SilverFox

Interestingly enough Sony is suffering (comparatively) in console sales.

Overall, PlayStation products finished dead last in their respective categories with the Nintendo DS selling 1.57 million units to the PSPs 421,000 and the Nintendo Wii selling over 2 million units and the Xbox 360 selling over 800,000 units compared to the PS3s 378,000 units.

Now the Wii is a run away but for FPS Sports Driving Games, all your graphics will be on the Xbox and PS3.

I would say aside from the built in blu ray both systems are comparable. Aside from us home theater buffs, blu ray is really not taking off. Don't get me wrong I love it and have two blu ray players in my house but the format is nowhere near taking over from DVD as the large portions of consumer are relatively blah about it.

Why over all sales should concern you as a gamer is pretty simple, less consoles sold means less game buyers and while there are some good titles that are exclusive to PS3 there are also some that are good and exclusive to Xbox so in my opinion that is a wash unless one of those games is a must have for you.

As for online clearly the Xbox 360 has this market dominated (so far anyway things can change) and again I would say that more users means more content etc.

If the gap in console sales continues it will be difficult for Sony to continue to keep its exclusivity on games as developers forego a chunk of the market by going exclusive.

There is also the fact that the Xbox has been out a full year longer than the PS3, this is a lifetime in game development and there significantly more titles available for the Xbox.

From a development perspective while the PS3 may have more technical horsepower on paper taking advantage of that from a game development perspective is more difficult and in testing most of the cross platform games are graphically superior on the Xbox. There are some exclusive titles that take full advantage of the PS3s capabilities but this is not across all games in the platform.

Go with what you want you will here differing opinions from both sides.

On a price basis you the Xbox is almost half the cost, and Sony has come out recently and said it will not be lowering its prices on its consoles. This I think is a mistake as clearly the money to be made from the gaming industry is in the games not the hardware. Microsoft (lovem or hatem) understands this and wants there consoles in your house, Sony seems to forever fall on its we are Sony and that is all we need. Again don't get me wrong I love Sony products in general they make great stuff, but they stumble on there own arrogance from a business perspective.

My choice as should be obvious from the slant above is Xbox 360.

The red ring of death as many like to say is a non issue as far as new consoles so don't let that scare you.

Either way I am sure you will be happy