PS3 in the US press...

You'll have to explain this one, I guess I'm a bit thick.

 

You've said that a 20GB PS3 costs as much as an X360 Premium with two years' worth of Live subscription. IMHO, it is unfair to add the fee to the total price, as it offers a lot moe then what you get on the PS3's online service, which lacks a lot of the features of Live.

And I'd like to mention again: a Premium bundled with GOW for 449 Euros is coming. Quite a tempting offer with no PS3 until march... although I think noone believes in that date any longer...

 

It's logically invalid because if you want to play a multiplayer game on 360 basically there's no other way than pay the full fee while you can play mutiplayer Resistance on PS3 for free. In other words, there's no option to pay $5 for Xbox Live just to get PS3-level "weak" multiplayer experience.

 

What definition of value are you guys using? I'll admit those marketing classes are a bit fuzzy in the head, but I clearly remember that: value = benefit/price

Nowhere in that equation do I see cost. So Paul_G's point is perfectly valid. Value of the product will be different for different people. For me PS3 is an awesome value at $599, not so much at over a thousand, which is what I would have to pay to get one right now. And for some people a 360 is better value, therefore they're buying it, or for some people the Wii. Notice that it's irrelavant how much it costs to these companies to make the products, all I care about is how much enjoyment I can get out of it and if the price is inline with that. Notice that as the price increases, value drops accordingly so to keep it constant you have to increase benefit in the same proportion (or more if you want to increase value). The question is if the PS3 has managed that compared to the competition. For me personally it has, but I can certainly understand that it hasn't for someone else.

 

So it should probably be left out of the comparisons no? Instead of playing funny math and trying to justify the extra cost of the system?

Sure you can play Resistance for free, and then 80% of the other launch titles you can't play at all so it's a totally invalid comparison. If we knew for sure that 100% of PS3 games would support free online play then I might agree with you...but even then it's pretty dumb, as no-one is forced to buy XBLive and alot of people don't even play online.

 

I don't think the level of interaction should matter wrt pricing comparisons. If you're comparing costs of a PS3 (with free online) to an X360 without it, doesn't that seem unfair? Regardless of if the PS3 experience is inferior to the Live! one, it's still offering something that X360 owners need to pay for.

And about 80% of launch titles not supporting online? It's like 1080p for PS3. Why implement a tacky and fruitless function to a game just to tick the 'Live! Enabled' box? Personally, if a game doesn't have anything worthwhile to offer for online, then leave it alone.

About your "alot of people don't even play online" comment - I think there'll be more out there that'll be online with their PS3, but not X360, simply because it's free. Can't beat it! Didn't the same thing occur on PS2? They went online, complained about the lack of Live! type services (me included), but continued to play Socom anyways!

 

All PS3 hardware have online multiplayer-enabled out of the box, you can't strip it out of the PS3, that's the point. You can't leave it out. In addition to that it has a web browser open to the whole internet which may be more useful for some people than the closed Xbox 360 community service.

 

I think the point being made is that while the online multiplayer might be free out of the box, a number of cross platform launch games that have good online multiplayer support on the 360 have poorer online support or no online support on the PS3. What good is free online multiplayer in a game like Tony Hawk's where the PS3 version doesn't have online support where the 360 does?

 

LOL, it doesn't mean anythign if the hardware enables online play if it's not supported in the software...it's a stupid comparison, period. Not only are there alot of games you can't play online with PS3, that you can with 360, but not everyone wants to play online, so attemtping to include it in a price comparison is really grasping at straws...

As for web browser, so what? Each system does things the other can't, you can't just pick and choose what is valuable to you, assign some arbitrary monetary value to it, and try and use in some bogus price comparison...

 

Please get a grip on the context in the thread... I mean what Arwin wrote, what Laa-Yosh wrote, and what I wrote. It's basically about whether it's fair to include the Xbox Live fee in the price comparison. I wrote the answer to your post in here already.

 

And his point was right on the mark. How can you give PS3 credit for having equal online play to 360 when many games don't even support it?

It shouldn't be included in the comparison because of the simple fact that A) you can't assume everyone will purchase XBLive, and B) it simply does not deliver online play for a large portion of it's library whereas 360 does.

 

Let me explain it again, the only choice Microsoft is giving to you is, zero multiplayer or paying the full Xbox Live fee. The quality of the service doesn't matter, because zero multiplayer is always inferior to crappy multiplayer. I don't know why you stick to the idea of leaving it out because the premise of the price comparison is how you can make a setup of the Xbox 360 that can match what the PS3 offers out of the box. If the PS3 offers Blu-ray, you add the HD DVD add-on to the Xbox 360. If the PS3 offers multiplayer gaming, what do you add to the Xbox 360? You can't add 5 cents because there's no such option in the real world.

Besides, this price comparison is done by a consumer (Arwin) who wants multiplayer gaming for his new console. It's strange to bring in the 360 users that don't purchase Live in this decision making.

 

If I want to play online multiplayer in Tony Hawk's on the PS3 there's no way I can, period. I don't even have the option to pay a fee for it. If I want voice chat in Call of Duty 3 on the PS3 there's no way I can get it. There's no option on the PS3 to pay a monthly fee and get the high quality Xboxl Live multiplayer experience.

If I'm not interested in online multiplayer then I'm covered with no extra cash on both consoles. If I want limited online multiplayer in a reduced set of games for free I can get it on the PS3 for free. If I want the best online multiplayer available on a console I can get it by paying on the 360, I can't get it at all on the PS3. Some people might prefer limited online multiplay for free, the PS3 might be a better choice for them. Others might want the best online play and are willing to pay for it - for them the PS3 isn't an option at the moment.

It's kind of like bluray playback - if it's important enough to you that you're willing to pay the extra money then you have to go with the PS3 - no matter how much you're willing to pay you can't get it on the 360. If you want fully featured online multiplayer and you're willing to pay the extra then you have to get the 360 - you can't get it no matter how much you're willing to pay on the PS3. Of course if you don't care about online play on the 360 you don't pay for it, if you don't care about bluray on the PS3 you still have to pay for it.

 

Yeah, sure. And if you want to play Tony Hawk multiplayer on Xbox 360 as you suggest you have to pay for the full Xbox Live fee. If you don't, no Tony Hawk multiplayer on Xbox 360, no COD3 multiplayer, no nothing, while the PS3 has some at least. I think that's what normal people think when they compare the platforms called Xbox 360 and PS3. What are you trying to argue here?

 

Sony would look pretty silly charging for their online service since it does not stack up to live. They're getting enough bad press as is. That bit certainly wouldn't win people over.

As for Live, I'm happy to pay $50/year for it. It's painless and transparent to me which is exactly what it should be about. Also, it continues to expand and advance at a pretty rapid rate.

If/when Sony manage to compete toe-to-toe with Live then I'll have an issue paying for it because then we're talking about paying for an equivalent service. Right now they're not. Free is generally free for a reason.

 

Is there a comparison of the two offerings side by side anywhere? Just want to see the difference that everyone's talking about, and especially if it can be fixed by firmware.

Anyways, I'm happy to go with a free service. Many people complained about the PS2's online, but there were more people on that than XBOX Live!! (no source, just from memory) And it wasn't because of the fact that there were more PS2 users, but because it was free. I'm sure it would've been nothing like it was if it wasn't free.

 

Obviously it was both.

 

If you haven't got the point yet then I don't think it's ever going to get through to you but I'll have one more try. I often see people saying it's not fair to compare the prices of the 360 and the PS3 without taking into account the extra stuff the PS3 gives you - bluray playback, the ability to run Linux, etc. Those same people then seem to want to say that you should include the cost of enough years of Live! subscriptions in the price of the 360 to make it seem as expensive as the PS3. Well, if you add enough years of Live at current prices then the 360 is more expensive than the PS3 but now we're in the situation of comparing something with a higher price but more functionality than the competition. According to PS3 apologists that's not fair.

Do you at least accept that the 360 online experience (with a Gold subscription) is better than the PS3 currently? If so then you have to see that you're not comparing like with like when you try to include the cost of a Gold subscription in with the cost of the 360 for the purposes of comparison with the PS3. I'm happy to acknowledge that although the PS3 is more expensive than the 360 you get some things you can't get on the 360 - bluray playback, Linux support, etc. Whether those things make the system better value is very much down to how much value an individual places on those features. Therefore there's no simple answer to the question of which is better value - the PS3 is good value to someone who really wants bluray and a next gen console. In contrast the 360 with several years of Gold subscription offers an online multiplay experience superior to anything you can get on the PS3. For someone who places a high value on online play that makes the 360 better value than the PS3 even if the total cost is more.

The point is that the Xbox 360 without a Gold subscription is not directly comparable to the PS3 but neither is the 360 with some number of years of Gold subscription because it offers an experience the PS3 can't yet match. If you want to argue that for some people the PS3 with bluray and Linux support is better value than the 360 you have to accept the argument that the 360 with 4 years of Xbox Live Gold, even assuming MS doesn't revise their pricing downwards in the future in response to the PS3, is better value than the PS3 for some people, even if it's total cost is greater.

 

True.

Still, does it have to mimic Live! for it to be good? I think Live! is packed with features which I'd see as a 'cherry on top' type deal. Not essential, but great to have nonetheless. Would you 360'ers agree? Because the original Live! was hailed as a great success, even without the 'goodies' that's available with the new system.

BTW, does SONY's online compare to the original XBOX Live!?

 

I'd be interested in seeing a comparison too.
I have little first-hand experience with Live, or the PS3 service either, but I'm left with the impression that the difference is just the unified friends list that spans through all games, whereas in PS3 the friends lists are in the game.
Second thing is messaging to any of your friends in that list inside any game (or do you have to pause to the "Blade" OS first?).
Another thing I've read is that signing up to Live is a bit easier, but that's only ever done once, so it's not that big a selling point, also I don't believe PS3 sign up is that difficult either.

Would I pay $50 a year for these features, I'm not so sure.

Background loading and downloadable full TV episodes and movies, I'm pretty sure they'll soon be on the PS3 too (they weren't there on Live during the first months either, for obvious reasons)