PS3 vs 360 from a console-phobe's perspective (thinking of buying one come Black Friday)

Hi guys,

While the title may be misleading, I realize I'm more of a noob when it comes to modern consoles because my concept of the black gaming box still dates from the early and mid-90's when I was a Genesis fanboy. I'm kicking around the idea of buying a PS3 or 360 come Black Friday and Holiday sales and could use some advice from people more up-to-date in terms of what the current generation offers.

A short background: The most recent console I've ever owned was a Gamecube, and that was almost entirely for Smash Bros Melee and nothing else. I think I owned one other game and rented two at one point, but never really used it that much. Before that generation I was a hardcore Sega dork, having owned a Genesis, Sega CD, 32x, and Saturn all back-to-back and still keeping fond memories of all of them even though Sega basically shot its hardware division in the foot. This was also the era where libraries on 16- and 32-bit consoles were largely exclusive compared to only a handful of PS3 or 360 exclusive titles scattered among the bulk of cross-platform games. I've played on all consoles since and tinkered with the online capabilities in these systems from unstable inception to what it is now, but still look at online gaming as a largely PC dominated arena.

So what I'm looking for is advice on whether a PS3 or 360 would be more in-line with what I'm looking for in a console:

What I am interested in:

• Racing games
• Action games (not shooters but platformers and beat-em-ups)
• Fighting games
• Good access to indie games of assorted genres
• Which of the two has less failure rates; the RRoD still sounds like it rears its ugly head now and then
• Achievement whoring :D

What I'm NOT interested in, or aren't big selling points for me:

• Console shooters, since I play most of them on PC anyway and I'm horrible at an FPS using a controller
• JRPGs
• Movies or TV shows from an online service
• Retro/Classics, as many are available on free emulators
• Most games that also appear on PC, since that's been my main platform for the past decade or so

If anyone from either side of the console war can suggest which platform might better suit my tastes, or can suggest platform-exclusive titles that fit these genres and don't suck (ie what happened to Sonic games after the 16-bit era), then I'm all ears.

One last thing, I've got a 27" CRT flatscreen TV, roughly 3-4 years old but not the greatest in terms of picture quality and completely devoid of HD. Would using either of these consoles be pointless without a modern TV to match their graphics capabilities?

Thanks!