Xbox 360 vs PS3... my view

Well, Mike Ponter asked in a comment yesterday what is better Xbox 360 or Playstation 3.

There are a TON of opinions out there on this topic, moat of which are way more "hardcore" than me and get into all the technical factors... but here is how I came to choose the Xbox...

Factor 1 - cost

A quick look at the consoles on amazon as a typical retailer shows the following:

Xbox 360 with 60gb HD (the standard version) - available from 199 Euro
Playstation 3 with 80gb HD (standard version) - available from 330 Euro

Winner: Xbox 360Factor 2 - Graphics

Here is where you can get into near religious discussions if you go around the internet... Basically my opinion is that they are pretty similar. Most of the side by side comparisons look almost identical to me. Here area a couple I pulled off of google image search on popular games. (from techeblog.com and maxconsole.net)

I can't really see the difference, and since I don't have a high definition TV, it does not matter all that much anyway. I would say to me this was so close it was a non-factor but the technical boffins at large seem to say that PS3 has a slight tech edge.

Winner: DRAW

Factor 3 - Hardware

Another tricky one. I would say there are two parts to this as well. Hardware design and hardware quality. I am going to have to give both to Sony on this one. Not that the Xbox is particularly ugly, but the glossy black PS3 really does look good in the living room.

The PS3 also includes a blu-ray player, which as a standard def TV owner is not interesting, but it is in there.

Xbox also had pretty well documented catastrophic hardware failures on the first generation of consoles, but they are well past those problems now.

All things considered though...
Winner - Playstation 3

Factor 4 - Games

Basically, all good games get released on both consoles. There are a couple of exclusice titles, but not that many really. Exclusivity is mostly timed these days anyway, so at the worst it means you may have to wait a bit to get a certain game on your console.

Cost of games is basically the same for both too.

Winner - Draw

Factor 5 - Community

Here was another biggie for me. Xbox live is awesome. That is it. I plugged in my Xbox and within the first 5 minutes, I was chatting with Mike Starr, who also happened to be online. Xbox Live lets you play with friends, chat with them, and just kind of do stuff together. You can see if the console is turned on and what your friends are doing, decide if you want to join them or invite them over to do stuff with you.

Of course, what made that more compelling for me was how many of my friends have an Xbox already...
Gord
Mike
Jay
Dave
and a few others....

I know PS3 has recently launched a similar service, but it is by all accounts not as good as the Xbox live one. Also, I only know one other person with a PS3. Much smaller potential for fun...

Winner - Xbox by a mile
So for me personally, the cost factor and community factors were so compelling that it was an easy choice. Xbox 360 is way better for me. The places where Xbox is better, it is MUCH better and the places where PS3 wins are close calls or not important to me as a conusmer.

Get an Xbox, join the crowd. My gamertag is Frazamagorf, feel free to add me anytime.

The Mighty Xbox

I just realized today that I had not made any blog post about the fact that I did indeed purchase and Xbox 360 for Christmas...

Just around the end of last year, Microsoft decreased the price of the Xbox 360 in Europe yet again. If you look online now, the Pro system with the 60GB HDD is going for 219 Euro. I actually purchased the older 20GB model, and I bought a display one (they rotate it out every 3 weeks at this store) and got it quite a bit cheaper.

It looks like this:
At the moment I don't have much in the way of games, but I have really been enjoying the glory of free demo versions you can download. I don't really play xbox for very long at a time, so getting to try out the first level or two of a game has really met my needs.

Special thanks to Gord for giving me his extra copy of this game:
It is an amazing looking game that is big fun... which I am really really horrible at. Even on the easiest level I get destroyed. In the good old days, I was rather skilled at the shooter genre, Duke Nukem 3d for example... Now I just suck.

Liam likes the Xbox too, but I already thought it was a bit too much like TV and got him a little worked up. So no more Xbox watching for him for a few years. There will be plenty of time for video games as he gets older. As it was, he very quickly became obsessed with:

As you can see, he certainly knows the genre he likes best. He and I are both happier when he is playing with his real lego though. That is still the best.

I am using the Xbox mostly as a media centre the last days, something that Claudia can actually appreciate too. It is much better experience watching shows from the xbox than my laptop. There are still a few technical infrastructure things I would like to do with the set up, but there is plenty of time for that kind of action.

Oh, if any xbox people read this and want to add me as a friend, my gamertag is FRAZAMAGORF. I think you can thank Rob Savelle for that name, he invented it when we were about eight years old.

Carnival Time

It is once again Carnival time. A time when Germans dress up in costumes and have lots of parties. Although Claudia and I don't bother with the whole costume thing, Liam certainly does.

This year there was great lengthy discussions surrounding which of Liam's obsessions would win the costume race. It looked like Policeman was a front runner for weeks, but then he went back to Fireman.

Here is the proud little fireman.

He ran around the room talking into the little plastic radio for a while "Hallo Zentrale? FEUER!" Then he wanted to go look at himself in the mirror.
needless to say, he was impressed with his new look.
In fact, after a moment or two of looking at himself, he loudly announced he was going to give himself a kiss.
Liam certainly has no issues with self esteem.

Another exciting Product!

Once again, the marketing geniuses in the food industry have created a brilliant new product that has sucked me in based on how strange it looked.

Pepsi has made "Pepsi Light Mojito" flavour. Here is the delightful bottle that caught my eye.
Just in case you don't know what a Mojito is, it is an alcoholic beverage containing Rum, Sugar, Lime, Carbonated water and mint leaves. You can read more about them here.
I wondered both how and why Pepsi would come up with this, but after just a few seconds, I did not care and had to give it a try. I am not really one to pass up an opportunity to try strange and potentially repulsive food. I would most likely drink rat-cola if the bottle looked funny.

Anyway, first I opened up the bottle and gave it a good sniff.
basically it smelled like regular Pepsi. I did not really detect any citrus or mint smells. Just the cola and sweetness that I would expect to come from the mundane version of this tasty beverage.

I gave it a long, slow, out of focus pour next.
No real shock here, but it had the same consistency and look of regular Pepsi. As I poured it, I think I could detect a hint of mint wafting into the air though.

Then the moment of truth...
The first taste was again not really unlike normal Pepsi, but like so many of these "special editions" the taste seemed to grow stronger as I consumed more of the drink. By the end of the glass, the mint and lime were quite noticeable. There was of course no rum flavour, but since rum is distilled from sugar and Pepsi is already mostly sugar, I am not sure what they would have done there.

As far as the enjoyment of the drink... it was ok, but nothing too sensational. Not repulsive at all, but also not amazing. I think if I really wanted these flavours, I would get a much better taste by just tossing a mint leaf and some lemon/lime juice in a regular pepsi.

This was just the latest in my series on absurd foods purchased from our gas station.

Green Tea Flavoured Coke
Beer Flavoured Chips and more opinions...
Dr. Pepper Cherry Vanilla
Toaster Schnitzel
Swiss Hot Dogs
Hawaiian Toast

Tragedy Strikes!

Well, over the weekend there was an accident of epic proportions in our house. My beloved smart phone went in to the washing machine. It did not stay in for the full cycle, but it was certainly fully submerged while turned on.... almost certainly destroying it.

I have removed it and taken it apart as much as I can to let all the bits dry out, and after a couple of days to maybe a week I will try plugging it on and seeing if it has survived. My hopes are low. From what I have read on the source of all knowledge (the interwebs) it looks like the phone is about 90% sure to be dead.

I wrote a haiku about my phone:

My HP handy
You were more than just my phone
I mourn a lost friend

It is not like I really used it as a phone, I probably had less than 20 calls since I got it 2 years ago, but it is all the other functions I will miss. the SMART-part of the phone. Here are the things I used the phone for...

1) Alarm Clock
2) Linked to work calendar
3) Address Book
4) Weather checker (WiFi)
5) all my text documents (recipes, etc)
6) Camera
7) Digital wallet (images of all important personal documents)

Also, HP has not have any sweet offers for smartphones since this one, the best deal I can get from work at the moment is something around 380 Euro, which is 600CDN in case you need some frightening math. If I had 400 Euro sitting on the table in front of me right now, I can think of a lot of things I would be buying before this.

An Actor is Born

I just came back from Liam's theatrical debut.

His kindergarten just did a little play, and I am ashamed to say I cannot remember the title, but give me a break... It was something about little animals in the forest.

The curtain opened on some kid with the fantastic role of "snowman" who basically stood there for the length of the production. Very few lines, but lots of stage time.
Then the parade of animals came out. First some little birds, then deer, then at long last.... THE PORCUPINE!!!

Liam's only lines were supposed to be "knusper knusper" which is apparently the noise porcupines make when eating, but ever the professional, Liam broke character and looked out into the audience, pointed at me and yelled out "THERE IS MY MAMA AND PAPA!"
There was some more shuffling around and the animals did some stuff, most of which escaped me, but it was not exactly Hamlet.

The big finale was a song the kids all sang. Then they took their big bow and Liam again piped up and yelled out "SEE FRAU KRAHWINKEL, I TOLD YOU MY PAPA WAS NOT AT WORK."
A Star is born?