Sony stops shipping the PlayStation 2 in Japan after nearly 13 years

A console has never needed the raw horsepower to run games like a PC does, nor did they need the high monetary investment or the time for installs and setup. That is why consoles are popular, you just plug them in and they work and they don't cost $2000 to run the newest game, you know that if it is made for the console it will run period. Yea, PCs do run games with the highest screen bling but consoles run the games more than well enough for much less startup and setup time which is what people want.

The PS2 was a great console!

There seems to be a fair amount of anger towards the PS3 though. I really don't understand why. I don't want to start a battle here but I own a 360 and PS3 and the PS3 is better hands down. The controller is a lot more comfortable and isn't heavy like the 360's. The system is much quieter when gaming or watching Netflix/movies. And playing online is FREE. For those people who've had an Xbox live account since day one that's over 10 years now.... At $60 a year that $600 could have been spent on games or accessories or whatever. Maybe I'm just cheap but I'd rather spend $600 elsewhere. And let's not forget about the RROD. My buddy has gone through 9 Xbox 360's!!!!! That is outright hilarious!

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I think the anger towards the PS3 was simply the incredible increase in price to change from the PS2. Follow that up with a less then stellar game line up in comparison to the XBOX 360. As well as the fact that PS3 games tend to either get ignored or an incredibly late DLC.
As for the XBOX live account, you only need to pay for gold membership IF you want to play your friends online. I have a simple silver membership which is free and I can play my games online. The RRoD was a gen 1 and 2 problem. It was mainly because of over heating issues. If your friend has gone through that many xboxes he really needs to remove it from his entertainment center because he is cooking his system.

Longevity is the mark of a successful console system. It means the hardware is working and the games are good and gamers are happy. The Y2K specs are irrelevant here. The numbers speak for themselves.

By "less then stellar game line up" I hope you mean when it was first released because now PS3 has not only all the multiplats but all the better exclusives. Besides Halo but I hate halo. Still hate Sony for pulling the backwards compatibility, just got a wii u and love I can play both wii u and wii games.

Get PS Plus, it is well worth it...

Really? All the "better" exclusives? The only exclusive I can think of that is worth buying a PS3 for is Little Big Planet, apart from that, the Xbox 360 really does have a better line up.

God of War 3, Metal Gear Solid 4, Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls , Journey, Uncharted, Infamous, Little Big Planet, Killzone, Gran Turismo 5, The Last Guardian, The Last of Us, Tales of Graces F, Valkyria Chronicles, Demon's Souls, Folklore, Flower, Twisted Metal, God of War Ascension, Sly Cooper Thieves in Time, Final Fantasy X HD, Wipeout HD.

In comparison to the XBOX 360 Sony has been lagging behind on title count. XBOX started with 20 solid titles. PS3 simply played "catch up". Part of the problem was that programing at the time was harder on PS3. Where the devs would have a hard time translating what they had created over to a launguage that the PS3 understood. Once it was ported then there was debugging. Itw asnt untill almost 2 years after the PS3 came out that more respectable titles were presented to Sonys customers. Once the game developers realized that the PS3 was going to stick around they put some effort into bringing out titles that caused the PS3 to stand apart.

Really? I've played almost all of them (except for The Last Guardian, The Last of Us, Tales of Graces F, Valkyria Chronicles, Demon's Souls, Folklore and Flower) and God of war is good don't get me wrong, but not really worth getting a ps3 for, Killzone on PS2 was awesome, Killzone 2 was pretty good, Killzone 3 was crap, Twisted metal isn't anything to brag about, Sly cooper again isn't really worth buying a PS3 for, Heavy Rain was interesting but not worth buying a ps3 for, Metal Gear Solid 4 was worth getting a PS3, same with Little Big Planet, Grand Turismo was great in the PS2 day (before it had any real competition) but its not quite worth getting a ps3 for, Final Fantasy HD? well that's not something to brag about at all, Wipeout is fun but again, not worth getting a whole PS3 for.

So overall, in that list, I could probably accept Killzone, Metal Gear Solid, Little Big Planet and maybe God of War as (ps3 Winners), Apart from that (and of course I can't say anything on the one's I haven't played) the others have either been done on the Xbox or something very similar.

Xbox has Halo, Forza, Crackdown, Fable, Gears of War, Ninety-Nine Nights, Ridge Racer, Saints Row (well the orginal was only ever released on Xbox anywho) and Viva Piñata that instantly spring to mind.

Overall though, between the consoles and my PC, discounting my PC I easily played more on the Xbox than I have the PS3, sure I did spend quite alot of time on Grand Turismo and God of War was a good laugh, and Little Big Planet gets played whenever I have friends round, but so does Halo. And everyone I know who come round all prefer Forza over Grand Turismo?

Conclusion? Xbox has a bigger list of decent games released compared to the PS3, cross platform games as well seem to run just as well on the Xbox (in some cases better, such as Skyrim) as well as the PS3.

As this article quite rightfully noted, the Xbox and Gamecube were more powerful beasts compared to the PS2, but it has THE biggest games catalog of any console to date and a lot of good games were made for it.

This round though, it was Microsoft's turn and the Xbox 360 has been blessed with very good titles and a decent sized catalog of games.

It really depends. Those games you have described really are not that special. Forza is great but who really cares about the stock standard and story barren Gears of War anyway? The other stuff is not terribly noteworthy.

At the end of the day, if the 360 has games you like and you want Kinect, than go for it, otherwise, you would be insane not to go for a PS3. 3D BluRay out of the box as well as a superior DVD player and a subscription service that ACTUALLY gives you stuff for subscribing. PS Plus is not only cheaper than Live and a service that gives you discounts across the store, early game access and beta access to games, but you get a minimum of forty-five free games a year. What does Live get you? Oh, I know: what everyone else gives you for free.

Like the games and want to play Kinect should be the only reason you would ever choose a 360 over a PS3...

Well it's my opinion after all. You don't have to agree with me. And I wouldn't say "friends were made back then" if it weren't true. You've had you own way of life. I don't expect you to understand. But still have happy life