaking down.

Sorry man...the term fanboy must stand if you cant even admit that the machine is poorly built and not meant to last.