Time For a New 360 or PS3?

I’ve been very lucky to be the owner of both a PS3 and an Xbox 360.  While I’ve had my issues with each (my PS3 being merely a pricey Blu-ray player since there were no good games for it/360 red ring of death), each has their merits and I will pop on either one from time-to-time.

I’m thinking of selling both of my systems and replacing it with the newer models.  I love the new 360 design and my current one (an Arcade I got after my launch 360 red-ringed, using my old ones hard drive) is close to being maxed-out on space.  Meanwhile, while the Sony fanboys love to crack on how loud 360s can be, I’ve never had that issue with mine.  However my PS3 can sound like a jetfighter getting ready to take off, even when just playing a PSN game.  The PS3 Slim both looks better and supposedly eliminates this problem. 

However, here’s the thing…  If I do go through with this plan, I’m not buying both a new 360 and a new PS3.  It’s going to be one or the other.  So which to choose?  I’m debating the merits of both.

Xbox 360

• Advantages
  • I definitely have a larger library of 360 games to go back to than PS3.
  • While it does cost $50/year, the Xbox Live experience is so incredibly good.  And compared to the PlayStation Network, it’s like going from a Porsche to a Dodge.
  • As I’m a Zune fanboy, love that I can download stuff onto my Zune and easily play it back through my 360.  In addition, Microsoft has said that the 360 will natively support Zune meaning I won’t even have to go through that.
  • Kind of interested in the Kinect.  I doubt that I would get one, but I’m definitely interested in seeing what it could do.  Meanwhile, the PlayStation Move is pretty much DOA with me.
• Disadvantages
  • With no Blu-ray player, getting a 360 would mean that I’d also have to get a Blu-ray player.  While cheaper than a PS3, it’s just something else to clutter my entertainment center.
  • This is debatable, but there’s no good 360 exclusives coming out in the near-term that I’m interested in.  I’m kind of over first-person shooters, and was incredibly disappointed in Halo 3: ODST, so do not have any intention of getting Halo Reach.  And Microsoft’s other big exclusive for 2010 is Fable III and I don’t do RPGs.
  • A purely speculative one, but I think that a new Xbox model is, at most, 2 years away.  I think the Kinect is a stop-gap to tide people over for whatever their new console is with built-in motion support.

PlayStation 3

• Advantages
  • I can use to both play games and watch Blu-rays.
  • PSN is free.
  • Better exclusives.  In 2011 they get Twisted Metal and Infamous 2 (though I’m still very early in Infamous 1, and while I think it’s cool I don’t think it’s anything spectacular).  And while I’m not interested in DCU Online with its subscription price, I could be enticed if they significantly lower the price, include it in the Playstation Plus membership, or offer the game itself for free.  I’m a console game, I’m not used to paying a subscription fee to play a game which I already paid for.
  • My most anticipated game of next year is Portal 2, and according to Valve the PS3 experience with Steam Support will be much better than what the Xbox is getting.
• Disadvantages
  • While the PSN is free, it’s practically unusable.  The interface is crap, you can’t get into games without agreeing to TOS agreements every time, and since I don’t have a headset or chat pad there’s no easy way for me to communicate.  (BTW, putting the chat pad at the top instead of at the bottom like the 360?  Not very ergonomic.)
  • Only PlayStation friend is my roommate…  He hasn’t logged into the PSN in 13 months when he was playing Resistance 2.
  • OMG they need to do something about the system updates!  I’m not going to pay for a PlayStation Plus membership so I can program my PS3 to do the updates when I’m not using it.  So, instead, I have to deal with turning on my PS3 to play a quick game of Super Stardust or run a quick race in GT5 Prologue and finding out that I have to download a firmware update for some feature that I don’t even use that takes 20 minutes to download and install.  By the time it’s done, I’ve either lost interest in playing or no longer have time to.

Even though I think the Blu-ray support and better exclusives are more compelling arguments, I’m leaning towards getting a 360.  After my launch 360 red-ringed, I lived with only my PS3.  That lasted about 5 months before I broke down and got a new 360.  But that was because, like I said earlier, there were no games I was interested in for the PS3 at the time.  So, without starting a flame war, what do you guys think?