Infographics: Playing both sides

It’s an odd thing, being a console fanboy. A recent discussion via a social network got me thinking about what exactly anyone gains from being a diehard fanboy of a particular console? If you boil it down to extremes, then a super Xbox 360 fanboy would like to see the Playstation 3 fail, be withdrawn from sale and simply leave the Xbox 360 to reign uncontested. (And PS3 fanboys would like to see Xbox fail, too)

There is one obvious benefit to this, which is that all console players would then be playing on the same machine, meaning we wouldn’t have to worry about whether our friends would be able to play online with us.

Of course, the problem with having no rivals is that then there is no reason to particularly innovate, and there is certainly no reason to keep your prices lower. Why be the cheapest if you’re the only option?

To make the point that competition and variety is a good thing, I took a little poll among the Ready Up team and Twitter. This is definitely not a big enough poll to give statistically significant results, but it’s interesting none the less. The simple question was:

Quick gaming question. If you could take one PS3 feature and put it on 360, which would it be? And vice versa.

Click on the charts for a much bigger version.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, what with the large amount of games that are spilling across multiple discs on the Xbox 360 these days, the big PS3 feature people would like to see on the 360 was Blu Ray disc. Also, of course, Blu Ray discs are great for movies. The ability to play online for free tied with the PS3’s exclusive titles for second place.

Even the biggest PS3 fanboy in the world would have to grudgingly admit that the Xbox 360 is the better console for online gaming, or at least for organising online gaming, although no doubt they’d point out that you do have to pay for it. This shows through in the poll, with nearly half of all respondents saying that the 360’s online features and cross-game party chat are what they’d most like to see on the PS3. The 360 controller also is surprisingly popular, and people would like a controller like that on the PS3.

Which all just goes to show, no matter how perfect the fanboys may think their console of choice is, they’ve still got plenty to learn from each other, and I personally hope that the console wars continue for many, many years.