Xbox live price going up !

[Scott_Arm]

I'm not sure anything more can be added really. One can say, "yeah, some those devs that commented were given special privillages, but everyone else is under an iron fist," and as all we have to go by are quotes, we couldn't ever know how true or not that position was. Really, before we could say what advantages there are for developers on PSN, we'd need to identify exactly what is meant by 'more open'. Still, is these devs get privilieges that MS won't give, then the platform is still more open than Live!, even if that openness is very limited by "doors wide" comparison.

You're probably right. I just think calling it an "open platform" is maybe a little too strong. It's obvious from the examples provided that there have been some different policy, but saying something is relatively more "open" than Live does not necessarily make it very "open" at all.

 

[patsu]

Ask Valve. ^_^

Sony really isn't that much different. I'm not sure where this Sony is open and gives flowers to everyone idea came about. They are just as hard assed and closed about their platform. For some things they may be more open than Microsoft, for others less so.

For standard games that fit within the boundary, it's hard to see the differences. It's easier to see when someone go against their standard operating policies, or conflict with their existing deals, and pricing structures (e.g., UT user mods, BBC iPlayer, FFIV). This is because these operating policies, economics and deals were structured with the assumption that the network is closed to Microsoft.

With new players entering the scene, they may be forced to be more open to new approaches though.

Because ND has a room of people that don't make games, they don't even crunch unlike the gaming people. Instead they do nothing but make tools, game tech, and visit companies to help them out. I mention them because they are the only thing in the ps3 universe (non games) to me that is even remotely competitive with the competition. On other aspects they are behind.

Besides the original ICE tools, the MLAA contributors, the Blu-ray stack creators, developers investigating stereoscopy 3D gaming, Dr. Marks and his group, the Marlin DRM platform, Insomniac's online platform, etc. are all valuable to me as a user.

Your exposure seems limited. e.g., I doubt you have any chance to interact with Japanese dev teams (e.g., in Polyphony).

Some of that is already on the 360 like dlna support, netflix, etc, some were available first, and some are still way better like movie selection and ease of movie viewing. For the rest, some of them weren't standard on ps3, you needed to use the browser no? I did not have access to much of the stuff you mentioned on my ps3 without the browser. When I last used the browser it was about as unusable as psn to me, totally half baked and a very frustrating experience. The odd thing here to me is how the same people are having totally different experiences on the same box. The media experience on ps3 to me, aside from bluray which was excellent, has been really bad bordering on unusable. Terrible interface, terrible codec support, weak dlna support, streaming media issues, network disconnects, poor and/or late Netflix support, and a terrible browser. Even some of the stuff you mention like Divx, more divx files played correctly on my 360, the ps3 would fail more. Are we using the same ps3, or are we just really unlucky/lucky and that is leading is to opposite experiences on the same machine?

Still can't hide the fact that without Blu-ray, the 360 is only addressing a small subset of PS3's audience today. For Internet videos, both 360 and PS3 are incomplete because it's a moving target with a long history of content incompatibility as the open source people prototype their stack. 360's DLNA support is not standard compliant (PS3 Media Server has to make changes to the protocol to accommodate them). You will be able to find content that refuse to play on either platform. Not sure why using the browser to play YouTube is bad. I use it all the time. I rent shows from PSN Video store frequently too.

NetFlix, Hulu Plus, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, VidZone, and more are deals various organizations struck with Sony without any run in with regulations and conflict of interests.

Yeah Microsoft has screwed up plenty, I'm very vocal about that although not on this forum as Microsoft already takes quite a beating here already. Although to be fair hddvd would have won if Warner had sided with them but in that circumstance it was Sony that cut the bigger check. Better that it died anyway, blu-ray is much better. I've openly said that the 360 is one of the few things Microsoft have done right in a long time because they had been screwing up for years. Seems like they are finally waking up though, albeit slowly.

It's their so called next-gen DVD; their new future. Warner wouldn't want to commit exclusively to an ill-supported format that has much lower demand compared to Blu-ray for 24 months straight, despite a very aggressive player price and an early start. The user demand has to be there first. Sony's relationship with Warner is only possible with this proven demand. And they needed to end the meaningless HD movie war anyway.

I guess so, I still don't understand how people can use psn anymore than how someone can use rabbit ears for tv. Still makes me scratch my head because it's so bad, but to each their own.

You don't have to understand. You may never understand. Just continue to pay.

The analogy is nice. Some people like AzBat (?) and I terminated our cable contracts because we don't think it's worth it. The HDTVs today already allow us to pick up HD signals over the air for free. But for people who have limited exposure, they would imagine that rabbit ears is the only option. In reality, there are other ways to get digital entertainment. And now, cable companies are openly considering a new cheaper cable package for us "drop-outs".

I am more interested to see free online gaming for the masses.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Ask Valve. ^_^

Again, Valve's support of the PS3 was non-existent and they publicly stated they had no interest in the PS3 for a long time. Suddenly they're excitedly bringing Steam to the PS3. Did Sony throw them a bone to bring them over? I'm guessing yes.

There was an interview, at one point, where they stated they had the most interest in platforms where they could control their content. Mac was added, PS3 was not. People wondered why and they said they didn't have as much control of their future on Live or PS3. They said the future was in open platforms. Suddenly they're on PS3, so something changed between that interview and the PS3 announcement. If you open a door, but you selectively choose who gets to pass through, I wouldn't exactly call it an open door policy. More open, maybe, but not exactly "open."

 

[patsu]

It's not sudden if you have been paying attention. If Valve is good, Sony or MS will want them making games for their respective platforms.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=155309

http://playstationlifestyle.net/2010/02/21/valve-will-probably-develop-for-ps3-eventually/

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=236838

http://playstationlifestyle.net/2010/03/13/valve-snatching-up-ex-naughty-dog-employees/

http://spong.com/article/21398/Valve-PS3-Should-Be-More-Open-Like-A-Mac

http://www.destructoid.com/valve-ps3-is-better-for-customers-182157.phtml

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30028/Valve_PS3_Incredibly_Important_To_Studio.php

 

[obonicus]

Again, Valve's support of the PS3 was non-existent and they publicly stated they had no interest in the PS3 for a long time. Suddenly they're excitedly bringing Steam to the PS3. Did Sony throw them a bone to bring them over? I'm guessing yes.

I think it's clear that Steam was thrown a bone. EA has its own crummy gamestore, they're much closer to Sony than Valve and you don't see them being allowed to do an end-run around PSN.

That the bone that was thrown was via allowing an exception for Valve speaks to their openness though. It's not openness as in 'open standards', Sony's PSN API certainly isn't 'open' for everyone (hell, the PSN gamercard API is much more closed than the XBL one, AFAICT). Would 'flexibility' be better, even though devs have used 'open' in their own statements?

And maybe Sony is only open to these discussions because of their 3rd-place position, maybe they'll close down PSN as soon as they have everyone who matters on-board, the way MS seems to have shifted its position regarding MMOs (FFXI was on 360, but FFXIV is not) but that's pointless speculation.

 

[Scott_Arm]

It's not sudden if you have been paying attention. If Valve is good, Sony or MS will want them making games for their respective platforms.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=155309

http://playstationlifestyle.net/2010/02/21/valve-will-probably-develop-for-ps3-eventually/

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=236838

http://playstationlifestyle.net/2010/03/13/valve-snatching-up-ex-naughty-dog-employees/

http://spong.com/article/21398/Valve-PS3-Should-Be-More-Open-Like-A-Mac

http://www.destructoid.com/valve-ps3-is-better-for-customers-182157.phtml

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30028/Valve_PS3_Incredibly_Important_To_Studio.php

Some of those comments from Valve are weird considering they gave an interview around the time of the OSX Steam launch where they showed little interest in the platform. They essentially said Mac better represented the market they were going after because it was an open platform, where they could control their content and services where the consoles were not. Maybe they were just saying those things to not tip their hand at the announcement. But still, a lot changed between 2007 and 2010. If they were able to bring Steam to PS3 in 2007, wouldn't they have done so? Why has it taken 4 years from the launch of the platform for them to suddenly realize they could port Steam in some form?

I mean, having Steam on PS3 is a huge thing. I'm not complaining at all. I think it's awesome. I just think it would not be normal for Sony to allow competing services on their network. I suppose we'll see how it works out. Maybe rather than duplicating services it'll tie leverage services on PSN for messaging and chat(when it arrives). I have a hard time believing that Sony would not want to be directly in control of the future of their online service and how it grows. Once someone else becomes leader in that space, it becomes harder to wrestle it back. Look at the PC. Games for Windows Live vs Steam. Who's the obvious winner in that one?

 

[patsu]

All the video services on PS3 compete in some sense but they also differentiate among themselves.

But still, a lot changed between 2007 and 2010. If they were able to bring Steam to PS3 in 2007, wouldn't they have done so?

According to them in interviews, PS3 team building, R&D and (my guess) negotiation. Other third parties took a long time to create a quality multiplatform engine. Valve chose to delegate the porting initially but that didn't work well. So they had to do it the hard way also, with a late start.

 

[Arwin]

Valve chose to delegate the porting initially but that didn't work well. So they had to do it the hard way also, with a late start.

My take is that it is only a recent thing that Valve has started expanding beyond the PC. From here they've been looking at Mac, Linux and now PS3. With Steam on Mac just out recently, they can't have been talking that long about it, and before they reached this point there was no reason to believe either party was that interested. But now Steam has the infrastructure working cross-platform with a licencing system that allows you to buy a game once, play it on multiple platforms, and they are reaching a new position where integrating with multiple platforms is something they're ready for at the back end and which is something that becomes a value-add on the front-end.

Now from the Sony side, there have been interviews one or two years ago where Sony talked about changing the security back-end for PSN to a system that adheres to industry/open standards that other services would be able to connect to. Once they have this system in place, I presume they may have started to actively court content providers to hook up with PSN. Steam/Valve may have been approached from this angle.

 

[patsu]

The open standard DRM you're referring to is Marlin/DECE. Would be nice if Steam is using DECE also. I'd be pleasantly surprised if true.

 

[AzBat]

The analogy is nice. Some people like AzBat (?) and I terminated our cable contracts because we don't think it's worth it. The HDTVs today already allow us to pick up HD signals over the air for free. But for people who have limited exposure, they would imagine that rabbit ears is the only option. In reality, there are other ways to get digital entertainment. And now, cable companies are openly considering a new cheaper cable package for us "drop-outs".

Yes, I haven't paid for cable TV since 2000. That was mainly because of finances more than anything. But when I got my HDTV in 2006 I was able to take advantage of HD OTA content. But since moving in 2008 I can't get a good enough signal for OTA broadcasts. So now I depend completely on Hulu over PlayOn and Netflix streaming all on my 360. I can't conceivably see my ISP providing me a cheap enough cable TV package for me to start paying for it again. The same reason I won't pay for Hulu Plus.

Tommy McClain

 

[ShadowRunner]

that's easy - PSN is the only network available on the paltform of choice, and PS3 is the only platform with Uncharted, LBP, and other titles that attract people to it. If 360 was a perfect content match, and the choice of console was purely down to network, bye-bye PlayStation. But it's not. The console of choice for many is PS3, and we suffer a lousy network as a result (although I dare say plenty were like me in expecting gamer's requirements to be satisfied eventually, and certainly didn't expect 3 years in to still have online games with no way to talk to teammates!), but we do also have benefits which we'd lose if we went with 360 and its superior network situation.

I still dont think you can even say that. Many would choose a PSN level service over Live because it is free, not because they have no other choice. I have an Xbox and PS3 but do my online gaming on PS3 because it doesnt cost me, its as simple as that, not because i have no other choice. Even when i paid for Live i never used the party features or cross game chat, if you have no interest in those features why would people pay $60 for them, just for the sake of it?? One thing i would like is a better invite system, like Live's, but even then i wouldnt pay anywhere near $60 for it. And before anyone says it, im not cheap i am just not going to pay for something that has little value to me.

If i didnt have a PS3 i probably would pay for Live just because would have to for any sort of online at all. Some people need to realise that there is more than one type of gamer, and people value different things. PSN is more of a selling point for PS3 than Live is for 360 for many people, especially the more casual user that doesnt spend their life online and just wants to play against some random strangers in COD from time to time. On the flipside the more hardcore online gamer is more likely to see value in Live and see that as a selling point. Im not suprised there are many people here happy to pay for Live, i am suprised however that some people have this idea that everyone should hold the same values as them.

I cant see how anyone could say that live's gold subscriptions wouldnt see a big drop off if they introduced a PSN level free MP service.

 

[joker454]

Besides the original ICE tools, the MLAA contributors, the Blu-ray stack creators, developers investigating stereoscopy 3D gaming, Dr. Marks and his group, the Marlin DRM platform, Insomniac's online platform, etc. are all valuable to me as a user.

Your exposure seems limited. e.g., I doubt you have any chance to interact with Japanese dev teams (e.g., in Polyphony).

Stuff like MLAA only benefits games, whereas the ice tools benefit any and all software development on the platform. Basically everyone uses them whether you're making a game, a dynamic theme, or whatever, hence why I mention stuff like that. What Insomniac has done maybe is cool for their games, but it's had little impact anywhere else. Likewise, there is little that Polyphony Digital has done that has benefited the platform on the whole. They need to get a Naughty Dog style group of people dedicated to psn, all parts of it. What ND has done has benefited all software experiences on the platform, now they need something similar for psn. My original point was that Sony have been hopelessly unable to make progress on psn at an acceptable rate and I don't think they will ever be able to either do so if they just rely internally on themselves. So they need to turn to someone external to help them get it up to modern standards. Exactly like they did with the ice team. They mercifully realized early on that they alone simply would not be able to keep up with Microsoft on tech and tools if they just went it alone internally and they got ND tp pick up that slack. That was a great decision because if they didn't this generation would have turned out far different. Now they just need to realize the same for psn and likewise get someone external to help because alone they just aren't capable of doing it. I'd happily vote for Valve, but we'll see what transpires.

Still can't hide the fact that without Blu-ray, the 360 is only addressing a small subset of PS3's audience today.

I've heard this argued both ways. Whereas the ps3 is the better disc based media platform, the 360 is the better download media platform. Which is better? Depends on who you ask. Either way, it should never have even been a competition, Sony should have utterly smoked the competition here, they have all the pieces to make that happen and they didn't. That a console upstart with no movie studios was able to sideswipe Sony in this regard was a great failing on Sony's part. Some of it is due to boneheaded decisions on Sony's part, but others is because their software infrastructure to support downloading movies, etc, is so poor that they have been held back.

For Internet videos, both 360 and PS3 are incomplete because it's a moving target with a long history of content incompatibility as the open source people prototype their stack. 360's DLNA support is not standard compliant (PS3 Media Server has to make changes to the protocol to accommodate them). You will be able to find content that refuse to play on either platform. Not sure why using the browser to play YouTube is bad. I use it all the time. I rent shows from PSN Video store frequently too.

NetFlix, Hulu Plus, BBC iPlayer, YouTube, VidZone, and more are deals various organizations struck with Sony without any run in with regulations and conflict of interests.

Truth be told, both consoles have appalling support of video codecs really so at this point it's just a matter of arguing which is the best of the worst. Again though of the two I would have expected Sony to have been head and shoulder ahead of Microsoft on this given their vested interests in having the ps3 become the defacto media player since they also sell home theaters, tv's, etc. Regarding the browser, I don't know what to say. I've tried the ps3 browser and I just don't find it usable, so I won't comment any more on that.

 

[AzBat]

Some people need to realise that there is more than one type of gamer, and people value different things. PSN is more of a selling point for PS3 than Live is for 360 for many people, especially the more casual user that doesnt spend their life online and just wants to play against some random strangers in COD from time to time. On the flipside the more hardcore online gamer is more likely to see value in Live and see that as a selling point. Im not suprised there are many people here happy to pay for Live, i am suprised however that some people have this idea that everyone should hold the same values as them.

I'm a casual gamer compared to most here and others on Xbox Live. And I still see value in paying for Gold. I'm also cheap and poor too, but I still try to find the money to pay for it. I look at Live Gold as a cable or phone service that costs $4 a month currently($50/yr). Yes, I'm upset it's going up, but when I started thinking about it's only going up less than a $1/month, I felt better about it. I'll be even happier when I get the Family pack at $8/month since I'll be getting 4 Gold accounts for the price of 2.

Anyway, I personally I don't buy the idea that hardcore players see more value in paying. If that was the case we would be seeing a lot more of the PS3 owners say they would pay. I think there are probably more hardcore gamers than casuals on PS3 because of the system price & the elite status it gives. I just think that most PS3 owners think that a free PSN is more of a trump card to use against 360 owners and that's why they prefer it. But from what I've heard so far about the PSN service it doesn't sound like something I would be proud of. I think I'd rather pay for a service that's MORE consistent & dependable.

I cant see how anyone could say that live's gold subscriptions wouldnt see a big drop off if they introduced a PSN level free MP service.

I think you need to qualify that argument further especially after saying that you thought hardcore gamers see more value in paying for the service. What would come with this free MP service over existing Gold? Would you get the 8-player parties & party chat? Would you get video chat? Etc? Would there be any limitations on how much time you spent on multiplayer? If they allowed complete unlimited multiplayer gaming & 8-player parties just like Gold, then you probably would see a drop in Gold subscriptions, but I'm not so sure it would be as drastic as you suggest.

Personally, I can't see Microsoft going that route though. I could however see them extending things to Silver that they are already doing, like the free Gold Weekends promos & those 48-hr free Gold trials that usually come with new games. Not sure if many of you have used the latter, but they basically only give you multiplayer gaming. You don't get access to ranked matches, uploading to file share in Halo 3, starting parties or participating in Gold subscription promotions. My idea is that they may extend 2-days worth of multiplayer like in the 48-hr free trials & not just on weekends. This still gives hardcore games an incentive to buy Gold since they'll want unlimited play. But if they allowed Netflix to be used with this I might certainly bite.

Tommy McClain

 

[ShadowRunner]

I'm a casual gamer compared to most here and others on Xbox Live. And I still see value in paying for Gold. I'm also cheap and poor too, but I still try to find the money to pay for it. I look at Live Gold as a cable or phone service that costs $4 a month currently($50/yr). Yes, I'm upset it's going up, but when I started thinking about it's only going up less than a $1/month, I felt better about it. I'll be even happier when I get the Family pack at $8/month since I'll be getting 4 Gold accounts for the price of 2.

Well this is part of my point, we are all different, how me or you use the services and whether we are happy or not to pay for them are irrelevant the point is that not everyone is the same...

Anyway, I personally I don't buy the idea that hardcore players see more value in paying. If that was the case we would be seeing a lot more of the PS3 owners say they would pay. I think there are probably more hardcore gamers than casuals on PS3 because of the system price & the elite status it gives. I just think that most PS3 owners think that a free PSN is more of a trump card to use against 360 owners and that's why they prefer it. But from what I've heard so far about the PSN service it doesn't sound like something I would be proud of. I think I'd rather pay for a service that's MORE consistent & dependable.

Im sure many PSN users would pay if they had no other choice, and im sure many would pay for extra features at a premium if they were available. My point is still that many would not, they are fine with what they get for free. I have no evedince to back it up but it seems logical to me that the more hardcore online gamers would get more out of the extra features Live offers, they spend more time online, are more likely to use the party features etc. But sure i could be wrong. I never suggested there were more casuals on PS3 by the way, i was just suggesting that to someone who does not have a console free online can be seen as a selling point depending on how they plan to use it. Nobody here is trying to us PSN as a trump card or anything, they are simply saying for some people a basic free service is better suited to them than a premium subscription service. Some will genuinely see the value in what Live offers them over PSN, some wont, its fact and not even debateable.

I think you need to qualify that argument further especially after saying that you thought hardcore gamers see more value in paying for the service. What would come with this free MP service over existing Gold? Would you get the 8-player parties & party chat? Would you get video chat? Etc? Would there be any limitations on how much time you spent on multiplayer? If they allowed complete unlimited multiplayer gaming & 8-player parties just like Gold, then you probably would see a drop in Gold subscriptions, but I'm not so sure it would be as drastic as you suggest.

I made that comment so that the console its on is irrelevant to the discussion. If Live as is and PSN as is were offered as two services on the SAME console there would be some taking the free service and some willing to pay $60 for the other. Agreed? Some people are happy to pay for a better online experience, some are happy to get a basic service for free, just like many other services. Its like flying first class or economy, wether the extra cost is worth it depends on the individual. If PSN was to offer all the extra features of Live as a $60 payed extra plenty of people would still stat with the free offering, id be quite suprissed if they managed to get more than 50% to sign up.

 

[Arwin]

I personally quite hate it when people say stuff like well people on PSN don't know better, or just use the free bit because they're jealous. Yes, there are definitely a bunch of experiences where the online in Live is better, as I ff-in know from experience as I have it and have had it for 6 years + now.

In practice though, there are plenty of games that have very good online on the PS3. Yes it sucks that it is not universal, and yes there are definitely people who would be better off on the 360, but in the end it's all about the games, and I guess I'm just lucky that I like games that have good online implementations. The game I've been playing most online recently for instance is Tekken 6, and the online play is great, and still very easy to find players. Before that, Singstar has picture-in-picture video in online battle mode. LBP is another game that I've played a fair bit online and never had many issues with (a few drop-outs initially). Going through the list of games that I've played a lot, there just haven't been many problems. At the same time there are quite a few games that go beyond what is available on the 360 in terms of content sharing, amount of simultaneous players, dedicated hosting, etc.

I personally think that above all else, the biggest problem is when a game doesn't support parties properly if you want it to or when a game doesn't have voice chat. These sure are problems, and if you happen to really want to play those games a lot you're going to end up frustrated like Shifty. I'm a much more lax player in that respect. I just hate that voice chat isn't in Hustle Kings yet where it would have been perfect and they promised it, but that's it. Whole years of Live have passed where I barely played anything online and it's just a waste of money. Sure it's just a small amount each month, but if you bought the 360 for 399, and use live for 5 years that amounts to a fair amount.

Yes, there is no doubt whatsoever that Microsoft did a great job in setting standards. Yes, there is also no doubt that some games use that as an excuse to skimp on these features on the PS3 version of their multi-platform game. Yes, there is no doubt that PSN could use some of Live's features. It's a missed opportunity on Sony's behalf to cut into Microsoft's marketshare more significantly.

But ultimately what is best for you personally is going to depend on your gaming habits and preferences. Having both, I keep ending up playing on the PS3. Joker has (or now had?) both and ended up playing more on the 360. It's easy to see what you miss when you take one and go to the other for comparison, but it's not as easy to see what you gain on the other platform, because that takes time.

 

[patsu]

Stuff like MLAA only benefits games, whereas the ice tools benefit any and all software development on the platform. Basically everyone uses them whether you're making a game, a dynamic theme, or whatever, hence why I mention stuff like that. What Insomniac has done maybe is cool for their games, but it's had little impact anywhere else. Likewise, there is little that Polyphony Digital has done that has benefited the platform on the whole. They need to get a Naughty Dog style group of people dedicated to psn, all parts of it. What ND has done has benefited all software experiences on the platform, now they need something similar for psn. My original point was that Sony have been hopelessly unable to make progress on psn at an acceptable rate and I don't think they will ever be able to either do so if they just rely internally on themselves. So they need to turn to someone external to help them get it up to modern standards. Exactly like they did with the ice team. They mercifully realized early on that they alone simply would not be able to keep up with Microsoft on tech and tools if they just went it alone internally and they got ND tp pick up that slack. That was a great decision because if they didn't this generation would have turned out far different. Now they just need to realize the same for psn and likewise get someone external to help because alone they just aren't capable of doing it. I'd happily vote for Valve, but we'll see what transpires.

If you're talking about the Edge tools, then it should be contributed by folks throughout Sony, not just NaughtyDog.

I don't think the experiences learned from MLAA, Blu-ray stack, stereoscopic 3D, Marlin DRM, online gaming platform are restricted to gaming only. A good design pattern, for the Cell architecture, can be reused in other PS3 projects. In particular, Marlin is already used in the PSN Video store, and will form the foundation of Qriocity. Stereoscopic 3D R&D also cut across gaming and non-gaming needs.

Shuhei mentioned in one of the interviews that Polyphony Digital has additional responsibilities helping Sony achieve its vision. I am sure they would share PD's finding with other groups.

For PSN, I think Sony will need partners' participation as well as internal development since it's an open platform. Would be nice if Steam is involved. There is also SOE.

I've heard this argued both ways. Whereas the ps3 is the better disc based media platform, the 360 is the better download media platform. Which is better? Depends on who you ask. Either way, it should never have even been a competition, Sony should have utterly smoked the competition here, they have all the pieces to make that happen and they didn't. That a console upstart with no movie studios was able to sideswipe Sony in this regard was a great failing on Sony's part. Some of it is due to boneheaded decisions on Sony's part, but others is because their software infrastructure to support downloading movies, etc, is so poor that they have been held back.

I don't think MS is a better download media platform. Some areas are better, but PS3 is also better in other areas. e.g., The 360 only has a subset of what PS3 offers (e.g., no YouTube, no Hulu Plus until March, no BBC iPlayer, no PlayTV). PS3 also has one of the best upscaling capability for DVD and Internet videos. NetFlix is free on PS3 but requires Gold on 360.

Truth be told, both consoles have appalling support of video codecs really so at this point it's just a matter of arguing which is the best of the worst. Again though of the two I would have expected Sony to have been head and shoulder ahead of Microsoft on this given their vested interests in having the ps3 become the defacto media player since they also sell home theaters, tv's, etc. Regarding the browser, I don't know what to say. I've tried the ps3 browser and I just don't find it usable, so I won't comment any more on that.

Sony is already head and shoulder above 360 the moment MS decided not to play in Blu-ray. It's the nextgen DVD platform. It works worldwide. It will also evolve into something different as it gains wider support (e.g., BD-Live streaming, 3D Blu-ray, Qriocity). Meanwhile, industry leading DVD and Blu-ray playback entertain folks around the world.

As for web browser, it is indeed non-compliant and slow. Fortunately, it is adequate for viewing YouTube since the video runs in a separate SPU. Google has a special page for TV playback. ^_^

Anyway, I personally I don't buy the idea that hardcore players see more value in paying. If that was the case we would be seeing a lot more of the PS3 owners say they would pay. I think there are probably more hardcore gamers than casuals on PS3 because of the system price & the elite status it gives. I just think that most PS3 owners think that a free PSN is more of a trump card to use against 360 owners and that's why they prefer it. But from what I've heard so far about the PSN service it doesn't sound like something I would be proud of. I think I'd rather pay for a service that's MORE consistent & dependable.

Not sure why PS3 users need a trump card, or need to feel proud about PSN. They just game or watch video. A free online gaming service makes them happy. The developers' online gaming platforms entertain them. The inconsistent experiences frustrate many. The open environment brings a few interesting services and games. Life goes on as usual.

Whether XBL is worthwhile or not, one should be able to rationalize and pay for the hiked fee without bringing up PSN. They are rather different from each other.

 

[Billy Idol]

The question for me is, what makes Xbox Live cost money - is it really the underlying service/tech?

According to my PC gaming buddy, Steam offers the same (even more?) as Xbox Live and is free. That is why he thinks it is not acceptable to pay for online gaming service.

So when Steam offers the same as Xbox Live+ it is free...what makes Xbox Live this 'expensive' in comparison?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The question for me is, what makes Xbox Live cost money...

The fact it's a closed platform meaning MS can charge knowing XB360 gamers have to pay or go without.

 

[Billy Idol]

The fact it's a closed platform meaning MS can charge knowing XB360 gamers have to pay or go without.

Am I right that your answer applies also to this question:

"Why are the Xbox Live costs increased?"

 

[NavNucST3]

The takeaway from this thread so far, which I think was essentially covered on page 1, is that those of us who have Gold and actually use it, (this would exclude the exclusives only crowd like, Arwin) while we don't LIKE having price increases, will continue to pay for Gold (for myself/family we will be on the family pack). For those dual-console 360/PS3 owners who prefer to play on the PS3 and rarely use their 360 will revert to Silver.

I pay for myself and my son, the online gaming is, at a minimum, a tertiary concern. Since Gold is required for Netflix and Zune, I have Gold since I don't have cable tv. My viewing habits don't match the changes that happened months ago at Hulu so the AzBat method doesn't work for me even though I own PlayOn premium. The fact that I can store the HD and SD versions of my tv shows and movies on my usb drive is just an added benefit and yet none of this should matter to anyone else. Don't be personally offended if I didn't like my PS3 enough to keep it. I don't care if you don't use your Wii or 360 or PS3. The only thing I don't want is for someone like Arwin to believe they are an authoritative source on something they clearly don't use just because they have it.