Before anyone calls me an Xbox 360 fanboy, I don’t own one. I own the PS3, Wii, and DS currently. This is gonna be a post showing you factual evidence as to why the Xbox 360 won the last console generation. But before we do that I’d like to explain what happened to make the Xbox 360 so successful and basically sell as much as the PS3. Now one of the few things you have to realize is that prior to this generation the PS2 was (and still is) the biggest success of gaming. It sold I believe 150 million units. The PS1 was a huge success based on it’s huge library of amazing games (I wouldn’t know majority of them as I liked the N64), and it guaranteed the PS2 would be a success. It was. It was a bigger success and was the best console of that generation. You’d think that from the success of the PS2 the PS3 would be an even BIGGER success than the PS2. So what happened to give their competitor the Xbox 360 win the console generation? Sony’s arrogance happened. They charged 600 dollars for a machine with no games, expected you to get to jobs just two afford a PS3, took advantage of their fanbase, and knowingly made their architecture difficult to develop for.
Now onto how the Xbox 360 won the generation. The first reason should be obvious. The architecture was much easier to develop for on Xbox 360. How many developers back in the day complained about PS3 development? A lot. That’s why many developers didn’t make PS3 versions of their games and stuck with Xbox 360 and PC. PS3 ports had to be outsourced. The Xbox’s architecture allowed developers to create better games, in less time, with less trouble. You see what I’m getting at? The next reason is the RAM. Yes, I know RAM doesn’t matter in gaming. I’m aware of this. But the unified memory allowed for certain features Microsoft wanted like cross-game chat and party chat to be included and developers could utilize that RAM for their games. PS3 had a split amount of RAM. So no cross-game chat or party chat. Another reason Xbox 360 was the implementation of achievements. You might say? Well PS3 has trophies? I know this. But not every game HAS trophies. Look at Valkyria Chronicles. My favorite PS3 game and it has no trophies. Look at Resistance: Fall of Man? MGS4 for the longest time had 0 trophy support until recently. In order to activate trophies in GTAIV and Episodes from Liberty you have to go to the multiplayer first rather than being activated from the get go. From day one Xbox 360 had an achievement system. Every game on Xbox 360 has achievements. Some of you might say I don’t care about achievements? You’re a liar. Because why did Steam users ask for achievements? Why did PS3 owners want an achievement system before getting trophies? Exactly. The last reason I have is that the Xbox 360 proves that no matter what history a franchise has to another console, it will be on Xbox if that’s where the market is. What do I mean by this? Third party games. Many games that were originally going to be PS3 exclusive eventually was announced for the Xbox 360. Resident Evil had never been on an Xbox console prior. Resident Evil 5 was then announced for PS3 and Xbox 360. Devil May Cry 4 later was announced for Xbox 360 when it was originally supposed to be a PS3 exclusive. So it would appear on both systems. Grand Theft Auto usually would be a PlayStation exclusive, until it was announced the game would launch on the same day on the Xbox 360 and PS3. The biggest shocker for an originally exclusive game coming to Xbox 360 happened at E3 2008. Where after Square Enix showed off their games coming to Xbox 360 they announced that Final Fantasy XIII was coming to the Xbox 360 on launch day. This was the biggest piece of news in gaming history. I remember seeing that announcement and thinking that’s amazing. Obviously I had heard of the game before and thought it looked amazing but I was saddened about it being a PS3 exclusive because of course, PS3 wasn’t good until 2009-2010. Now if you owned an Xbox 360 you had 0 reason for getting a PS3. That news still has to be the most exciting news in gaming history. Until of course E3 2009 happened and Hideo Kojima announced Metal Gear Solid was coming to the Xbox 360 with Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (back then known as Metal Gear Solid: Rising).
These are factual reasons as to why the Xbox 360 won the last console generation. I’m not saying I <3 Xbox. I have my faults with the system which is why admittedly I have a PS3 and no Xbox 360 anymore (might buy one next year). Some of the issues I have are primarily with digital game downloads not including an online pass, the fact you have to pay for Xbox Live Gold basically so you can use the features of your console, and the online fee is 60 dollars in comparison to PS Plus’s 50 dollar price tag. With the PS4 all ready out and the Xbox One coming out I’m honestly not sure who will win. My personal choice for next gen is PC, as long as they bring Final Fantasy XV (originally Versus XIII) and Kingdom Hearts III (both which were announced for PS4 and Xbox One) to PC I’ll be done with new game consoles. See you all on the next post!