A new poll conducted by some of the top blogs in the AOL network found that many people would rather play Grand Theft Auto 4 on the Xbox 360 rather than the Playstation 3. Find out their reasons why!

You could safely argue that there hasn’t been a more highly anticipated game than Grand Theft Auto 4 in the history of gaming. Tens of thousands of people have already preordered the upcoming Rockstar game at stores around the world. And going beyond the thousands of eager people who have taken the time to preorder the game, you can expect even more people to be lining up in stores to buy the game on its release date.

However it looks as if many of the people in line will be Xbox 360 users. Recently some of AOL’s top blog sites asked Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 users to express which game console they would prefer playing Grand Theft Auto 4 on when it’s released. Well many people might think that the results would be close but they weren’t really close at all. 16% more people said that they would rather play GTA 4 on the Xbox 360 rather than the Playstation 3.

The full results of the polls yielded a 58% to 42% advantage for the Xbox 360. Overall, 38,416 people voted in this poll. It is shown that only 16,000 voters preferred the PS3 version compared to the other 22,416 votes preferring the Xbox 360 version. This may lead many people to wonder why there are so many wanting to play Grand Theft Auto 4 on the Xbox 360 console rather than the PS3.

While no definitive reasons were given from the polls, one can certainly come to their own conclusions while looking at the differences between what the two consoles have to offer in regards to GTA 4. One major reason why could be that Xbox 360 version provides exclusive content through Xbox Live. This became possible when Microsoft reportedly paid Rockstar games $50,000,000 for 10 hours of exclusive downloadable material on Xbox Live.

Among this exclusive content is said to be “episodic” additions to the game which will come in the form of extra missions. Now this would be a huge attraction to the Xbox version since people are obviously going to want more bang for their buck with the $60 sticker price slapped on each copy of Grand Theft Auto.

The next explanation for this preference to GTA 4 on the 360 is simple mathematics. There have been 17.7 million more Xbox 360 units sold worldwide compared to the 9.5 million sold for Playstation 360. With over 8 million extra people owning an Xbox, it’s easy to see why the numbers are skewed in Microsoft’s favor.

Many forum members across the world stated a reason for why they want to play the 360 version over the PS3; because they believe there is a controller advantage with Microsoft’s console in that it is built more for comfort. And when many people play Grand Theft Auto, they play it for hours on end. With people saying the 360 controller is more ergonomic, it would make sense that they would prefer to use Xbox’s controller for GTA 4.

Now this isn’t to say that there are no arguments for using the PS3 to play Grand Theft Auto. Some are fearful of the dreaded Red Ring of Death that so many Xbox 360 owners have experienced. If this happened to a GTA player, it would severely cut into their game time as they waited for a new unit to be sent.

However, it does appear that as of right now, you can expect to find more GTA 4 players committing heinous crimes, cruising the streets in stolen cars, and just generally doing all the things we can’t get away with in real life on the 360. But whichever console you choose to play it on, make sure to check it out when it arrives in stores April 29, 2008.