Xbox 360 vs PS3

[SoloDolo]

Somehow today I just learned that the PS3 outsold the Xbox 360.

PS3 - 87.4 million units
Xbox 360 - 84 million units

I’m not a console war guy, but this blew my mind. Everyone I knew had a 360. Nobody talked about the PS3. Not to mentioned the infamous PlayStation 3 reveal drama at E3…

Xbox 360 is generally regarded as one of the best consoles of all time adding to my shock.

Anyone else surprised by this?

 

[Mike Straw]

The PS3 had a surge in the mid-late generation. The free online multiplayer was a big selling point that, once they started dropping the price of the console -- the PS3 Slim was $299 -- it led to A LOT of people jumping over or at list picking one up to go along with their Xbox.

A big reason Xbox 360 is seen as the "dominant" console of the time, is because it doubled the sales of the PS3 in North America (46M to 23M). In Europe, though, the PS3 outsold by 5 million and in Japan, it sold 10.4M compared to Xbox 360's 1.66M

 

[Kvally]

In addition, the PS3 was sold in more than double the countries than the 360. So every Tom Dick and Harry you know might have had a 360, but those in the remaining countries don't know you. The PS3 was also a fast way in for Blu-ray.

I don't know if MS ever provided an official final tally of Xbox 360 consoles sold. But AMD had made 100.6 million Xbox 360 GPU's. I assume many of those were for RROD?

 

[SoloDolo]

So every Tom Dick and Harry you know might have had a 360, but those in the remaining countries don't know you.

They don’t know me?! I can’t believe this.

 

[Faultandfracture]

It really shows how badly Microsoft dropped the ball when they were only 3 million consoles behing at one point

 

[Nukumizu007]

PS3 hands down, TLOU, Uncharted 1,2,3 GOW3 ,killzone3, Assassin's creed ezio trilogy Black flag, COD MW all of them were a blast it was the best generation of gaming for me

 

[Jivesh]

I preferred Xbox for a lot of that gen but Sony slowly pulled me back. Icing on the cake was The Last of Us.

 

[flux32]

360 felt huge at the time, but Sony played the long game with the Slim and free online.

 

[solvix]

Honestly I miss when console generations actually felt different from each other.

The PS3/360 era had obvious corporate mistakes, but companies still felt like they were taking creative risks to define the future. Xbox pushed online infrastructure hard, Sony doubled down on ambitious first-party games, Nintendo went completely sideways with the Wii. Everyone had a distinct identity.

Now a lot of the industry feels way more homogenized. Bigger budgets, safer design, endless live service chasing, layoffs every other month, and publishers optimizing for retention metrics instead of memorable games.

What’s funny is I recently came across some examples of gambling game bonus systems and mechanics in this article, then checked the actual sites/games themselves, and weirdly enough those studios often feel more willing to experiment with presentation and hooks than AAA gaming does right now. Which is crazy considering how mechanically limited that genre actually is.

You look at some of those games and can tell there are genuinely talented designers/artists/devs there trying to find new ideas inside a very restrictive format. Meanwhile a lot of major game studios with infinitely more creative freedom keep shipping increasingly safe products.

Feels weird that games are technically more advanced now, but I probably remember more experiences from 2007-2013 than from the last 5 years combined.