You're wrong. Only the sophisticated viewers of SpikeTV play God of War, not the unruly trash that plays on Xbox Live.
PSN not profitable yet
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You're wrong. Only the sophisticated viewers of SpikeTV play God of War, not the unruly trash that plays on Xbox Live.
corduroygt
Banned
Not even in the same league as COD.
GOW3, unlike such games, doesn't rely on multiplayer to make up for weak and even shorter campaigns, mediocre graphics, and inadequate QC. You can enjoy the game to its fullest extent without ever being in contact with a "brogamer" who is also playing it.
VC is essential for any cooperative game to be fun and seamless. I don't really see how this can be refuted. I mean, yes, you can play without voice chat, but then you could also play a shooter with only one thumbstick and a button to switch between moving and aiming modes; the alternative is so poor as to not be worth bothering with. Thus if you are providing a service with online gaming, then voice chat should be a part of that. Free online gaming isn't essential any more than free games are. I mean, we like it, but companies have to make money somehow and it's down to them to choose where to charge. If VC were a charged feature, it'd still satisfy the need for VC in all games.
Hogswash. People should stop blaming platform biases for a difference of opinions. My views on PSN's features are based on my using it and what I want. I don't much care what the alternatives have, apart from them showing what is possible. Even if no-one had voice-chat, I'd be demanding it as a feature.
As for off-topic, it seems a natural progression of an otherwise very short discussion. I agree things could go too far into a feature checklist wars, but the scope to actual compare the profitability of Live! and PSN is there if people want to introduce what you'd consider more salient points. As it is, PSN's profitability is fairly being considered relative to Live!'s and people are considering why that is. If you have a fgood argument that it has squat to do with features and everything to do with lack of competition on Live!, or greater content, or whatnot, feel free to post such points here!
corduroygt
Banned
http://www.vgcats.com/comics/images/090811.jpg
PSN partially weeds out their ranks by not having a heavily US-skewed install base distribution, lack of party chat, and presence of more games that don't depend on multiplayer to be worth buying.
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jeff_rigby
Banned
Some background from what I've heard over the last 6 months:
1)Beta Testers wanted for Sony Multi-platform Massive Action Game.
2) Ultraviolet universal DRM (multi-platform)
3) WebGL games (industry excitement but no news from Sony) but Sony ported a Webkit WebGl Javascript engine to the PS3. They are porting more Webkit code in the next few months. The port is a Cairo/Posix port which again confirms WebGL. Multi-platform games or 3-D requires WebGL
4) Sony Stockholders reports talk Cloud computing and a Digital eco-system between multiple Sony platforms
5) 4 SPU cell patent - distributed processing between multi-platform Sony products and DRM between multi-platform Sony products
6) Sony filming in 4K as well as up-converting movies to 4K resolution
7) Android Cellphone and rumors of a PSP2 Android phone (Android is a multi-platform language/OS)
8) Home is Lua based which is multi-platform
9) The Jive Forum (Sony moved from Lithium to Jive for Forum support) is big on Java (server side) Javascript (client side) which allows multi-platform configs as well as easy social -personal media applications and support.
10X increase in PSN revenue in 1+ years (by 2012)
I don't think there is any way for the PSN to get a 10 times increase in revenue for Media given Sony is allowing competition on the PS3 and all other Sony platforms. They can't increase the volume of PS3 sales much beyond current levels. 10X increase is such a massive increase given the above I have to assume it's multi-platform and Sony is going after a large share of the entire industry Media sales both multi-platform games and Media.
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We're not discussing the necessity for cooperative games to be seamless. If you want to discuss the need for voice chat in a game like MAG then we'll probably be in agreement. If we want to discuss the need for voice chat in games like God of War 3 or Heavy Rain, then I'll risk another infraction by saying that kind of fascist, overbearing control by platform holders should be relegated to the trash heap of history like the authoritarian NES days.
It's not as if the universe hasn't produced a multitude of ways for people to converse while on opposite ends of the earth. To say that's a necessity for a video game console IS console bias. It's an emotional rather than rational argument.
Actually, you can. You get into party chat with your friends so you don't have to hear any of them, and continue to play and use teamwork.
Well, with Live you can use 1 to 1 or party chat at any time, which is independent of the game you're playing, so single player games do not have to implement any kind of voice chat system. From what I can tell, all multiplayer games have voice chat, but I'm not sure if they have to implement it or not. I think they do.
Xbox Live topped an estimated 1 billion dollars. Some estimates as high as 1.2 billion. Did Microsoft ever report a final figure?
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...ably-topped-1-billion-for-the-first-time.html
Compare that to the $300 million for PSN. Take out the gold fees for Xbox Live, and you'll still see Live generating twice the revenue of PSN.
I can't explain why that would be the case. It's either the service, or the content that people are more willing to pay out for. If anyone can think of a different good reason, I'm all ears, but to this point, it looks like Sony completely misplayed the online portion of the PS3. They're four years in, and maybe they're starting to pull things together, but they should have been better out of the gate. I really think they didn't understand the importance of digital distribution.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...ably-topped-1-billion-for-the-first-time.html
Compare that to the $300 million for PSN. Take out the gold fees for Xbox Live, and you'll still see Live generating twice the revenue of PSN.
I can't explain why that would be the case. It's either the service, or the content that people are more willing to pay out for. If anyone can think of a different good reason, I'm all ears, but to this point, it looks like Sony completely misplayed the online portion of the PS3. They're four years in, and maybe they're starting to pull things together, but they should have been better out of the gate. I really think they didn't understand the importance of digital distribution.
It would be interesting to see how many subscribers they predict will sign up for PSN+, music unlimited and other subscription services over the next year. That would probably give a better indication of where that revenue is going to come from.
Hard to say if it's mandatory - I'd expect the big MP titles to have it though I haven't come across any other that doesn't have it's own anyway -, but two separate systems do exist, which is pretty evident when using the new audio codec in the global chat vs the in-game's old one (Halo: Reach, Gears).
jeff_rigby
Banned
Given the competition I mentioned then a 10 times increase in revenue would require Sony Media service to be MUCH better in some way than the competition they allow on their platforms. I see that as unlikely and a more reasonable explanation would be they are increasing the target audience 20x or more by going multi-platform. It still requires they offer a value perceived product.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
I'm actually getting a real kick out of a three page thread with people saying that PSN is equal (some actually said better in terms of gaming!) to Live, and then having to watch you explain to them the features that Live even has.
What Joker said in his long winded diatribe is correct. If you haven't used Live you're not missing the features because you don't know what you're missing.
Oh, and on the topic of buggy PSN games, I still feel sorry for all those PS3 users who bought Borderlands and think it sucks so much, when it was one of the best games of the year and worked damn near flawlessly on Live.
Aye, hopefully sales increase after the developers of AB and DN added voice chat to their games. That would send a clear signal to developers that people want voice chat or they won't buy.
Heard Borderland for PS3 is broken. I don't know if mandating voice chat is the way to go for them if the game has other basic issues (crashes, lost of data, framerate). Strange that they never went back to patch voice chat. I suspect the developers may struggle more because voice chat take up additional memory. To turn on voice chat for all games, we have to be willing to give up precious memory first.
I think once Sony roll out their new content platform, they should revisit online gaming support. Their new content business should bring in additional dough and server infrastructure to support more sophisticated implementation (e.g., Whether it's possible to push more responsibility to server side so the voice chat module does not take up too much client memory). I still want my free online gaming even if they add voice chat. ^_^
Hmm... not all media device owners. NetFlix is not available to Xbox gamers who don't pay for Live. They are going overseas, but for now it's US and Canada.
If you look at partner services that way, XBL in US will lose last.fm and all content partnerships. Regular consumers don't see things that way. ^_^
It's fine that you see things your way. I see friends on NetFlix and other media services all the time. They are rather popular. Gamers don't have to buy an additional box to enjoy media services. I do expect MS to tweak the packaging moving forward as NetFlix becomes "hygiene factor".
Companies will constantly revise their plans.
Sony started out late even during the Internet boom. Boardroom struggle and corporate restructuring also slowed things down. As a CE company, they will feel the need to take all their devices online. Instead of worrying about PS3 only, they need to take care of Blu-ray players, TVs, cellphones, and who knows what. The content negotiation takes time for so many platforms.
OTOH, if they can execute successfully, then they are actually in a good position to take advantage of multiple potential revenue streams (The so-called 10x revenue gain). If their latest content venture goes well, we should see new effort in gaming too. The services complement each other.
EDIT:
From a business perspective, I can tell Sony hasn't started to push PSN aggressively (They focused more on "not losing money"). The online business went through some weird restructuring (SCE got renamed to SNEP, and then the latter absorbed into Sony group; and a "new" unit called SCE is formed ;-)). The push only started in second half of 2010 where consumers began to see more aggressive promotions and new exclusive content services. If their marketing team works, the new CRM platform, Plus and Rewards programs should help drive revenue. It's possible that they have been waiting for development and negotiations (under the new entity) to complete. For a while, the frequent PS3 firmware updates stopped, perhaps to make time for longer term development.
Still, they have lost much momentum due to the distractions. Hopefully they can put more advanced online services in place. I am curious to find out what they learned in that PS+ survey (Personal cloud storage ?).
corduroygt
Banned
Nice condescending attitude there, Mr. "we know what's good for you better than you do". I have extensively played UC2, and the only thing that could be organized better was to get a party going. Once that party was set, we played for hours on end, with superb quality party chat. GT5 is even better in that regard, you just agree to meet in someone's online lobby and we get perfectly functioning voice chat just fine.
For me, it's far more important to save a few hundred dollars over the lifetime of a console generation, and make sure companies don't think they can get away with charging for p2p connections, than those extra features.
I believe last year or so, MS added a patch to allow developers to turn off voice chat for their games (for game design/gameplay purposes).
Not disable, but prevent players from entering certain MP playlists should they be in party chat. (Modern Warfare 2) The work-arounds make it a moot point as you can set it so that you only hear voice chat from people on your friends list via the dashboard or manually mute every other player while in-game (when playing with friends). Obviously, it's not as convenient, but it kind of shows it's pointless to have such a restriction.
Yep. One-to-one private chat still worked, and it was only a couple of the total number of playlists. I haven't seen any other game take that approach. I imagine Black Ops does as well.
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