PS3 has more truth in advertising native 1080p than Xbox 360 |
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Time for my mea culpa on one of the most popular posts ever at Hmm, Lists of 1080p games for the Xbox 360 and PS3: I was wrong to declare the Xbox 360 the victor in the 1080p arena at the time. They have never had more native 1080p titles than the PS3. Never, never, never.
Retraction good enough? I’ve also edited the original list post by striking through the mistakes and this post will be trackbacked to the comments so anybody who reads that list can read and see my very public correction. Duped by the advertising, I should know better. Not putting blame on anybody else but the guy in the mirror.
Now what if you just bought a 1080p TV and you want to experience some native 1080p gaming and watch movies at 1080p (HD-DVD or Blu-ray)? That continues to be the thing I’m most interested in. Let’s see where we’re at today, September 29, 2007.
PS3 has *22 more native 1080p titles than the Xbox 360
*number as of this post publishing, to see the most current numbers, see the two lists below:
Xbox 360 1080p games (revised 9/29/07)
PS3 1080p games
The PS3 game boxes are much more honest about which games — and yes, the Sony PS3 has more native 1080p games than the Xbox 360. I’ve edited the above lists to more clearly show native 1080p titles (highlighted in dark green) versus box advertised 1080p titles on the Xbox 360. I’m not sure a list is even needed for native 1080p titles on the Xbox 360 because there are only 2 titles to date: NBA Street Court and Virtual Tennis 3, not a very impressive list.
As for recent titles in native 1080p on the Xbox 360? Bioshock? Nope. Halo 3? Heck, it’s not even 720p, it’s 640p. And the numbers get even worse when you compare Xbox Live Arcade to the Playstation Store. There are currently no, zero, nadda, goose egg native 1080p titles in the Xbox Live Arcade while there are 9 titles in the Playstation Store. 9-0. PS3 wins.
Why create and maintain a list of what the game boxes show?
The PS3 has better truth in advertising than the Xbox 360 as of this writing.
I couldn’t find anybody else out there that was covering what the back of the game box says versus the truth. I’m sure the game company lawyers have it all figured out that by using the word “supported” they aren’t using any legally deceptive advertising, but if you are new to the world of 1080p you should immediately be suspicious of the terminology “supported” when talking about 1080p. Supported probably means upscaled and upscaled is not the same thing as native.
I know after writing the original post, seeing the significant amount of discussion at other sites, the feedback I’ve received directly and in comments here that this is an issue of great debate and concern among gamers. Instead of adding to the confusion, my goal has been and continues to be to cut through it and get to the truth. If you just bought a 1080p TV, Xbox 360 with HDMI or PS3, what games are native 1080p? The lists are both pretty small overall, with a mere 26 titles available in native 1080p for both game consoles.
That’s it, 26 total native 1080p titles for both systems.
Sorry to disappoint you on the gaming front but you can probably tear through playing all these games before Christmas. And if you’re hoping Microsoft will put more native 1080p games under your 2007 holiday tree or Xbox Live Arcade menu, history and current reality would suggest otherwise. The PS3 continues to regularly release new titles at native 1080p. My only updates for the Xbox 360 since the original list have been 1080p listed on the box.
And here is the truth in advertising
Microsoft, you need to do a much, much better job of clearly explaining on game boxes what is and isn’t native 1080p. There are literally dozens of upscaled 1080p titles on the Xbox 360 from the native resolution of 720p all marked deceptively — in my opinion, again, I’m sure the lawyers covered your butts — as 1080p. Yes, these games may support 1080p, but that’s not what many customers think when they see 1080p on the back of the game box and make a purchasing decision.
Compare this scenario to how Sony is treating 1080p titles on the PS3.
I haven’t been able to confirm even one title on the PS3 where the back of the game box shows 1080p and the title isn’t native 1080p. If anybody reading can confirm game box deception, please use the comments below to share your story. Nor can I find any titles being advertised in the Playstation Store as 1080p that aren’t native 1080p. I’m not saying Sony doesn’t have customer deception problems — remember the whole root kit mess? — but in this particular situation they look better than Microsoft.
For example, check out a recently released title’s game box Warhawk picture below:
In black and white:
Supported HD video output: 720p, 1080i.
Now why do games like Dead or Alive 4 (pictured top of the post) show 1080p and Warhawk doesn’t? You tell me. The only guess I can make is deception and that’s not a very friendly or warm guess.
Is native 1080p that big of a deal, really?
Inquiring gamers want to know.
Does it even matter if a game is native 1080p? I don’t have the best eyes, but the games I’ve played at native 1080p do appear a little sharper, the images have a crispness that isn’t seen at 720p. Yes, it’s a minor difference, very minor, but I see something. Maybe it’s all in my eyes though because I’ve read plenty of other gamers with 1080p capability who claim they can’t tell any difference at all. I’m not trying to be part of some holy war between consoles here, I like both consoles, I’m simply sharing what I see. Or think I see. Maybe it’s some Jedi mind trick.
Also worth repeating is that the Xbox Live Dashboard doesn’t look nearly as good as the Playstation interface. This is more easily seen. Sure, it could be how our TV is upscaling the dashboard and on a different TV the differences wouldn’t be as clear. We also have the HD-DVD player for the Xbox 360 and I think the Blu-ray movies look better. A lot better? No. A little better? Yes.
Hardware being used
Samsung LCD 1080p
Xbox 360 Elite with HDMI connection, optional HD-DVD player connected via USB
Sony PS3 (60GB) with HDMI connection, Blu-ray player built-in
- List of PS3 1080p games
- List of Xbox 360 1080p games
- Lists of 1080p games available for Xbox 360 and PS3
- How many of the 2006 top Xbox 360 games did you play?
- 200+ Xbox backwards compatible games list published
- Wii now #1, Xbox 360 barely #2, PS3 distant #3
More 1080 games? Yeah.
Better games? *snort*
Sony had better pick up the pace and put something decent out or MS is going to keep their lead for quite a while. 1080 native or not…
Comment by Makabriel — September 29, 2007 @ 2:41 pm PST
As Makabriel said, it’s just a matter of quantity in which the PS3 wins there. MS isn’t the only one which has to get their act together.
The 1080 on the boxes for xbox perhaps being deceptive is sort of the same issue which Microsoft has with the Vista capable stickers and Vista ready stickers, they tend to forget about the average customer here which doesn’t look beyond what the sticker or info on the box truly means.
Comment by Slevi — September 30, 2007 @ 4:39 pm PST
While I agree with you Makabriel on quality over quantity, the PS3 is getting better. I’ve been hard on them about the importance being on fun games to play and it’s real nice to see a game that looks gorgeous and is fun to play. I’m looking forward to see the Home project launch in Spring 2008. I thought we were supposed to see beta testing begin around this time (maybe next month?).
Slevi - now don’t get me started on Vista
Comment by TDavid — September 30, 2007 @ 6:08 pm PST
Microsoft is misleading the public, the consumer and their customers.
This is how they do it; Microsoft is not saying what the actual “Video Output” is. For example, If you notice, on the back of the Playstation3 game box it says “Supported HD Video Output 720p, 1080i, 1080p”. This is letting the consumer know that the Video Output going into your HDTV from the source is an actual 1080p signal. On the back of the XBox 360 game box it says “HDTV 720p/1080i/1080p”. What that means is, your XBox360 will work on any HDTV. It is Microsoft’s way of being able to print 1080p on the Videogame box. Microsoft thinks that if the consumer reads the word “1080p” they will automatically assume that the actual Videogame output is a native 1080p. That is how Mircosoft tricks you, the consumer.
Comment by Superdynamite — October 6, 2007 @ 2:55 pm PST
Here’s my thoughts and I’m mainly a PC gamer (one that’s used to be able to adjust the resolution of my games to fit my hardware). I work at a gaming shop as I am a video game junkie.
Claiming “Native 1080p” on a game would be nothing more than a sales gimmick as games can be rendered at many different resolutions due the nature of the media.
“Supported resolutions …” for a console game to me says “this console is powerful enough to render this data at these … resolutions”.
For videos (prerendered material) the key word “native” could be used as that would actually be the image size, but that fact that games are rendered on the fly they can technically support any resolution out there. Whether the console can handle the higher resolutions (with all the textures, skins, bump mapping, AI, etc.) or not is something else.
Example: The new Conan videogame can be rendered up to 1080p on the 360 and run smoothly, yet on the PS3 it’s only going to be rendered at 720p (according to the supported resolution stated on the box). Another game with the same scenario is the new Simpsons game.
One final note… Look at any recent (within say the last 5 years or so) game that’s released on the PC and you’ll never see “Supported” or “Native” resolutions on the game boxes as that depends on what hardware you have available to you. Also, so I’m not classified as a fanboi of either system I think both Sony and MS are evil corporate tyrants trying to dominate any market they set foot in; While MS focuses mainly in the digital realm Sony focuses on the entire electronics realm from phones to TV’s, radios, MP3 players, clocks, etc..
Comment by Kaosis — November 5, 2007 @ 10:30 pm PST
It’s difficult comparing PC to console games, Kaosis, but thank you for sharing your thoughts. Although I agree with some of your thoughts, it seems at least at this stage of the game, pardon the pun, when Sony puts 1080p on the back of a box that means something different than Microsoft. It would be nice to see them get on the same page.
Comment by TDavid — November 7, 2007 @ 11:03 am PST
I love my xbox360 but now that the price went down on PS3 I think I will be picking one up soon. The xbox360 has GPU problems anyways. They are all getting the red ring of death.
Comment by Rob — November 23, 2007 @ 7:46 am PST
tdavid or anyone can help
i have been reading all the different opinions comparing 360 and ps3… i played playstation from the beginning, so when ps3 came out i bought it without doing much research…..no i am wondering if i made a mistake…..so my question is this…. if you had to buy 1 system what do think is the best buy and why……
Comment by eric — December 6, 2007 @ 7:25 pm PST
TBH… if i had to choose just one system I’d go with the 360 mainly for the game selection. Much larger library of games. Sure PS3 will eventually get a good list of games backing it, but who knows when that could be.
Take a look at last generation. By the time Xbox had a good library of games to choose from word of the 360 was already out. Last generation was dominated by Sony’s PS2 even tho the Xbox had much better hardware (by that I mean muscle wise) not to mention the 9 gajillion PS2’s that ended up having the disk read errors, yet it still dominated.
Another thing to note, as far as hardware problems. I have 2 friends that have had their 360 since launch (”the worst ones”) and they never had a problem with thiers. My supervisor has replaced his twice. On the PS3 side the 40 gig models are known to have media issues (meaning here or there you’ll get one that doesn’t read DVD’s or Blueray’s or music or whatever the case may be). Also as stated in my previous statement I work at a gaming shop and tbh I don’t see a large number of returns on either side of the spectrum.
One last bit. Here lately I’ve noticed games on the PS3 doing the same “trick” stated the “Supported HD video output…” on the box. One thing I will say as far as supported resolutions the 360 has a hardware scaler where as the PS3 has a software scaler, both of which scale the video out to whatever resolution your hardware (TV, HDMI cables, etc) support. The hardware scaling does a much better job and takes away a job the gpu/cpu have to do enabling them to do other effects.
Comment by kaosis — December 8, 2007 @ 10:52 am PST
Actually that list is false. From my experience, the PS3 will only display the game in 1080p if it is NATIVE 1080p. The Games that list 1080p on the back will display 1080p if FORCED into it(turning off 480p,720p,1080i in resolution settings on PS3), with the exception of the native titles. I have only come across 2 native 1080p titles on the market (Ninja Gaiden: Sigma and Virtua Tennis 3) where my PS3 displays the game in 1080p without being forced to do so. If anyone finds out more, please list them. Thanks
Comment by Kevin — December 21, 2007 @ 12:06 am PST
What I am wondering about is, if I buy an LCD computer monitor with a resolution of 1980*1200 will I have borders or anything?
Comment by Frank — March 3, 2008 @ 2:01 pm PST