The Xbox One is a stunning piece of tech, but don’t write off the 360: it’s a great cheap console. Here’s our Xbox One vs Xbox 360 comparison review.
PRICE WHEN REVIEWED
- £429
XBOX ONE VS XBOX 360 COMPARISON REVIEW
If you’re laughing at the very idea of comparing the Xbox One with the Xbox 360, you should think again. Although the newest Xbox is a superior product, it’s also more expensive. And the Xbox 360 is considered by many to be the best games console in history – and for many less hardcore gamers, that may well be enough.
In this article we examine how the Xbox 360 stacks up today as a gaming and entertainment device, and we ask whether for you personally it may still be a better deal than the Xbox One.
More than a decade after its launch Microsoft has ended support for the Xbox 360, which you might like to keep in mind when reading our comparison of the two consoles below. You can still buy the Xbox 360 today as shops sell the last of their stock, but no new consoles are being made.
HOW MUCH DO THEY COST IN THE UK?
You can pick up a 500GB Xbox 360 direct from the Microsoft Store for just £149.99, including a copy of Forza Horizon 2.
Shop around and you might find it for less or bundled with several games for a bigger bargain. At that price it remains a good deal: perhaps not for everyone, but don’t be fooled into thinking that the Xbox One is the only Microsoft console worth buying.
The 500GB Xbox One S, meanwhile, costs around £249.99 from the Microsoft Store, but other retails often offer bundles with single games from as little as £210.
With both consoles there’s a hidden cost: the annual fee for the subscription service required for online play. An Xbox Live Gold membership costs £40 per year, or £5.99 per month.
HARDWARE AND SPECS
With the Xbox One, Microsoft seems to have fixed the reliability issues that plagued the early Xbox 360 consoles, but it is worth pointing out that any Xbox 360 you buy as new these days will also be unlikely to suffer from issues.
The Xbox One is based on the same AMD Jaguar processor technology found in its Temash and Kabini APUs. It has eight CPU cores, running at 1.75Ghz. The GPU is derived from the Bonaire architecture found in the Radeon HD 7790, and has 12 GCN compute units to play with, and runs at 853MHz, while the Xbox One S GPU runs slightly faster at 914MHz.
It can also call on 8GB of 2133MHz DDR3 RAM. This uses a 32MB ESRAM cache to keep data flowing smoothly. All of this gives the Xbox One the gaming power of a mid-range gaming PC.
Turning to the Xbox 360 we find a custom-designed triple-core 64-bit PowerPC-based CPU, known as ‘Xenon’ by Microsoft. The Xbox 360’s GPU is an ATI Xenos chip, and you get only 512MB GDDR3 RAM clocked at 700MHz. This relatively paltry amount of memory is shared by the CPU and the GPU via the unified memory architecture.
Clearly this hardware bears no comparison with the Xbox One’s, and as time goes by this is likely to make newer games a less satisfying experience on the Xbox 360. You get what you pay for, after all.
Back to the Xbox One, you’ll find a bewildering array of ports, with three USB ports, Ethernet, an optical output and a specific port for Kinect, plus two HDMI sockets. One of these is an output for your TV, but the other is designed to take a signal from your Freeview/Freesat PVR or Virgin/Sky set-top-box. This sends the TV signal through your Xbox One, and allows you to choose programmes using the console’s OneGuide.
The more recent Xbox One S offers a similar selection, but drops the dedicated Kinect port – instead you can connect the Kinect through one of the three standard USB 3.0 ports.
The Xbox 360 cannot compete on connectivity terms. There is a detachable and upgradeable hard drive, and a 12x dual-layer DVD-ROM drive. Three USB 2.0 ports and two memory unit slots round out the wired connectivity, and a Wi-Fi connector is available as an upgrade.
In terms of power, performance, and connectivity, the Xbox One is a clear winner. But that doesn’t mean that the Xbox 360 isn’t fit for purpose: just that you have to think about exactly what you want from your console, and how much you are prepared to pay for the privilege, to figure out if a current-gen console is right for you.
USER INTERFACE
The Xbox One’s interface has a similar feel to Windows 10 (and is in fact built on a variant of the computer OS), with a start screen and live tiles for games and apps, but it can make simple operations like checking on your achievements or finding out what friends are doing seem like hard work.
Some find it’s best used with Kinect and voice commands, as you don’t need to remember which screen to find an app or feature on, you just utter the appropriate command.
The Xbox One can give you a split-screen view to run two apps or one game and one app at once, plus an instant resume which allows you to put your console in standby, turn it on again, and carry on playing exactly where you left off.
The Xbox 360 boasts a similar interface, though it’s not quite as slick. This takes away many of the visual and interface differences between the two Xbox consoles, offering features such as cloud storage for game saves and profiles, as well as live television, Bing voice search, access to YouTube videos and better support for Kinect voice commands.
There’s little to choose between the two consoles considered here in terms of the user interface.
CAMERAS
The Xbox One’s second-generation Kinect camera is a big improvement on the first, with more accurate motion tracking that works better across a range of lighting conditions, and can also track your body in more detail, even down to the individual finger joints. Interest in Kinect seems to have waned over the last year, with only three major titles supporting the controller released in the last twelve months. Aside from games, the main reason for having it is voice controls, used in some games, and also within the main interface to launch games and apps or search for content. It makes the Xbox One’s entertainment features much easier to use, but if you mostly want to play games, then spending £370 to £390 on a Kinect/Console bundle doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Sadly, it’s been grossly under-used by games designers so far, with just a handful of games that use it, and precious little sign of more to follow. But as time goes by this is likely to be a huge advantage over the Xbox 360.
As with the wireless adaptor, you can use the Kinect camera with the Xbox 360, but it is an additional cost for an extra device. Current versions of the Xbox 360 come with a dedicated port for the Kinect Sensor, but a quick scout around the internet suggests that it will set you back at least £100. At this stage you’d have to question whether an Xbox 360 plus Kinect Sensor makes a good deal. If you want Kinect, I’d argue that the Xbox One is a better investment, but the Xbox 360 works fine without one. It’s a well-priced lower-spec gaming device, after all.
BACKWARDS COMPATIBILITY
Here is a killer issue: the Xbox One is not backwards compatible. This means that if you already own an Xbox 360 there’s no real reason to stick with an Xbox One when you upgrade, bar the fact that your Xbox Live profile carries over.
But this could also make you think twice if you have a bunch of Xbox 360 games and you are thinking of buying an Xbox One. Yes, you will get newer games not available to the Xbox 360, but you won’t be able to play your current games on your new console.
GAMES
The main reason to buy the latest console is to play its exclusive games. And here the Xbox One has a fantastic racing game, Forza Horizon 2, and a superb compilation of the Halo series, all with enhanced visuals and remastered to play at full HD 1080p.
Forza Horizon 2 aside, the best games on the Xbox One have come from third parties, with Far Cry 4, Assassin’s Creed: Unity, Destiny, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and an enhanced Grand Theft Auto V all pushing graphical boundaries or, in Destiny’s case, transforming the way we play online.
And yet the fact remains that the Xbox 360 retains a vast library of excellent games, albeit without the bells and whistles of the very latest titles. Again: if you can get over the fact that the Xbox 360 isn’t the latest and best, it is still an excllent purchase. But if you are serious about playing the best games in the best format, you need the upgrade.
ENTERTAINMENT FEATURES
Microsoft originally sold the Xbox One as the ultimate all-in-one entertainment system, pushing how voice controls and integrated TV would put it right at the heart of the living room. It still has arguably the best set of entertainment features of any console, with apps for all the major catch-up TV services bar ITV Player, plus all the major video-streaming services, including Amazon Instant Video, YouTube Netflix, Blinkbox and Now TV.
The Xbox One also has a Blu-ray drive and playback app, and DLNA media streaming both through the console’s own Media Player and an app for Plesk. Throw in Microsoft’s own music and video services and its TV features, and it’s the best console for those who want to do more with their console than play games.
In terms of content, the Xbox 360 can happily compete. You can watch all the great content on Xbox Movies, of course, and also Netflix (with a subscription), Amazon Instant Video and YouTube. Plus the catchup apps. The Xbox 360 offers that DVD-ROM drive, too. But you can’t use it as your central home hub in quite the same way as you can the Xbox One. It is more of an additional entertainment source. And remember that you need an additonal device to connect wirelessly to the web.
BUYING ADVICE
If you want the best then there is no contest: the Xbox One is faster and more powerful than its older brother. And it offers greater home-entertainment, connectivity and interface features. But if you want to save a few quid and buy a relatively inexpensive but still great gaming device, the Xbox 360 is still worth considering.
SPECS
Microsoft Xbox One: Specs
- 8-core CPU, 8GB RAM, 500GB hard drive
OUR VERDICT
If you want the best then there is no contest: the Xbox One is faster and more powerful than its older brother. And it offers greater home-entertainment, connectivity and interface features. But if you want to save a few quid and buy a relatively inexpensive but still great gaming device, the Xbox 360 is still worth considering.
Sоurсе: pcadvisor.co.uk