Differences between xbl and psn(online only)

[ShadowRunner]

What's your Xbox Live username, ShadowRunner?

They're not on the same level, Joker is absolutely right. This is the #1 reason I only buy PS3 games when they're exclusives and when they're good exclusives at that. If I have a choice, I'll buy and play on the 360 every single time -- and almost exclusively because of Live. To me, Live is the dealbreaker. PSN feels more like a barren wasteland of inconsistencies and inadequacies. The couple times I played Resistance online the vast majority of people didn't even have headsets, and good luck easily switching in and out of games with friends who are in other games at the moment...

It gave me vivid memories of PC gaming online in the late 90s. I'm way past that, now.

ShadowRuna. Havent got gold at the min but will be back on in the next week in preperation for Forza 3.

My point was not addressed in any way, instead being given an irrelevant analogy, its frustrating.
If MS were to offer a PSN level experience (notice how i am NOT saying XBL and PSN are equal in features) for free how many would pay the $40 premium for the extras? While i dont dispute that you or anyone else arguing the supremacy of XBL would be happy to pony up for it, i predict that the majority would be happy with the free PSN level offering.

 

[Arwin]

People can buy dirt cheap cell phones with dirt cheap plans, yet they pay a fortune to own and support the monthly fee of the iPhone. Why? I mean, any cheap phone will let them talk with others right? So, why do they pay so much more? It's because the iPhone can do everything those cheap phone can do plus much more, just like Live offers more than PSN. The confusion results from people who mistakenly believe that Live and PSN are on a level playing field. Hint...they aren't.

You're assuming it costs $30, a price at which it is possible to get if you shop around in the U.S. So right there, you already value Live at less than the default price. In Europe, you have to be very, very creative to not pay 60 euros, like I have done for 6 years.

Well ok, the first years on the Xbox1 I think it was actually 'just' 50 euros - but then the service was something really unique, Shifty, you have to remember that - lots of games were barely playable online on other consoles, or even just not at all, only live had a unified logon system, etc. So back then, I actually do think it was worth the money (still didn't use it enough even then though - some Halo 2, some Race Driver, etc., but each only two weeks and then the love was gone for various reasons, like the racing games not supporting a FF wheel).

See, I don't buy that. Somehow the PS3 guys are totally fine blind buying $5-$15 PSN games that have no demo, are fine paying $3 for animated themes or LBP outfits, have no problem regularly dropping money on Qore, $600 console price was not a deterrent, spending money upgrading hdd's is perfectly fine, spending a chunk of change on electricity by leaving those launch PS3's folding all the time is fine, buying headsets and hdmi cables, no problem, etc, all that money is somehow a non issue.

Except I've never had to buy a headset, because the one for my phone works. The PS Eye works too (which is what I usually use). HDMI cables are very cheap, and for contrast, my 360 didn't even come with HDMI! Folding is like giving to charity, but Microsoft isn't one (although Gates these days definitely seems to be ).

Qore is not available in Europe. Upgrading the HDD is a neutral thing, really cheap, and a lasting value. I think I only bought one animated theme for LBP, because my wife liked it. And blind buying is rather an exaggeration, don't you think, in these days of the internets?

But $2.50/mt to get a full featured online service with all it's perks and advantages is somehow a total show stopper. Sorry I don't buy it, not for a minute.

Short reminder - I'm discussing what I've had to pay for Live, which is 59,95 a year. This amounts to 5 euros a month, which is more than twice what you are quoting.

It's not a show-stopper, but it just adds 300 euros to the cost of ownership, presuming a 5 year lifetime, unless you want to forego playing online more or less completely (a few free months of live bundled with games or consoles excepted). Even if that price would drop today in Europe also, the price it has been for the first few years of the system still factors into the cost-of-ownership figure.

If Sony were to charge for PSN, most of the PS3 fans here would fall in line and pay it.

Don't count on it. Some people will (I might - playing GT5 online is a big thing to me), but many won't. At my work, I'm not sure any of my 7 colleagues with PS3s would. Some of them wouldn't even notice, others would be annoyed but not pay.

Many of the machines have 20gb hdd's, which have ~13gb free. Two downloaded movies will take up most of that space. So 1gb might sound small, but in this case it's not.

Download movies? What's that? Lol. No such services here, from either of them. No netflix either. At least our videostores rent out blurays now though. But if downloading two movies fills up that 13gb, I know I'd rather store 20 downloadable levels for 130 games.

It's certainly not for technical reasons that they won't do it, there's a business reason behind it, I'm guessing the limiting factor is their hdd pricing strategy which at some point will have to catch up with the times.

I still don't believe that. I'd even sooner believe that they don't want to have to deal with Arcade owners in this context.

 

[Asher]

ShadowRuna. Havent got gold at the min but will be back on in the next week in preperation for Forza 3.

My point was not addressed in any way, instead being given an irrelevant analogy, its frustrating.
If MS were to offer a PSN level experience (notice how i am NOT saying XBL and PSN are equal in features) for free how many would pay the $40 premium for the extras? While i dont dispute that you or anyone else arguing the supremacy of XBL would be happy to pony up for it, i predict that the majority would be happy with the free PSN level offering.

It's a pointless hypothetical. I believe one of the reasons XBL has more features and is, in general, more consistent/reliable than PSN is because they have revenue from it. The PSN is taking many years to catch up to what the Xbox Live (for 360) had at launch, even. I think this is because MS could allocate more resources to Xbox Live development than Sony could, because they could count on that revenue stream.

So the reason the PSN lacks features compared to the 360 is BECAUSE it is free. XBL Gold has premium features because it is a premium service. One that, demonstrably, millions of people are willing to pay. If you're not, then more power to you -- if the PSN experience is adequate for you, then I'm sure you are thrilled. It wasn't adequate for my tastes, so I choose not to play online games on the PS3. Sony's actually losing a not-insignificant amount of money from people like me who don't buy PS3 games because they don't like the PSN experience. It doesn't help that where I live (in Canada), the 360 is by far the dominant console for the kind of gaming I do (non-Cooking Mama, non-Wii Fit...), so that's where all of my friends and family are also.

Arwin: 10 seconds of googling turned up 12-months of Xbox Live for £25.99 in the UK, or $42 USD. I'm not sure on the Netherlands as I don't speak the language, but from what I'm seeing it's trivial to find it for $30-40 USD in all countries I've tested -- a far cry from the $86 USD you keep discussing.

 

[Gerry]

You're assuming it costs $30, a price at which it is possible to get if you shop around in the U.S. So right there, you already value Live at less than the default price. In Europe, you have to be very, very creative to not pay 60 euros, like I have done for 6 years.

Whilst I generally agree that Xbox live membership is too expensive in Europe compared to the US, that's just codswallop. I just googled in France (picking a euro nation at random) and found 12mths membership at €34. That's hard being very creative, let alone very, very creative.

UK prices tend to be around £26.

 

[manux]

It's a pointless hypothetical. I believe one of the reasons XBL has more features and is, in general, more consistent/reliable than PSN is because they have revenue from it. The PSN is taking many years to catch up to what the Xbox Live (for 360) had at launch, even. I think this is because MS could allocate more resources to Xbox Live development than Sony could, because they could count on that revenue stream.

So the reason the PSN lacks features compared to the 360 is BECAUSE it is free. XBL Gold has premium features because it is a premium service. One that, demonstrably, millions of people are willing to pay. If you're not, then more power to you -- if the PSN experience is adequate for you, then I'm sure you are thrilled. It wasn't adequate for my tastes, so I choose not to play online games on the PS3. Sony's actually losing a not-insignificant amount of money from people like me who don't buy PS3 games because they don't like the PSN experience. It doesn't help that where I live (in Canada), the 360 is by far the dominant console for the kind of gaming I do (non-Cooking Mama, non-Wii Fit...), so that's where all of my friends and family are also.

Arwin: 10 seconds of googling turned up 12-months of Xbox Live for £25.99 in the UK, or $42 USD. I'm not sure on the Netherlands as I don't speak the language, but from what I'm seeing it's trivial to find it for $30-40 USD in all countries I've tested -- a far cry from the $86 USD you keep discussing.

For finland live gold seems to be between 49-80e for 12months of subscription. http://hintaseuranta.fi/tuote.aspx/29773

 

[Arwin]

Well, you're right about that ... I can find a Dutch offer for 38 euros I see. So we're making some progress there. This definitely wasn't available last year though, and even if I pay this for my next year, and then 28 euros for the year after that, my point about cost of ownership doesn't change much.

Still, keep in mind that if I hadn't cancelled my original subscription, 59,99 really is the price that Microsoft charges for a yearly Gold subscription over here. It's still the official price at Microsoft's own Dutch website too, and I suspect it's the same in most European countries:
http://www.xbox.com/nl-NL/live/Join.htm

 

[joker454]

You may want to phrase that better! If they were to charge for PSN as is, no-one would subscribe and Sony would lose all PSN store sales!

Yeah, a premium paid PSN tier is what I meant, they can always keep a reduced feature set free option of course!

And blind buying is rather an exaggeration, don't you think, in these days of the internets?

Not really. You previously said it yourself, you did not like Gears Of War. But Gears is universally acclaimed and loved on the internet. So if you bought Gears based off 'the internets', you would have felt burned. Are you saying though that you have never been burned by a blind game purchase? Ever?

 

[Arwin]

But I didn't buy Gears at launch, but waited for it to go Platinum, like I said. I expected that I wouldn't like it, but I wanted to be sure. And of course as an enthusiast I want to be up-to-speed with stuff out there. I only played a few missions in GTA4 also, but I still like that I have the game for that reason at least (though in the end I actually prefer San Andreas, even if I didn't play that much either).

I did say myself though that I bought a few games on PSN that I didn't like as much as I thought. Very few though that I didn't get the two hours out of that I consider say a 7,99 euro game should offer at the very least (4 euro per hour seems reasonable for a game, though it doesn't have to go up linearly, a 60 euro game doesn't necessarily have to offer 15 hours, but it should definitely be 10 or more, or otherwise it's probably better to wait for it to hit Platinum)

Do you think though that demos really solve that problem definitively? Far too often demos misrepresent the full game, and surprisingly often negatively rather than positively (e.g. the full game is much better than the demo suggests). There are a few games that do have good demoes of course, and of course some games also do have demoes, even on PSN - Zen Pinball sold me on the demo.

 

[ShadowRunner]

It's a pointless hypothetical. I believe one of the reasons XBL has more features and is, in general, more consistent/reliable than PSN is because they have revenue from it. The PSN is taking many years to catch up to what the Xbox Live (for 360) had at launch, even. I think this is because MS could allocate more resources to Xbox Live development than Sony could, because they could count on that revenue stream.

So the reason the PSN lacks features compared to the 360 is BECAUSE it is free. XBL Gold has premium features because it is a premium service. One that, demonstrably, millions of people are willing to pay. If you're not, then more power to you -- if the PSN experience is adequate for you, then I'm sure you are thrilled. It wasn't adequate for my tastes, so I choose not to play online games on the PS3. Sony's actually losing a not-insignificant amount of money from people like me who don't buy PS3 games because they don't like the PSN experience. It doesn't help that where I live (in Canada), the 360 is by far the dominant console for the kind of gaming I do (non-Cooking Mama, non-Wii Fit...), so that's where all of my friends and family are also.

Arwin: 10 seconds of googling turned up 12-months of Xbox Live for £25.99 in the UK, or $42 USD. I'm not sure on the Netherlands as I don't speak the language, but from what I'm seeing it's trivial to find it for $30-40 USD in all countries I've tested -- a far cry from the $86 USD you keep discussing.

Again, those millions of people have no choice but to pay. My point is simply that many would rather have a free service thats not quite as good, as long as its free. I am aware that many find great value in XBL, same as many find great value in PSN, in the end it is value that needs to be looked at in order to compare the two. You cannot compare the two fairly by looking at features because one is paid for and one is free.

In conclusion, like always, what is better depends on the individual and what they see as good value. XBL is not better for everybody, PSN is not better for everybody. If you think otherwise you are wrong.

 

[joker454]

Do you think though that demos really solve that problem definitively? Far too often demos misrepresent the full game, and surprisingly often negatively rather than positively (e.g. the full game is much better than the demo suggests). There are a few games that do have good demoes of course, and of course some games also do have demoes, even on PSN - Zen Pinball sold me on the demo.

Demos save me from getting burned, that's for sure. Sometimes they do undersell the game, but I'd still rather have a demo. Zen Pinball had a good demo, wouldn't it be cool if all PSN games had one? Doesn't it make you wonder what other cool games you are missing out on? Alas, it's hard to do universal demos when everyone has to pay Sony for bandwidth.

Again, those millions of people have no choice but to pay. My point is simply that many would rather have a free service thats not quite as good, as long as its free

But is it really free? You pay more for PSN games, themes, DLC, etc, compared to XBL, doesn't that bug you a bit? A $15 game for you is a $12 game for me. That's because XBLive uses MS points instead of actual currency, and there are *many* ways to get MS points cheap and stockpile them in your account. I recently got Mega Man and Outrun totally free on XBLive that way. I bought the GTA4 expansion for $10. You finally got PSN Zen Pinball two years after the 360 did, but it will cost you more on your PS3 than it cost me on my 360. Eventually you will get the Fallout DLC after a nice long wait, and again it will cost you more than it cost me.

So, is PSN really free? You've been paying more for the same stuff from the get-go. Are you ok with that, or does that 'not count'?

 

[ShadowRunner]

Demos save me from getting burned, that's for sure. Sometimes they do undersell the game, but I'd still rather have a demo. Zen Pinball had a good demo, wouldn't it be cool if all PSN games had one? Doesn't it make you wonder what other cool games you are missing out on? Alas, it's hard to do universal demos when everyone has to pay Sony for bandwidth.




But is it really free? You pay more for PSN games, themes, DLC, etc, compared to XBL, doesn't that bug you a bit? A $15 game for you is a $12 game for me. That's because XBLive uses MS points instead of actual currency, and there are *many* ways to get MS points cheap and stockpile them in your account. I recently got Mega Man and Outrun totally free on XBLive that way. I bought the GTA4 expansion for $10. You finally got PSN Zen Pinball two years after the 360 did, but it will cost you more on your PS3 than it cost me on my 360. Eventually you will get the Fallout DLC after a nice long wait, and again it will cost you more than it cost me.

So, is PSN really free? You've been paying more for the same stuff from the get-go. Are you ok with that, or does that 'not count'?

Except i havent bought, or plan to buy a single thing you listed. If i can buy something on XBL cheaper then i will do just that. To play a game online with other people it is free.
So your argument now is that PSN isnt really free? Come on, you're really starting to reach now.

 

[patsu]

He's not making it up. I've read the comment too, but have yet to find it. But I'll agree that it's the potential of restrictive content(sex & copyrighted IP) than modding & breaking security that's holding MS back from opening it up like LBP.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/ps3-is-inviting-trouble-with-mod-support-microsoft-xna-boss

Chris Satchell, XNA group manager at Microsoft, has said that companies like Sony, Nintendo and Apple are "inviting trouble" if they don't have XNA-style security measures in place to protect against malicious user-generated content.

"I think there's a potential risk on any platform where you're allowing...where you're running in what we call native mode, where you're writing straight to the metal, not a sandbox layer like XNA, and then that runs a script engine and you let people do that in that script engine," Satchell told Eurogamer in an interview published today.

"Any platform that let's you do that, and doesn't have the right security measures in place - whether it's Sony, whether it's Nintendo, whether it's Apple, whether it's anyone - you're inviting trouble, because sooner or later someone will want to prove they can do it," he added.

And here's another incident against the "Big Brother":
http://xbox.joystiq.com/2008/03/01/n-interview-ms-hates-user-generated-content/

Having recently hit the tubes to critical and consumer praise, it seems that the side-scrolling ninja platformer N+ isn't even all the game that it was originally intended to be. In an article over at MTV's Multiplayer blog, N+'s developers go in depth on the game's history concerning the plans for inclusion of an open download/upload space for level sharing (similar to Halo 3's system, which makes one wonder why that was a-okay). In fact, that very feature was implemented in the version of the game that was released onto PartnerNet for testing. However, in the game's last final months of development Microsoft shut the feature down, demanding that it be stripped back to the condition it's in today (with the ability to share user-generated content only available from the folks on your friends list.)

 

[patsu]

So if Sony tomorrow started charging $2.50/mt for PSN, would you completely stop using PSN or would you pay?

Depends on what else is in that $2.50/month. I won't be happy paying for demoes and P2P infrastructure. Dedicated server may be; PSN content may be too since I have paid for Qore before. ^_^

Demos save me from getting burned, that's for sure. Sometimes they do undersell the game, but I'd still rather have a demo. Zen Pinball had a good demo, wouldn't it be cool if all PSN games had one? Doesn't it make you wonder what other cool games you are missing out on? Alas, it's hard to do universal demos when everyone has to pay Sony for bandwidth.

The reverse is also true. There are great games with stinking demos. I prefer to listen to folks' opinion on GAF and here. I bought 2-3 PSN games on a wimp due to others' recommendations in forum posts or even comments in the XMB chat room. I also bought one due to its Home Space. So far so good. Wouldn't have bought them on my own.

But is it really free? You pay more for PSN games, themes, DLC, etc, compared to XBL, doesn't that bug you a bit? A $15 game for you is a $12 game for me. That's because XBLive uses MS points instead of actual currency, and there are *many* ways to get MS points cheap and stockpile them in your account. I recently got Mega Man and Outrun totally free on XBLive that way. I bought the GTA4 expansion for $10. You finally got PSN Zen Pinball two years after the 360 did, but it will cost you more on your PS3 than it cost me on my 360. Eventually you will get the Fallout DLC after a nice long wait, and again it will cost you more than it cost me.

You're comparing promos with regular price ? If you're concerned with pricing, just wait for the promos on PSN. ^_^
We have discounts on PSN too. You may not notice if you already have the preconception that PSN games are more expensive. Also, weren't there complains that the points were overpriced sometimes when MS couldn't keep up with currency flunctuation ? (I remember MS revised the point pricing in affected countries but still, it's something they have to react to the real world).

Plus, Sony is rumored to work on a reward program called PS Thanks.

All these comparisons are pretty moot because both PSN and XBL are moving targets. Like I said, both camps will keep working on their own platforms to stay competitive.

 

[Arwin]

Demos save me from getting burned, that's for sure. Sometimes they do undersell the game, but I'd still rather have a demo. Zen Pinball had a good demo, wouldn't it be cool if all PSN games had one? Doesn't it make you wonder what other cool games you are missing out on? Alas, it's hard to do universal demos when everyone has to pay Sony for bandwidth.

Nope, I really don't care that much. I'd rather 'burn' myself on one or two games, as long as the prices are good.

But is it really free? You pay more for PSN games

No I don't. I'd even argue that PSN games are much more often great value than Live games, but that could be a matter of taste.

themes, DLC, etc, compared to XBL, doesn't that bug you a bit?

Nope. People can create themes for free on the PS3, and there are awesome themes out there. DLC isn't very differently priced. That I have to calculate what 1200 points are worth in normal currency bugs me much more than anything else. I don't like to have to go shopping around for points cards. I cost 125 euro per hour. Your mileage may vary, but I'm better off working the time I'd spend on that kind of hassle - same with coupons, collect cards and all that in supermarkets, gas stations and so on. I just don't do them. Time is money too. Besides that, there are also offers on PSN - the U.S. even had Ragdoll Kungfu for free for a week, for instance.

You finally got PSN Zen Pinball two years after the 360 did, but it will cost you more on your PS3 than it cost me on my 360.

Not quite a good comparison though in this case, as the PS3 game is a much improved version.

Eventually you will get the Fallout DLC after a nice long wait, and again it will cost you more than it cost me.

Depends. Apart from the obvious fact that I could buy it on the 360 (I have one, remember), there's the special disc version coming in a month that has most or all of the DLC included on the disc.

So, is PSN really free? You've been paying more for the same stuff from the get-go. Are you ok with that, or does that 'not count'?

How long have you/we been able to get points for cheap though? And it hasn't been like that from the get-go in the U.S. either. So it's not a clear cut argument. Of course, in the first year of the PS3, especially if you only played multi-platform titles, then Live was comparatively better than PSN, and therefore worth relatively more, so if you want to be precise in these things, it can get really complicated. What's the value of Home? Nothing to you I'll wager, but I've spent more time in it than most of my full games (and it may well help Sony keep PSN free).

Well, we can go at this for a long time. It will never change though that after spending 300 euros on Live, I don't feel it's worth it, and looking at PSN and Live today, I don't think the difference between them is worth any money. Especially and crucially because for actual online gaming it's still a wash, with multi-platform games sometimes (less and less often) underperforming on the PS3 (for Battlefield 1943 it was actually the 360 version that had problems exclusively for a while), but with Sony's first party games often outperforming 360's flagship titles, and by a fair margin too.

We can continue at this all day (actually I can't because it's way past bedtime) but I think I'm just about done, unless you want to argue better online support for first party titles on the respective platforms some more.

 

[Asher]

Again, those millions of people have no choice but to pay.

Sure they do. They can choose not to pay. I could not pay and play my games on PSN. I could not pay and not play them online altogether.

XBL Gold subscriptions are not mandatory. It's a choice, and if you do pay for it you do choose to pay for it because you feel the value is there for it. If you don't feel the value is there, you don't pay for it (I'd hope).

 

[Tap In]

The reverse is also true. There are great games with stinking demos. I prefer to listen to folks' opinion on GAF and here.

ok i listen too but I'd STILL prefer to try the danged game demo myself no matter what and there is no compromise or rationalization to mitigate that IMO.

 

[patsu]

ok i listen too but I'd STILL prefer to try the danged game demo myself no matter what and there is no compromise or rationalization to mitigate that IMO.

If you have been trained for that behaviour, I can see why you'd look for it.

I prefer the devs to spend their time and $$$ as much as possible on the real title. Then those who played it will give us a shout out. Even for Sony, I prefer them to spend their $$$ on their first parties and the actual infrastructure.

EDIT: Come to think of it... some big titles like Assassin's Creed found excuses not to do a demo on both XBL and PSN anyway.

 

[RobertR1]

I swear, it's like arguing with PR folk in here at this point.....I"m sure if the demo's were made mandatory next month we'd hear a different tone. Kinda like rumble....

Having demo's is never a bad thing. Simple as that. If you game is game is good, a demo will do great things for it. If you game sucks, it'll expose it. I guess if you're tyring to protect developers in that manner, I can see the stance but taking this stance as a consumer is just laughable.

Demo's for PSN/XBLA games is a great feature and certainly a must have. It ends up being the marketing element for the downloadable games. Retail games, esp big ones, get bigger marketing budgets than development budgets. Info about the game is fed to the consumer in many forms. However, clearly this isn't the case for XBLA/PSN titles so the demo's end up speaking for the game.

 

[joker454]

We can continue at this all day (actually I can't because it's way past bedtime) but I think I'm just about done, unless you want to argue better online support for first party titles on the respective platforms some more.

Well I really don't expect guys like you or patsu to ever suggest that the 360 is better at anything. If the PS3 caused cancer I'm sure you'd find a positive way to spin it, and if the 360 created world peace you'd find a way to downplay it I get it, so there really is no point arguing that path.

Likewise, I know we are in different worlds when it comes to games. I am certainly no where near as enamored at PS3 exclusives as you guys are, and games like Motorstorm 2 that look very average to me will visually trump all 360 games to you. I get it, so there really is no point arguing that path.

But generally speaking on costs, for the masses, all they have to do is buy MS points when they are on sale and they will always get content cheaper on 360. It really is that simple. The don't have to wait for sales or promos of a given piece of content, they just buy it day 1 cheaper because they got the deal on the MS points themselves.

Yes I know even this can be spun a million ways, but lets make it abominably simple. A new dlc comes out tomorrow on 360 and PS3. You want it on your PS3, I want it on my 360. You *will* pay more than me because to you it's $15, to me its 1200 MS points which I bought for $12.

That's what I'm trying to say. The reason I said it is because if costs really are such a huge concern, as apparently the abhorrently high $30/yr live fee seems to be, then you need to look at the big picture and not downplay the money that can be saved on stuff like dlc, because those savings can very quickly eclipse the cost of Live itself.

I prefer the devs to spend their time and $$$ as much as possible on the real title

Making a demo doesn't cost much of anything. It's usually a single engineer that spends a few days stripping crap out, often even a junior engineer. The cost of a demo is little to none. Now the cost of paying for download bandwidth, that's something else. So if you really do prefer that the devs spend their $$$ on the real title, then you are on the wrong machine

 

[betan]

You have to be a PR guy or devoted warrior, to give a free pass to big budget games regarding demos because they have more marketing budget. what a joke.

That said, I don't think it takes a genius to comprehend that there are games for which it's not easy to come up with demos that represent those games with the constraints demos have.