XBL's Greenberg on PS3 online

[Titanio]

If I had to choose online gaming w/o or ~ $5/mo with ingame voice chat -- the later wins, hands down.

I don't think you should have to choose. I don't think MS can credibly hold out universal support for voice chat (something that may well become available over time on the PNP via your in-game XMB anyway) when it's something that doesn't incur nearly as much, if any, ongoing cost compared to other features (which are being provided for free). It might be something you value, but I don't think it's something you should have to pay for.

Being an online gamer (i.e. the initial targetted audiance) I would say this is a make or break feature for any online gaming service.

Not being able to chat online ingame is a major hurdle to online gaming.

I think you're really exagerrating here. Voice chat is very useful in certain types of game, but in many others I just completely switch it off. In fact, I've had many experiences where voice chat has been 'break' for me, rather than 'make'. There can be little worse than listening to a bunch of hyperactive 12 year olds who know they have an audience, so to speak. Now, if you're only ever playing with your mature peers who you personally know, that's a different story (although I think most people playing online are usually playing with people they don't know).

Again, it can be very very useful in some games when playing with the right people, but in others it absence certainly isn't a hurdle, and can be a blessing in my experience..!

All of that said, I think universal voice chat should be an option (even if I won't use it more often that not), and I'm fairly confident that will be one of the features exposed in the in-game XMB friends list over time. But it's certainly not something I'd pay for, personally, and I don't think it's a convincing justification for subscription fees looking at the economics of that. Generally looking at Greenberg's answer to the second question, I think he should have thought it through more carefully..by the end he was really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Though voice chat in every game isn't confirmed, it seems to me something to expect. We know PS3 can support BlueTooth headsets - what's the point of that if you can't use it in games? And as has been said, if it hasn't got it now, it'd probably make its way into an early system update. Alternative Voice Chat may also be handled via the game (eg. XFire), so perhaps you can only converse with those in the same game rather than with friends playing a different game, but I can't see that as a hugely major loss personally. It'd be nice to have open communications no matter what you're doing, but for me, if I'm talking about something other than the game I'm playing, I'd just talk rather than do something else at the same time. The only time I'll be doing something at the same time as conversing on the phone is talking to someone I don't realy want to talk, and in those cases not having voice chat is a plus!

 

[Powderkeg]

Why are 'company spokesperson talks about rival company's product/service' threads still allowed?

Well, when you allow a couple of hundred threads like this from Sony reps it's only right that you have to allow the occassional MS rep to have his thread too.

My question to you is this. With the countless Sony rep threads that have been posted here over the past couple of years, why did you wait for this one before you started complaining about them?

 

[MechanizedDeath]

Well, when you allow a couple of hundred threads like this from Sony reps it's only right that you have to allow the occassional MS rep to have his thread too.

My question to you is this. With the countless Sony rep threads that have been posted here over the past couple of years, why did you wait for this one before you started complaining about them?

Why do you post in so many PS3 threads? Lots of ridiculous questions to be asked, ay? PEACE.

 

[Powderkeg]

Why do you post in so many PS3 threads? Lots of ridiculous questions to be asked, ay? PEACE.

I'm sorry, is this a PS3 thread? Sure looks like a thread about an interview with a Microsoft rep to me.


And I suspect I post in them for the same reason as so many people here who don't own an Xbox/Xbox 360 post in MS threads, like this one. I'm not doing anything that many other forum members don't do.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

My question to you is this. With the countless Sony rep threads that have been posted here over the past couple of years, why did you wait for this one before you started complaining about them?

I've complained about plenty of them from all sorts of sources, although I was far more tolerant to begin with. This one was just the one that hit at a point where I'm fed up of the whole nonsense and can't see any reason to still allow these threads on the board.

Snide implications that I'm biased in favour of Sony PR and justing wanting to beat down MS PR also tick me off. Comments like yours are nothing to do with console technology and solely about allegiances. Seems to me half the posts on this forum are somone accusing someone else of being biased without contributing anything to the actual discussion (often because there isn't an actual discussion other than 'which console is best'). Typing a post with no purpose other than to 'call someone out' is a waste of everyone's time.

 

[StefanS]

The reason these threads aren't deleted per default is that the mods and I aren't going to nazimod topics or define what topics are suitable for discussion ( other than extreme cases). Threads are what you / the posters make of it, not what the mods deem appropriate.
You never know what comes out of a thread, so usually we let it live long enough to see if it's going well or not.
That said this thread didn't turn out to well...