• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The best ENGINEERED console of each generation

cireza

Member
With the 360 you have to take into account the RROD, and everything that went wrong, every generation SONY feels elite providing DVD, blue ray, potentially 8K graphics. Nintendo 100% takes advantage of creativity, and does it well. When they had Wii sports people went crazy.
Sony consoles have been extremely unreliable overall. PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 are all prone to a lot of issues. Shops had to stack Sony consoles to send for repairs, while Microsoft actually offered a real replacement service with UPS at home. From my experience, and even though I had to replace two Xbox 360, it was still better than the issues I had with both PS3 (fat and slim), where it took a lot of time to get replaced and was annoying as hell.

If you want to talk about reliable consoles, you talk about N64, Saturn, Gamecube, OG Xbox. These are consoles that had very few issues.
 
Last edited:
The 360 wasn’t just doomed because of the rrod, it also shipped without an hdd potentially holding back an entire generation of games. It also lacked a Blu-ray drive which also limited some games to just 7gb. Its better than the ps3 in some ways but at least the ps3 shipped with HDDs and included a Blu-ray drive with every console. The cell also let them produce some of the best looking games of the Gen despite the split ram pool. By the time the gen ended, the ps3 had far better looking games than the 360.
My original launch model had a 20gb HDD. The core model had no HDD but obviously could upgrade. At that time most games just played off the disc like the previous generation so no features were really lost or anything. But the true spec had the hard drive. The PS3 basically needed a hard drive cuz the Blu-ray drive was really slow so the HDD really helped with games.
 

Flutta

Banned
OP basically shat his own thread by choosing 360 as the better engineered console compared to PS3. I mean it’s like RROD didnt happen….
There’s no console in history that broke down as much as that piece of shit. I remember using towels to make it work lmao. And we have people here defending that shit. Disgusting.

SG > SNES - its a hard one for sure. I might be wrong with this one.

N64 ❤️
Dreamcast ❤️
Xbox OG ❤️

PS2 > GC even tho i enjoyed Gamecube alot. Loved those small discs.

PS3 >>>>>>> 360 🤮
Anyone with common sense would agree.

PS4 > XBO
Not much to say here really.

XBX > PRO Cerny shat the bed here.

PS5 = Series X.
Too early to tell.
 
Last edited:

DaGwaphics

Member
OP basically shat his own thread by choosing 360 as the better engineered console compared to PS3. I mean it’s like RROD didnt happen….

Depends on how you look at it. Moore's law was working in full force then, so, just like the Xbox and PS2, a system that released a year later even at an equivalent price should have had distinct advantages over the competition. That should have been magnified even further if the newer system was more expensive. That's not what happened though and 360 stood tall as a great performer. Thus, the engineering that went into developing the target specifications and gauging the performance potential was on point. The reliability of the system early was a problem, but everything from the slim forward was fine.
 
2nd: Atari 2600
3rd: NES
4th: SNES
5th: PS1
6th: Dreamcast
7th: Wii
8th: PS4 if we aren’t counting refreshes or mid gen upgrades. If those count, Scorpio
9th: hands down XSX. So quiet, so cool, so powerful.

actually thinking back, I might replace DC with the OG Xbox. The PS2 gets points subtracted for all the DRE problems, same with PS3 and 360 with their manufacturing problems.
 
Last edited:

kuncol02

Banned
OP basically shat his own thread by choosing 360 as the better engineered console compared to PS3. I mean it’s like RROD didnt happen….
There’s no console in history that broke down as much as that piece of shit. I remember using towels to make it work lmao. And we have people here defending that shit. Disgusting.

SG > SNES - its a hard one for sure. I might be wrong with this one.

Dreamcast ❤️
Xbox OG ❤️
N64❤️

PS2 > GC even tho i enjoyed Gamecube alot. Loved those small discs.

PS3 >>>>>>> 360 🤮
Anyone with common sense would agree.

PS4 > XBO
Not much to say here really.

XBX > PRO Cerny shat the bed here.

PS5 = Series X.
Too early to tell.
PS3 is as badly engineered piece of shit as X360. How much was Sony loosing on each one of them? There are sources that say they were loosing 300$ on each 20GB unit. DS3 is also worst controller of at least last 20 years. PS3 launch was so big disaster that Sony get rid of Ken Kutaragi because of it.
 
Last edited:

Xyphie

Member
When people say the PS3 is poorly engineered compared to 360 it refers to the hardware architecture itself. Looking at it in retrospect Sony basically made the worst decision they possibly could with every component choice (Cell, an old GPU without unified shaders, bespoke (XDR) and non-unified RAM). Basically everything in the PS3 was a technological deadend and they did a complete 180 with the PS4.

PS3 is probably the worst designed but actually successful console of all time.
 
Last edited:

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
My original launch model had a 20gb HDD. The core model had no HDD but obviously could upgrade. At that time most games just played off the disc like the previous generation so no features were really lost or anything. But the true spec had the hard drive. The PS3 basically needed a hard drive cuz the Blu-ray drive was really slow so the HDD really helped with games.
The arcade model ensured that devs couldn’t code assuming the hdd was there.

OP basically shat his own thread by choosing 360 as the better engineered console compared to PS3. I mean it’s like RROD didnt happen….
There’s no console in history that broke down as much as that piece of shit. I remember using towels to make it work lmao. And we have people here defending that shit. Disgusting.

SG > SNES - its a hard one for sure. I might be wrong with this one.

N64 ❤️
Dreamcast ❤️
Xbox OG ❤️

PS2 > GC even tho i enjoyed Gamecube alot. Loved those small discs.

PS3 >>>>>>> 360 🤮
Anyone with common sense would agree.

PS4 > XBO
Not much to say here really.

XBX > PRO Cerny shat the bed here.

PS5 = Series X.
Too early to tell.
Xbox was better because it came out a year later and was $100 more expensive. Ms was caught off guard by cerny and had to quickly announce the console so early they only had the tflops number.

Cerny was also way ahead of the curve by introducing checkerboard resolutions and adding hardware for it. He came so close to matching native resolutions even DF couldn’t tell them apart without counting the pixels.

X1x is the better console but they had the advantage of a full extra year of dev time and a bigger budget than cerny. I played BF1, Titanfall, FF15, Mass Effect, and several other big AAA games in 2016 and 2017 at higher resolutions while the Xbox owners waited.

Cerny did the best he could with a $400 budget. Vapor chamber cooling alone costs $20~30. Cerny had a couple of dollars. Look at what he did with a $5 cooling system.

Better console x1x. Better engineered console ps4 pro for that price. Both cerny and ms fucked up by not using zen cores in the pro models.
 

ManaByte

Member
The arcade model ensured that devs couldn’t code assuming the hdd was there.


Xbox was better because it came out a year later and was $100 more expensive. Ms was caught off guard by cerny and had to quickly announce the console so early they only had the tflops number.

Cerny was also way ahead of the curve by introducing checkerboard resolutions and adding hardware for it. He came so close to matching native resolutions even DF couldn’t tell them apart without counting the pixels.

X1x is the better console but they had the advantage of a full extra year of dev time and a bigger budget than cerny. I played BF1, Titanfall, FF15, Mass Effect, and several other big AAA games in 2016 and 2017 at higher resolutions while the Xbox owners waited.

Cerny did the best he could with a $400 budget. Vapor chamber cooling alone costs $20~30. Cerny had a couple of dollars. Look at what he did with a $5 cooling system.

Better console x1x. Better engineered console ps4 pro for that price. Both cerny and ms fucked up by not using zen cores in the pro models.

It's not just the power of the console, the X1X is also a smaller and sleeker box than its predecessor.

The Pro is just two PS4s stacked on top of each other.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
It's not just the power of the console, the X1X is also a smaller and sleeker box than its predecessor.

The Pro is just two PS4s stacked on top of each other.
The chip size is the same. The console is bigger because of the cheaper cooling solution.

The console size comparison should only come into play when you have a situation like the Xbox one and the ps4 where the ps4 was 40% more powerful, $100 cheaper and still came out smaller. Otherwise we should give the best engineering award to Nintendo consoles which are always smaller.
 

RetroAV

Member
It seems like people are factoring in stuff like build quality, heat, noise level, features, size, etc. I don't care about any of that! Me personally, I'm factoring in what the console was able to output graphically relative to its time of release & price. So, if you're coming out after the competition, you better blow the competition away! No excuses!

So...no, you won't get bonus points from me for releasing 2 years later (SNES) and only be better in...number of colors & sound effects, but then run at lower resolutions, and also include extra chips within cartridges to make up for hardware oversights.

No, you won't get bonus points from me for releasing a year later (GCN), beating out one console (PS2), but then losing to the other one (XBX). Even if the price was cheaper, you got what you pay for. For the same price as a PS2, you could have purchased an XBX which was an insane value! GCN was of great value when compared to a PS2 (stronger, cheaper), not an XBX (cheaper, weaker). The only way I would have given the edge to the GCN is if it had been released a year before the XBX but it did not, winner: XBX.

Also, I'm not including mid-gen refreshes. I'm judging by what they came to the dance with from the get-go (which should explain X360>PS3, and PS4>XB1).

Anyways, I'm just trying to give credit where credit is due. Regardless of which ones I picked, I enjoyed each and every one of these consoles in some form or another.
 
Last edited:

cireza

Member
OP basically shat his own thread by choosing 360 as the better engineered console compared to PS3.
Both consoles are super unreliable anyway. On paper, they were both well made, but in reality, it was a shit-show. If reliability has to be taken into account, we can ignore quite a big number of consoles honestly.

For example Dreamcast. The console was super powerful, well balanced, great looking. A huge step forward. But it had rebooting issues, and it was pretty common.
 

Flutta

Banned
PS3 is as badly engineered piece of shit as X360. How much was Sony loosing on each one of them? There are sources that say they were loosing 300$ on each 20GB unit. DS3 is also worst controller of at least last 20 years. PS3 launch was so big disaster that Sony get rid of Ken Kutaragi because of it.
You really tried didnt you 🤣

68% FAILURE RATE

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/original-360-defect-rate-was-68-per-cent


At least PS3 worked as intended. Alot of people still has their launch unit working to this day.
 

Heimdall_Xtreme

Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
It's hilarious that this forum will bitch and moan if one door in a game has a bad texture yet they'll give the 360 a pass for the rrod. I've owned almost all the major consoles since the 4th gen and nothing was a lemon like the 360. Not even close. The software was great but from a hardware standpoint it's the worst console ever built.
Exactly... Xbox 360 could had great games.... But the console hardware is a garbage... And for this... Is one of the worst consoles ever.
 
By the time the gen ended, the ps3 had far better looking games than the 360.
That is some huge fanboy hyperbole. Also, it sure was not the last of us.

Your statement about 360 not having an hdd is also ridiculous because games usually loaded faster on 360 just off the disc vs. ps3's partial installs but on top of that there was the full install option for every game on 360 unlike ps3’s partial. Ps3 hdd was pretty much just to offset the slower blu ray drive.

Ps3 had a handful of games that looked somewhat more impressive than 360 counterparts (killzone 2, motorstorm apocalypse, gow ascension) but gears of war 3 didn’t look inferior to uncharted 3 for example. And you had project gotham racing on xbox which looks better than any ps3 equivalent type racer, ditto forza for its 60fps counterpart gran turismo. You had stunners on both consoles.

Blu ray at that point wasn’t much benefit beyond just the durability aspect… the discs manufactured for 360 were sub par and some of my discs like rayman are already rotting, it’s hard to believe. Some games used blu ray for more texture variety but that’s about the biggest benefit. It definitely helped a few ps3 exclusives and I definitely wish 360 got blu ray overall.

And plenty of good looking games got completely bastardized on ps3, where the reverse was rarely true… like ff13? But even then, ff13 on 360 wasn’t like bayonetta ps3.
 
Last edited:

GymWolf

Gold Member
Agree with every choice and even the reason for the choice… except i would give gen 6 to gc.. dreamcast gdrom drive sounded quite a bit

btw anyone saying ps5 over series x is quite delusional. Series x is conpletely silent and way smaller/more compact. Ps5 has both coil whine AND louder fan - while still managing to be the biggest console i have ever owned. Oh and it looks like an asus router from 2005. Ps5 is easily sonys worst built console (behind even ps3 slim imo)
And to add to that, sex is also more powerful.
 
Was still loud in demanding games and much louder than One X many new CUH 7216B also had coil whine.
Any one of these PlayStation or Xbox units may have coil whine. My 72xxx model unit was decently quiet with no whine. The original pro was a hair dryer.

One X was definitely a better designed unit vs. 4 pro minus the disc drive. One X was pointless to me besides emulation.
 
Both consoles are super unreliable anyway. On paper, they were both well made, but in reality, it was a shit-show. If reliability has to be taken into account, we can ignore quite a big number of consoles honestly.

For example Dreamcast. The console was super powerful, well balanced, great looking. A huge step forward. But it had rebooting issues, and it was pretty common.
Yeah, both 360 and ps3 were power hungry, space constrained and used early led free solder. Not a good combo.

360 had it worse no doubt, but ps3 wasn't much better in terms of rrod vs ylod.
 

Flutta

Banned
Yeah, both 360 and ps3 were power hungry, space constrained and used early led free solder. Not a good combo.

360 had it worse no doubt, but ps3 wasn't much better in terms of rrod vs ylod.

Love the sneaky but but PS3 YROD, as if it was a huge issue. We talking RROD that reached 68% failure rate vs what 0.7-1% for YLOD? Not even close, not even a little. RROD was on an entirely different scale. A manufacturing failure of EPIC proportions. Perhaps one of the worst in history.


ace ventura deal with it GIF
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
2nd Gen: Atari 2600

3rd Gen: NES

4th Gen: SNES

5th Gen: PS1

6th Gen: Gamecube

7th Gen: Wii

8th Gen: Xbox One X

9th Gen: Switch
 

Romulus

Member
UPS literally had their own line for people sending back broken 360s where I lived. A regular line and broke 360s haha. What a colossal pos, but a damn good chipset when it worked.
 

01011001

Banned
UPS literally had their own line for people sending back broken 360s where I lived. A regular line and broke 360s haha. What a colossal pos, but a damn good chipset when it worked.

to be fair tho they fixed most issues real fast. the first revision was way better and the second one was basically immune to the RROD. not even counting the Slim which was just a sexy beast
 

01011001

Banned
Love the sneaky but but PS3 YROD, as if it was a huge issue. We talking RROD that reached 68% failure rate vs what 0.7-1% for YLOD? Not even close, not even a little. RROD was on an entirely different scale. A manufacturing failure of EPIC proportions. Perhaps one of the worst in history.


ace ventura deal with it GIF

the YLOD is a 100% failure rate, it just is a matter of time.
the capacitors will go bad and your fat PS3 will brick... some models can be repaired, some can't
 

Romulus

Member
to be fair tho they fixed most issues real fast. the first revision was way better and the second one was basically immune to the RROD. not even counting the Slim which was just a sexy beast

Do you have a source for failure rates and release dates of each revision? Because I had problems out of all 3 of the 360s I owned. I lived with my brother and another roommate and everyone was sending their shit back for 2-3 years at least.
 
Last edited:

01011001

Banned
Do you have a source for failure rates and release dates of each revision? Because I had problems out of all 3 of the 360s I owned. I lived with my brother and another roommate and everyone was sending their shit back for 2-3 years at least.

there are always those with bad luck.
my cousin literally had 5 defective Wiis that he bought from different stores in the timespan of 4 weeks.
he returned the first 3 and got a replacement from the first store, but at the third Wii he gave it back and tried his luck at another store... that Wii died within 7 days lol

the same person (he is VERY unlucky :pie_roffles:) just recently had a bricked PS5 lol

I had the launch 360 which I sold after 12 months to get a PS3 (big mistake... VERY BIG MISTAKE) and I had a Falcon. that Falcon died on me as well. but not due to a RROD but due to a software bug that makes the system think the network module is broken (which it isn't)

my second Falcon (never had a Jasper, which should be completely immune to RROD) lives to this day and has thousands of play hours behind it.
My very first launch model Slim also works still (but that one has a bugged power brick... which is annoying to deal with but it works)

there's always a chance to get totally unlucky with 5 broken Wiis... and the chance to be super lucky and still have a working launch model 360.
 
Last edited:
I don't get how the X360 is being considered the "best engineered console" of the 7th-gen when an engineering flaw in that console cost Microsoft over $1B in warranty replacements and refunds.
Perhaps there's some lack of understanding on what "engineered" actually means here?

Engineering: the branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures.

Concerned with the design of structures? Sounds like you could use it and architecture interchangeably when it comes to discussing game consoles, because the literal definition of:

Architecture: the complex or carefully designed structure of something.

...isn't that radically different.

Here's what Robbie Bach, the head of Xbox during the X360 era, had to say about the X360 in his book called "Xbox Revisited":



In terms of CPU+GPU architectures and performance I do agree it was the best console of its generation. Getting 3 of Cell's PPE in parallel together with ATi's R500 that was the first-ever implementation of unified shaders (ATi's own GPUs with unified shaders would only appear almost 2 years later) got them excellent results, especially when compared to the PS3's frankenstein mix of a forward-looking CPU focused on FP throughput and an old DX9 GPU.

So then you agree it's the best engineered of its generation when it comes to architectural design? Because that's still fitting the point of the thread.

But processing architecture and performance is not what engineered usually refers to.

That's how many, many people have been using the term in relation to discussing console architecture design for at least the past two years, if not longer. Terms take on different usage in different fields and different sectors of those fields. Gamers probably use engineering in the way most of us have been doing ITT; professional senior system engineers may or may not, depending on if it's in a business environment vs. casual talk on a podcast.

PS2, 360, PS4, XB1X, XSX.

The Switch is an odd thing. Is it last/current gen? i'm not looking for an argument but whatever you think it is....it's the best engineered console. It might be "weak" or low powered but god damn it still impresses me almost 5 years on. Nintendo fucking nailed it with the Switch.

Joy-con Drift alone pretty much bars it from that title IMHO. SNES & Gamecube controllers were much better ergonomically and in terms of durability/reliability, too.

The 360 was definitely not the best engineered system of its gen. Apart from the RROD problem and jet engine fans, there was the issue that when turning the console around while it is on, the disc inside would slip off center and get scratched to destruction. That is probably the definition of bad engineering.

Sounds like a repeat of the original PlayStation, then. But that wasn't the best engineered of its gen either from a durability/reliability POV either so eh.

I would say the PS3 was best in its gen. It was not flawless either (YLOD, but not as common as RROD of 360 afaik), but the Cell processor and especially the Blu-ray drive were innovative.

In what world was Blu-Ray "innovative"; it was just a larger-capacity DVD for higher-resolution video playback. And Blu-Ray players were already on the market prior to PS3's release.

PS3 had nowhere near the effect of rapid, universal Blu-Ray adoption the same way PS2 did for DVD, either. I'll agree the Cell was very innovative in terms of processor design, but Blu-Ray? That's a reach xD.

The 360 wasn’t just doomed because of the rrod, it also shipped without an hdd potentially holding back an entire generation of games.

I don't think these "doomed" anything and if 3Ps had such an issue with 360 not having a HDD they'd of just treated it like they did the Wii (which not only lacked a HDD but also lacked the processing power of 360 and PS3).

It also lacked a Blu-ray drive which also limited some games to just 7gb.

If a game needed more space then they just used 2 or more DVD ROMs. Multi-disc things were a practice since the early 1990s, publishers would've found a means of working with the space or using more discs (it's not like they costed anywhere near the price of cartridges; they also costed less than Blu-Ray discs).

Its better than the ps3 in some ways but at least the ps3 shipped with HDDs and included a Blu-ray drive with every console.

Those are two factors in favor of PS3, sure, but Blu-Ray was seen as (and in many ways WAS) a hindrance for the first few years. Also, let's not pretend 360 didn't ship with HDD; the more popular of the two models shipped with a HDD.

The cell also let them produce some of the best looking games of the Gen despite the split ram pool. By the time the gen ended, the ps3 had far better looking games than the 360.

Far better? That's a bit of a reach, and also comes down to tastes. As good as a game like GT5 looked for example, Forza Motorsport had a more "complete" look partly because they didn't do some dumb "premium cars" thing to make up for overambitions and bad time/resource management. Most multiplats still looked and ran better on 360 towards the end of that gen.

You really tried didnt you 🤣

68% FAILURE RATE

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/original-360-defect-rate-was-68-per-cent


At least PS3 worked as intended. Alot of people still has their launch unit working to this day.

That was for the launch units and units manufactured up until somewhere in 2007.



SSFF has a great mini-doc on RROD it also clears up some of the misconceptions surrounding what the nature of it was, and what systems were (and weren't) affected.

In total, RROD mainly affected the first 12 million 360s manufactured from the 2005 - early 2007 period. However, because some of those were still in distribution channels even when the revised units showed up, Microsoft had to hedge their bets and provide extended warranties for all the units regardless, in case someone purchased a system affected by RROD.
 

sendit

Member
OP basically shat his own thread by choosing 360 as the better engineered console compared to PS3. I mean it’s like RROD didnt happen….
There’s no console in history that broke down as much as that piece of shit. I remember using towels to make it work lmao. And we have people here defending that shit. Disgusting.

SG > SNES - its a hard one for sure. I might be wrong with this one.

N64 ❤️
Dreamcast ❤️
Xbox OG ❤️

PS2 > GC even tho i enjoyed Gamecube alot. Loved those small discs.

PS3 >>>>>>> 360 🤮
Anyone with common sense would agree.

PS4 > XBO
Not much to say here really.

XBX > PRO Cerny shat the bed here.

PS5 = Series X.
Too early to tell.

Agreed. I can relate, went through 3 360s.
 
Playing Dreamcast at 640x480 via VGA felt like the future until the HD generation arrived. It's not even a bad shout for it's generation given it bridged the gap between home & arcade better than most before it with some stellar ports.
It had the hardware.. it had the accessories…..it had the games but sega couldn’t organise a root in a brothel at the time and pretty much fucked the non us countries with staggering the game releases and trickling the hardware out at a stupid price when Sony was pretty much carpet bombing everything.

I see some very funny parallels between Sony today and sega back then
 

Romulus

Member
there are always those with bad luck.
my cousin literally had 5 defective Wiis that he bought from different stores in the timespan of 4 weeks.
he returned the first 3 and got a replacement from the first store, but at the third Wii he gave it back and tried his luck at another store... that Wii died within 7 days lol

the same person (he is VERY unlucky :pie_roffles:) just recently had a bricked PS5 lol

I had the launch 360 which I sold after 12 months to get a PS3 (big mistake... VERY BIG MISTAKE) and I had a Falcon. that Falcon died on me as well. but not due to a RROD but due to a software bug that makes the system think the network module is broken (which it isn't)

my second Falcon (never had a Jasper, which should be completely immune to RROD) lives to this day and has thousands of play hours behind it.
My very first launch model Slim also works still (but that one has a bugged power brick... which is annoying to deal with but it works)

there's always a chance to get totally unlucky with 5 broken Wiis... and the chance to be super lucky and still have a working launch model 360.


Yep, seen it and heard the horror stories. But I wonder what the factual evidence is for the "improved" versions vs the first iterations. I'm sure it was better, but do we know how much?
 

01011001

Banned
Engineering: the branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, and structures.

Concerned with the design of structures? Sounds like you could use it and architecture interchangeably when it comes to discussing game consoles, because the literal definition of:

Architecture: the complex or carefully designed structure of something.

...isn't that radically different.



So then you agree it's the best engineered of its generation when it comes to architectural design? Because that's still fitting the point of the thread.



That's how many, many people have been using the term in relation to discussing console architecture design for at least the past two years, if not longer. Terms take on different usage in different fields and different sectors of those fields. Gamers probably use engineering in the way most of us have been doing ITT; professional senior system engineers may or may not, depending on if it's in a business environment vs. casual talk on a podcast.



Joy-con Drift alone pretty much bars it from that title IMHO. SNES & Gamecube controllers were much better ergonomically and in terms of durability/reliability, too.



Sounds like a repeat of the original PlayStation, then. But that wasn't the best engineered of its gen either from a durability/reliability POV either so eh.



In what world was Blu-Ray "innovative"; it was just a larger-capacity DVD for higher-resolution video playback. And Blu-Ray players were already on the market prior to PS3's release.

PS3 had nowhere near the effect of rapid, universal Blu-Ray adoption the same way PS2 did for DVD, either. I'll agree the Cell was very innovative in terms of processor design, but Blu-Ray? That's a reach xD.



I don't think these "doomed" anything and if 3Ps had such an issue with 360 not having a HDD they'd of just treated it like they did the Wii (which not only lacked a HDD but also lacked the processing power of 360 and PS3).



If a game needed more space then they just used 2 or more DVD ROMs. Multi-disc things were a practice since the early 1990s, publishers would've found a means of working with the space or using more discs (it's not like they costed anywhere near the price of cartridges; they also costed less than Blu-Ray discs).



Those are two factors in favor of PS3, sure, but Blu-Ray was seen as (and in many ways WAS) a hindrance for the first few years. Also, let's not pretend 360 didn't ship with HDD; the more popular of the two models shipped with a HDD.



Far better? That's a bit of a reach, and also comes down to tastes. As good as a game like GT5 looked for example, Forza Motorsport had a more "complete" look partly because they didn't do some dumb "premium cars" thing to make up for overambitions and bad time/resource management. Most multiplats still looked and ran better on 360 towards the end of that gen.



That was for the launch units and units manufactured up until somewhere in 2007.



SSFF has a great mini-doc on RROD it also clears up some of the misconceptions surrounding what the nature of it was, and what systems were (and weren't) affected.

In total, RROD mainly affected the first 12 million 360s manufactured from the 2005 - early 2007 period. However, because some of those were still in distribution channels even when the revised units showed up, Microsoft had to hedge their bets and provide extended warranties for all the units regardless, in case someone purchased a system affected by RROD.


the PS3 didn't even have a hardware scaler chip, meaning many games didn't even get scaled up to your output resolution, and early HD TVs were EXTREMELY bad with upscaling images
 

01011001

Banned
Yep, seen it and heard the horror stories. But I wonder what the factual evidence is for the "improved" versions vs the first iterations. I'm sure it was better, but do we know how much?

I know for sure that the Jasper version (the last FAT model) was bascially as save as you can get with a console.
the Falcon version (which is one I still own and I just recently used and still works fine) is not completely save from the RROD but way better than the launch model.

they moved components around and shrunk the chips, which in return produced less heat and needed less power. which in combination basically fixed the issue for the most part.
the Falcon still has the original GPU but a shrunken down CPU. while the Jasper has both chips shrunken significantly.

there was also the Chronos, which is the Jasper but with better eDRAM chips, not really worth bringing up since it is a small upgrade.

as soon as the Trinity dropped (first gen Slim) you had an extremely sturdy system. that had a super shrunken down SoC that combined CPU and GPU


edit: speaking of the XBox 360 models, I wonder if someone on here ever had or still has an Opus model 🤔 that's a rare one. that was a Falcon board that missed the HDMI port. it was only available as a replacement for old Xenon consoles. basically if you sent in a Xenon 360 after the Falcon was already out (~mid 2008), there was a chance that they would replace your motherboard with a modified Falcon board that fits inside a Xenon case (which had no HDMI)

should be pretty rare
 
Last edited:

Romulus

Member
I know for sure that the Jasper version (the last FAT model) was bascially as save as you can get with a console.
the Falcon version (which is one I still own and I just recently used and still works fine) is not completely save from the RROD but way better than the launch model.

they moved components around and shrunk the chips, which in return produced less heat and needed less power. which in combination basically fixed the issue for the most part.
the Falcon still has the original GPU but a shrunken down CPU. while the Jasper has both chips shrunken significantly.

there was also the Chronos, which is the Jasper but with better eDRAM chips, not really worth bringing up since it is a small upgrade.

as soon as the Trinity dropped (first gen Slim) you had an extremely sturdy system. that had a super shrunken down SoC that combined CPU and GPU


edit: speaking of the XBox 360 models, I wonder if someone on here ever had or still has an Opus model 🤔 that's a rare one. that was a Falcon board that missed the HDMI port. it was only available as a replacement for old Xenon consoles. basically if you sent in a Xenon 360 after the Falcon was already out (~mid 2008), there was a chance that they would replace your motherboard with a modified Falcon board that fits inside a Xenon case (which had no HDMI)

should be pretty rare


Interesting info. But what I'm getting at is we don't really know factually how much of an improvement each iteration was?
 
Last edited:

01011001

Banned
Interesting info. But what I'm getting at is we don't really know factually how much of an improvement each iteration was?

Not sure, but at the time the "word" around was that the Falcon is pretty save and the Jasper is 99% save. i never saw hard stats on them, but I also know noone that had a broken Jasper... my first Falcon dies as I said but due to a software bug
 
I know for sure that the Jasper version (the last FAT model) was bascially as save as you can get with a console.
the Falcon version (which is one I still own and I just recently used and still works fine) is not completely save from the RROD but way better than the launch model.

they moved components around and shrunk the chips, which in return produced less heat and needed less power. which in combination basically fixed the issue for the most part.
the Falcon still has the original GPU but a shrunken down CPU. while the Jasper has both chips shrunken significantly.

there was also the Chronos, which is the Jasper but with better eDRAM chips, not really worth bringing up since it is a small upgrade.

as soon as the Trinity dropped (first gen Slim) you had an extremely sturdy system. that had a super shrunken down SoC that combined CPU and GPU


edit: speaking of the XBox 360 models, I wonder if someone on here ever had or still has an Opus model 🤔 that's a rare one. that was a Falcon board that missed the HDMI port. it was only available as a replacement for old Xenon consoles. basically if you sent in a Xenon 360 after the Falcon was already out (~mid 2008), there was a chance that they would replace your motherboard with a modified Falcon board that fits inside a Xenon case (which had no HDMI)

should be pretty rare
Falcon had a slightly shrunk gpu : 80nm vs. 90nm in the Xenon launch model.

Jasper had both an 65nm cpu and gpu.
 
really? I always heard that only the CPU changed for Falcon... mhh, interesting.
Yeah. If it was still 90nm it would not have been as much an improvement.

My friend's Xenon model died and the falcon model I sold him lasted 6 or 7 years but then got rrod. But. Let's just say his house wasn't clean so :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 
Last edited:

Retinoid

Member
Launch PS3.

Piano black, Spiderman font, touch controls, 4 USB ports, Other OS, full PS1 and PS2 support via hardware.

Krazy Ken's masterpiece.
 

Romulus

Member
Launch PS3.

Piano black, Spiderman font, touch controls, 4 USB ports, Other OS, full PS1 and PS2 support via hardware.

Krazy Ken's masterpiece.


Except for the cell processor that powered it was a complete pos. In hindsight, it's even worse.
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
Good thread. hard to separate my favorite from the best engineered console.

First Generation
- N/A - I dont have any experience

2nd Gen:
- N/A - I dont have any experience

3rd Gen:

- NES

4th Gen:

- SNES

5th Gen:

- PS1

6th Gen:

- PS2

7th Gen:

- Xbox 360

8th Gen:

- PS4

9th Gen:

- PS5
 

01011001

Banned
Launch PS3.

Piano black, Spiderman font, touch controls, 4 USB ports, Other OS, full PS1 and PS2 support via hardware.

Krazy Ken's masterpiece.

big, expensive, underpowered GPU, Bad RAM configuration, piano black will look like scratched and crap after a few weeks, useless I/O that added to the already ridiculous price and the Cell Chip made development a hellscape

terribly designed system... oh also fuck touch buttons on consoles! that shit is such a pain in the ass sometimes and has literally zero utility
 
Last edited:

Romulus

Member
Good thread. hard to separate my favorite from the best engineered console.

First Generation
- N/A - I dont have any experience

2nd Gen:
- N/A - I dont have any experience

3rd Gen:

- NES

4th Gen:

- SNES

5th Gen:

- PS1

6th Gen:

- PS2

7th Gen:

- Xbox 360

8th Gen:

- PS4

9th Gen:

- PS5


Yeah, I would think most of these posts are "the console I owned/liked/popular" vs actually looking at the specs, reliability etc. I'm probably guilty of thinking the NES was great and did not know it was unreliable for example.
 
Overall i think nintendo make the best engineered consoles...outside of the Virtual Boy they really have not put a foot wrong from an engineering point of view

Microsoft consoles have gotten better as time goes but i think the award for going backwards on engineering goes to sony
as soon as they started to add in fans for cooling we started to get hairdryers or absolutely huge consoles .....they lost the idea of sleek/compact and functional and their build quality has gotten progressively worse

Hoping the mid gen refresh brings it more back into line with other consoles
 
Top Bottom