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Well, I honestly can't believe that it's come to this. This entire thing is absolutely hilarious to me, but here goes anyway.
So all the PS3 fans have their controllers in a bunch over the fact that we do not adjust the settings on either the Xbox 360 or the PlayStation 3 in our comparison videos. First of all, we have never said anything to the contrary. We have not misled anyone or got "caught" as some rabid fans have stated. We have nothing to hide and have done nothing wrong. And no, we're not recording the PlayStation 3 footage in standard definition as some, again, have hilariously stated.
We have done these comparison videos the same way since the very first one, and I'd definitely be interested in hearing how other sites do their comparison videos. The first issue we had when doing these videos was that it's impossible to capture footage from the PlayStation 3 using HDMI due to piracy protection. Yes, we realize that HDMI is supposed to be a superior cable. And yes, we realize that you can't set RGB to full or adjust the white levels without HDMI. I'm guessing a lot of you didn't even know about these settings until this whole thing.
So, to place both consoles on equal footing we decided that we would use the HD settings that come preloaded on each console and component cables for each. You've got to figure that both Microsoft and Sony know how to set up their machines to get maximum performance out of the box, right? And then we'd take things several steps further by using the same capture equipment, encoding, and every other piece of equipment or process that a piece of video goes through before it's live on GameTrailers.com. This creates an even playing field for both consoles.
I guess the issue here is that PlayStation 3 fans believe that setting the RGB to full and adjusting the white levels--something that most PS3 owners will never even know exists--is the only way to make these comparisons fair. But where do we draw the line? Then do we go into the Xbox 360 settings and start screwing with stuff until we think it looks better? Who exactly decides what "looks better" means? One person likes dark blacks, another may like more detail and a lighter display. There's no other solution to this problem other than to do what we did, which is leave the consoles on their default settings and create as scientific an environment as possible--meaning making sure all variables that can be controlled are made the same.
We're sorry if some of you feel genuinely slighted, but come on now, it's obvious that there was no malicious intent with these comparison videos. It's simply impossible to do them the way some of you want them to be done because of piracy protection, and in all honesty, I don't think we'd adjust the settings on the PS3 for these even if we could. It's just not fair. We're not slighting either console with these comparisons and we've created as even a playing field as possible in doing them. Maybe the better question is why the PS3 requires an HDMI cable and setting tweaks when the 360 is good to go out of the box with either component or HDMI.
Anway, that's the full story. After reading so much erroneous garbage posted all over the internet we figured it was time to set the record straight before things got out of hand.
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