Last August I tallied up the "Xbox 360 experience" on Kotaku. The idea at the time was that while the Xbox 360 was as little as $300, that didn't really deliver the full experience and even $400 didn't give you everything you really needed to fully appreciate the Xbox 360.With a little more than two months before the PS3 launch I think it's time to put Sony's next-gen console through the same ringer. Unfortunately, there are a few key numbers missing, so right not this is just a comparison based on a few best guesses. Please keep that in mind while reading.

Kotaku did an interesting attempt to figure out if you bought the same features for both consoles what the final cost is. Their conclusion is that if you try to match feature for feature the 360 is more expensive than the PS3! $839.94 versus $688.97

Now the real slight of hand here is that to make the 360 match the feature set they buy a wireless adapter and the HD-DVD add-on. They also presume the HD-DVD add-on will cost $200 but that's a reasonable guess. So somebody can argue "I don't want the HD video playback so lop off the $200", and that's a reasonable argument - although it's still really close unless you argue that the WiFi adapter is a stupid addition - and it clearly isn't.

I'll put my new disclaimer on this post. If you're somebody who hates all discussion of HD and you're convinced that all of America still loves themselves some NTSC and you are preparing to froth at the mouth about how DVD is so good that we don't need a replacement format - don't. I'm tired of that discussion. Now, there are some major flaws with HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, and the format war is stupid. I'd love to have rational discussion about those issues, but I'm barring the gate to people who have a reasonably informed opinion about HDTV - and that means having seen real HDTV in action, that means being aware of the numbers in terms of HDTV sales and US market penetration. If your "research" will be anecdotal evidence about who you know who doesn't have a HD set I'm not interested.

technorati tags:Xbox, PS3, HDTV, gaming

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