It's all about which platform the game was developed on first. The games you listed were developed on the 360, then ported to the ps3. Games like CoD4, GTAIV, DMC4, and Burnout Paradise which were developed simultaneously on both platforms generally look the same (or look slightly better on the ps3, in the case of BP). Games that are started on the ps3 generally have the same graphics as the 360, but are capable of far more things on screen at once, ala Ghostbusters.

And then it depends on how much extra dev time is put into one version of a game over another, like UT3 for 360 or Oblivion for ps3.

Ah, Oblivion...the most obvious difference between any port this generation.

I think Bioshock also has the potential to be like Oblivion by having improvements on the PS3 version, but I'm not going to make any claims until we actually see it *cough* Lost Planet *cough*.

Still, both Oblivion and Bioshock are coming out much later than their original launch on the 360 (or PC) version.

@disolitude

Sorry Mate. Once again stupidity ruined a great thread of yours with a great prologue text (even if not everybody agrees, at least it has a worth reading writing) and big examples.
Once again, sorry...

I don't think the graphical superiority in multiplatform games will ever happen for the PS3.

It's the 1st and 2nd party excluisives (see Uncharted) that will give the edge to the PS3 in the very near future... These are the people that have the time and money to properly code for the PS3.

The capability is there, the programming nous is not however.

@epinefridis

Lol...yeah, it turned in to a bench pressing contest between ps3 and 360. Its alright...

I am not saying "Buy 360, its got better multi port games" guys.

Just that PS3 was marketed very heavily for being the most powerful machine...having many more"GFLOPS" than the other guy. You don't have to defend game by game scenario as I'm sure there is a reason why each I listed looks worse...and indeed PS3 is probably more powerful.

However, my point was that in the real world of game design...the extra horsepower that ps3 has (and I don't doubt it has it) is not accessible if you look at things like dev time, budget...etc...so its all relative. This can be considered bad architecture and bad design. Not everyone will have the time and money to make killzone 2...

So there is no reason why same PS3 games cost more...no reason why PS3 can have a 10 year life cycle and 360 has to die within 5-6...no reason that a game can't be ported to one system or another technically. All those arguments of "there is no way 360 could run PS3 game X and game Y only looks better because this guy at ID games knows C++ code better than that guy" are not valid.

I'm really curious how bioshock will turn out a well as unreal 3 for 360...both are unreal engine games... Both games had much longer time frame of getting ported than usual so each should run at least as good if not better than their first release.

The Cell can/might give an edge in terms of more advanced A.I and physics (than the X360 can offer) in some exclusive future games.

In terms of graphics, well the Cell can help a little bit, if you put A LOT of effort trying to musture some graphics capabilites from a CPU. I bet in 2012 we'll see a couple of high-budget Sony-studio-developed games that will do it, but the improvement on the screen will still not be that big of a deal.

Those extra bucks that the Cell cost, Sony should have put into purchasing a better GPU for the PS3. It's really pathetic that a $600 console didn't have a better GPU than the X360 which launched a whole year earlier.

If a programming genius like John Carmack says it's tremendously difficult to run graphics on more than one thread and a game like Alan Wake, which was supposed to take advantage of 4 CPU cores (but in reality uses just two), has taken eons to develop, then it will be a BIG HUGE PAIN to utilize 7 gimped cores for any significant improvement.

I agree with you. Minor differences will be seen in multiplatform games, but 1st and 2nd party titles will show the true difference.

When the multiplatform games are specifically made for each console then we'll start seeing the full capabilities they have,until then nothing else matters.

But how come in the last gen the multiplatform games were always better for Xbox and most likely most of them were ports from PS2. If PS3 is waaay better than Xbox360 why isn't this happening in this generation?