Xbox live price going up !

[KongRudi]

If it's not worthwhile to dish out 50-60$ per year, then why is it even worthwhile to complain about it?

Because if you do, they might listen, and then you'd be able to spend those 50-60$ on something wich you'd like more, if you wanted to.
Like another game, or something other cool.

ESPN, or Netflix isn't expensive services for Microsoft.
They want you in their store no matter if you were a Gold member or not, as long as you have money to spend, they want you in their store.
The more people they get in there the better...
It's in Microsoft's interest to provide their users with this service aswell

I think your fear of Sony adapting a similar payment system in the future is a valid one though.

Offcourse they are, it's simple deduction.
Kaz said a few years ago, that they would not go on record saying that they were going to keep online-play free forever,, Just that they currently had no plans of charging for it.

And if they weren't concidering it, we'd probably see movies of a Kevin Butler out at Gamestop buying CoD for his kid or something, paying 60$.
While the at the counter beside him, a sad-looking parent of a 360-gamer is also buying his son a 60$ copy CoD, and his annoying nagging son manages nags himself to a year of gold-membership for online play, bringing the total up to 110$. :-/
queue smirking Kevin Butler, pointing at Playstation..

Unfortunately, Sony isn't hovering and gloating about that, they're gloating about how great it is to have buttons. And that worries me.

I'm hundred percent sure that if 360 had been more succesfull in Japan, we would probably have had to pay for online gaming on PS3 allready aswell.

Luckily one of the core-markets have some sense to vote with their wallets.
I hope this is enough to deter Sony and Nintendo from going pay for online..

On the other hand you should also be equally annoyed with PS3 gamers and Sony. The former for not speaking out louder and the latter for not doing enough to improve the 'free' service which is PSN to the point where it provides real competition.

The shoe here goes on both feet.

That's what I'm here doing.. Complaining about all these gamers with different opinions than me (wich offcourse have the only correct opinion).
I don't care if they are PS3-gamers or 360-gamers. I couldn't care less about the super extra features that 360-users are so happy about either.
I wouldn't get access to most of them anyway, since I'm european. :-/
However, the few I could use.. Like cross-game chat, is not interesting to me.
When I play Resistance 3, the last thing I would want is to chat with someone who's playing Warhawk, I'd want to talk with those I played with..
So I'd probably deactivate cross-game chat, even if it were available.

But if people want cross-game chat, I'm not opposed that Sony should sell it.
I just don't want to end up being the one who pays for it. Like, they could, you know.. charge the users who want it instead,
They're probably tracking the bandwith usage for each user for internal purposes anyway.

User pay the bandwith cost, like a dollar a year, or maybe two if they used really high quality sound settings. And Sony get a dollar for service providement. Then I'd save two or three dollars, when I chose not to use it. And those who wanted to use it would get their precious cross game chat, for a more reasonable price, than having their online deactivated unless they forked over a giant-sum of money each year.
And Sony would have a super-profitable service.

Squilliam, but you see, it's free, so who can complain about free, it's well worth the wasted hours and hours of endless frustration trying to get into your game.

You need to call tech-support, they usually starts by asking what most people think is really dumb questions; like if you've checked if the power-cable to your router are plugged in the wall, and similar. I suspect that when you've gone through that check-list, you'll be set, in a matter of minutes.

If Sony doesn't improve PSN, then they deserve to lose their customers.

Well, I have yet to see a person who thinks PSN is any worse than Xbox Live silver membership..

PSN+ is the thing wich needs to compete with Gold...

I got the current special deal sign-up offer, like R&C:Q4B, but Street Fighter 2 HD Remix, and Sam and Max: Devil's playground sounds interesting.

The thing I worry about tough, is if they take away online play from the PSN-features, providing Silver-like functunality, and then put it into PSN+ package, So then even I who ain't a big online gamer, would kind of have to concider paying for it with all those free games along for the ride, I might bite the bullet and pay aswell... And that would suck..

I'd much rather have a much better PSN, and abit worse PSN+..

 

[BRiT]

When I play Resistance 3, the last thing I would want is to chat with someone who's playing Warhawk, I'd want to talk with those I played with..
So I'd probably deactivate cross-game chat, even if it were available.

This is why many indicate that the PS3 is for the antisocial gamers, they never seem to have friends to talk to. On Xbox Live, we're typically talking with friends while we're playing different games or finishing up that single player game before we switch over to a nice multiplayer game where all of us can game together.

You need to call tech-support, they usually starts by asking what most people think is really dumb questions; like if you've checked if the power-cable to your router are plugged in the wall, and similar. I suspect that when you've gone through that check-list, you'll be set, in a matter of minutes.

That would merely prolong the length of time it takes to game with friends as others have clearly pointed out. I'm talking about the extensive time it takes to get into a game with friends. Just look at some of Shifty's own posts. It's clearly evident how substandard the PSN gaming experience is.

The PS3 users should be up in arms and demanding a better experience. It's their fault that MS Xbox Live is a cost service. If the PS3 users provided pressure on Sony to make PSN at least competative with Xbox Live, then MS would be forced to offer a cheaper service and perhaps one that's even free. Unfortunately for the gamers, Sony fails in that realm so MS is able to charge what they want for a superior experience.

 

[patsu]

That would merely prolong the length of time it takes to game with friends as others have clearly pointed out. I'm talking about the extensive time it takes to get into a game with friends. Just look at some of Shifty's own posts. It's clearly evident how substandard the PSN gaming experience is.

Yes it is inconsistent and may be frustrating for some games. From Shifty's posts, I remember it happened in a few games. If it's a game issue, the user would probably pack up the game and ship it back. I personally have not encountered any bad experiences on PSN. KZ2's limited party feature is the biggest disappointment so far. At the other end of the spectrum, a few PS3 games have impressive online features, sometimes even surpassing XBL in specific areas.

The PS3 users should be up in arms and demanding a better experience. It's their fault that MS Xbox Live is a cost service. If the PS3 users provided pressure on Sony to make PSN at least competative with Xbox Live, then MS would be forced to offer a cheaper service and perhaps one that's even free. Unfortunately for the gamers, Sony fails in that realm so MS is able to charge what they want for a superior experience.

Ha ha, nope. MS's XBL fees is no one's fault. You're willing to pay for it, so suck it down. It's a fair value exchange unless you don't feel that XBL is worth paying in the first place.

PS3 users have been pressing Sony to improve on many fronts, not just a better online experience. They have been delaying the rollout. In the mean time, it's up to the game developers to deliver that quality experiences.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yes it is inconsistent and may be frustrating for some games. From Shifty's posts, I remember it happened in a few games. If it's a game issue, the user would probably pack up the game and ship it back. I personally have not encountered any bad experiences on PSN.

It also varies by account. I can play online more successfully with my US account than my main account.

 

[NRP]

Why do you need a US account? You're in Europe, right?

 

[BRiT]

I can play online more successfully with my US account than my main account.

Why do you need a US account? You're in Europe, right?

To have a better online PS3 gaming experience...

 

[patsu]

Each region has their own infrastructure. But you can register in another region to get some content exclusive to that region. The US infrastructure seems to be more robust. After you sign in, you should be able to play with people from all regions (as long as the game supports it).

To have a better online PS3 gaming experience...

... at no extra cost.

 

[KongRudi]

This is why many indicate that the PS3 is for the antisocial gamers, they never seem to have friends to talk to. On Xbox Live, we're typically talking with friends while we're playing different games or finishing up that single player game before we switch over to a nice multiplayer game where all of us can game together.

But I don't want to pay for you guys chatting.
I talk with my friends, just not when I'm busy playing..

That would merely prolong the length of time it takes to game with friends as others have clearly pointed out. I'm talking about the extensive time it takes to get into a game with friends. Just look at some of Shifty's own posts. It's clearly evident how substandard the PSN gaming experience is.

Hey, If you had a PS3 you would be antisocial and then you'd not have to worry about finding your friends.. You'r friends wouldn't be angry, because you didn't have them..

Seriously tough, you could just jump into a game in a matter of seconds..
Play with your clan or whatever alongside with hundred of other people, in MAG, or whatever.
Sure, it's not your playing with your friends, most of the big titles allready have a good party-system with friends on PS3 aswell, because the userbase has said they want it.So most games will get it now, to remain competitive.
Just like we got trophies and other stuff, wich we saw you liked on 360.
We don't mind yelling abit if we see something someone else have, wich we want..

The PS3 users should be up in arms and demanding a better experience. It's their fault that MS Xbox Live is a cost service. If the PS3 users provided pressure on Sony to make PSN at least competative with Xbox Live, then MS would be forced to offer a cheaper service and perhaps one that's even free. Unfortunately for the gamers, Sony fails in that realm so MS is able to charge what they want for a superior experience.

PSN has vastly superior experienceto XBox Live Silver experience, has been for 4+ years.
All gamers knows and admits this, regardless of platform-preferance.
And have Microsoft done the necesary thing to remain competitive? No..
I doub't it's not because the PS3-users didn't yell this loud enough.

XBox Live gold has been superior to PSN for a while, have Sony done something to adress this? PSN+ seems to be a good step in that direction. :-/
Time will tell if the content we get keeps holding the same quality.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Why do you need a US account? You're in Europe, right?

As BRiT says, but I think my EU account must be bugged. It doesn't otherwise make sense for me to have the same connection but going via a US account, be able to connect more successfully to PSN. There defintiely seem to be faults at Sony's end. But of course, you don't know that when trying to get online, and waste hours with firewalls and researching settings and all sorts. I suppose the complaints of PSN are twofold - problems, and a lack of services (cross app chat) that'd help when trying to solve these problems. If PSN connected flawlessly, the need for cross-app chat would be much diminished as long as every game had stable chat.

Incidentally, I read on a PS3 forum from a guy who was asking about voice chat in Alien Breed. He said he emailed Team17 and got a reply that said VC was in but was pulled in the last minute due to a killer bug. If Sony are providing their own chat libs, and AB is created in UE3 so is hardly doing anything extraordinary, one wonders how this can be.

 

[patsu]

As BRiT says, but I think my EU account must be bugged.

Say if you create a new EU account, does it perform badly ? If so, the problem may lie in the infrastructure (From your router to your ISP to UK PSN to game servers). Could be anything from network config, incompatibility, or server sizing.

 

[joker454]

Yes it is inconsistent and may be frustrating for some games. From Shifty's posts, I remember it happened in a few games. If it's a game issue, the user would probably pack up the game and ship it back.

Or perhaps the user would sell their ps3 like I did as it because obvious that psn was not going to evolve this gen. I mean they can't claim to be targeting the hardcore, and then offer the hardcore psn! That makes no sense. As best I can tell Sony just aren't interested in the hardcore audience when it comes to online play and they have decided to relinquish that audience to Live, which is really bizarre given how much money Sony funnels into game studios to cater to the hardcore. On the one hand they want the hardcore and spend a fortune to aquire them, on the other hand they scare them away to Live by not offering them a decent online service. Talk about opposing strategies, it just makes no sense sometimes. It makes even less sense when you factor in how little money it would cost them to fix psn, much less than it costs to float a single studio.

... at no extra cost.

See, I told you it's really just all about cost. Notice how the 'free' thing comes up over and over again in these types of discussions. The merits of the services don't seem to matter, it's always just about 'hey it's free!'. I admit I'm a weirdo in that respect. If I'm at a grocery store and they are offering free anchovies (which I hate), I pass on them and go pay for what I actually like. I realize that makes me a sheep on forums to actually spend money on something I enjoy rather than just eat the free anchovies and vomit later, but hey like I said I'm weird that way.

Hey, If you had a PS3 you would be antisocial and then you'd not have to worry about finding your friends..

You are actually 100% correct on this. I had more friends on psn than I have on Live, but because of psn they all abandoned the platform and we all gamed together on Live. So yes you are right, I never found my friends on ps3 when I would use it because they all stopped using psn, hence why the ps3 in the end became purely a single player non-online gaming box.

 

[patsu]

Or perhaps the user would sell their ps3 like I did as it because obvious that psn was not going to evolve this gen. I mean they can't claim to be targeting the hardcore, and then offer the hardcore psn! That makes no sense. As best I can tell Sony just aren't interested in the hardcore audience when it comes to online play and they have decided to relinquish that audience to Live, which is really bizarre given how much money Sony funnels into game studios to cater to the hardcore. On the one hand they want the hardcore and spend a fortune to aquire them, on the other hand they scare them away to Live by not offering them a decent online service. Talk about opposing strategies, it just makes no sense sometimes. It makes even less sense when you factor in how little money it would cost them to fix psn, much less than it costs to float a single studio.

That's because the final online gaming experience, hardcore and casual, is embedded in the game. And it is possible for developers to implement a weaker experience or a stronger experience than XBL.

See, I told you it's really just all about cost. Notice how the 'free' thing comes up over and over again in these types of discussions. The merits of the services don't seem to matter, it's always just about 'hey it's free!'. I admit I'm a weirdo in that respect. If I'm at a grocery store and they are offering free anchovies (which I hate), I pass on them and go pay for what I actually like. I realize that makes me a sheep on forums to actually spend money on something I enjoy rather than just eat the free anchovies and vomit later, but hey like I said I'm weird that way.

It's about willingness to pay. ^_^
Why can't people mention "free" when people missed it ? It's possible to find superior and free experience on PSN.
Even if they offer anchovies at a price, you'd still miss it right ? Same for XBL. Not everyone is willing to pay for said item. Nevertheless, some people love or don't mind anchovies.

 

[Arwin]

Incidentally, I read on a PS3 forum from a guy who was asking about voice chat in Alien Breed. He said he emailed Team17 and got a reply that said VC was in but was pulled in the last minute due to a killer bug. If Sony are providing their own chat libs, and AB is created in UE3 so is hardly doing anything extraordinary, one wonders how this can be.

That's a good question. I was listening to PS Nation podcast, and they were complaining about Castle Crashers. That game has been out forever on the 360, but it has broken online code and it was never fixed for the 360 version. The reviewer of the (just released) PS3 version had some hope that perhaps the PS3 version, being so much later, would have better online. But of course not - he had the exact same problems with the PS3 version as on the 360 version. Torgo asked the exact same question - he had met the devs at PAX and asked them plainly why if they are so bullish about continuous support of their games and adding content, they can't just simply get the online to work properly, and even if they can't manage it themselves, then why can't they just ask for some libraries from Sony for this or whomever.

But apparently these things are low priority for devs of these 'smaller' games (or in some cases even bigger games) and they just don't bother - there are too many other important things for them out there to fix (which is worrying in itself).

I played Singstar again today (as I do regularly, I like it and it's something I can do together with my kid) and that game can be such a posterchild for the highlights of PSN in terms of online. I can join communities (still in the GAF one) where I can compare my highscores with everyone in that community, I can download new songs, videos, pictures and audio performances of other people, everything can be ranked by everyone, you have your own profile that other people can visit and favorite, you can play online battles with video chat, the game can be voice controlled, the list just goes on and on. For me there are enough games like these to not mind examples of the contrary - many of those games I just don't bother with in the first place.

I personally think that it will be hard for Sony to improve PSN this generation, simply because for some of the things that Live does, you need to lay the groundwork day one of the new generation. I think that it will actually be impossible to get a party system or cross game voice chat working properly now and we can only hope that when the next generation starts, Sony will have the basics for these set in stone.

Until that day, we can all hope that maybe some more features make it in this generation and get supported by newer games and some of the bigger older games, but that's about it (and again I would still recommend Sony to try just to get the experience with it, or else you're going to make mistakes in the next-generation that you could have better made this generation).

At the same time, it all comes down to the games and how badly we want to play them. If they mess up online or 'forget' to put voice chat in there, then we have to choose with our wallets and are basically in the same predicament as a Live user is when the price goes up. If you're interested in online, it's a good idea to not buy a game day one on either system, and wait and see how the experience with online pans out in the first few weeks.

Meanwhile, I think that the original question remains fairly simple - for most people the price hike is small enough to not care, and/or easily enough worked around in terms of offers. For me personally the code purchase is not only cheaper but much preferable because I can only cancel live through phone, and if I get it through Microsoft it's always automatically renewed, nothing I can do about that (I got it for a month for Forza 3 but of course it kept on going after that), but with these codes auto-renewal remains off thankfully.

 

[obonicus]

See, I told you it's really just all about cost. Notice how the 'free' thing comes up over and over again in these types of discussions. The merits of the services don't seem to matter, it's always just about 'hey it's free!'.

... Because free is an important part of the feature-set? It's one of the merits of the service, you don't get to arbitrarily choose to exclude it and then still expect to have a meaningful discussion (which, granted, we're not having).

I admit I'm a weirdo in that respect. If I'm at a grocery store and they are offering free anchovies (which I hate), I pass on them and go pay for what I actually like. I realize that makes me a sheep on forums to actually spend money on something I enjoy rather than just eat the free anchovies and vomit later, but hey like I said I'm weird that way.

If anyone argued 'see, everyone talks about universal game invites when comparing, no one talks about the merits of the services, they just bring up universal game invites. If I went to the store and they were giving dishrags away for free, I wouldn't want to buy the $5 ones with the better absorbency' they'd be mocked.

 

[NavNucST3]

So here we are 315 posts in. Have we resolved anything yet?

Joker and I sold our PS3's (he also hates anchovies), Shifty is having UK PSN account problems, PSN is still free and XBOX Live is having a price increase on certain SKUs in certain countries, some people are reverting to Silver, some people are remaining Gold, some people care, some people don't.

 

[BadTB25]

My opinion:
- Live Gold is better performance and features wise overall-- it's really hard to dispute, although some have said that on certain games PSN maybe superior.

- PSN may be a better value, but value is a subjective term. I rarely play online on my PS3, so PSN has little value other than for updates and demos which I also get for free if I opted for Live Silver.

And NO, as long as some die-hards stick to their guns, it will never be resolved.

 

[AlphaWolf]

So here we are 315 posts in. Have we resolved anything yet?

People who don't like microsoft and have never and will never use live, are more upset about the price increase than the people who actually pay for and use the service. The people who actually pay for it would rather not have a price increase but that's life. I only wish my ISP would limit the price increases to once every 10 years.

 

[patsu]

So here we are 315 posts in. Have we resolved anything yet?

Joker and I sold our PS3's (he also hates anchovies), Shifty is having UK PSN account problems, PSN is still free and XBOX Live is having a price increase on certain SKUs in certain countries, some people are reverting to Silver, some people are remaining Gold, some people care, some people don't.

Only Asher claimed to drop out of XBL Gold. He's going to let it lapse anyway. I am not aware this thread is supposed to resolve anything. Only XBL subscribers are affected, and not all even.

EDIT:

People who don't like microsoft and have never and will never use live, are more upset about the price increase than the people who actually pay for and use the service. The people who actually pay for it would rather not have a price increase but that's life. I only wish my ISP would limit the price increases to once every 10 years.

Not everyone. I am not upset about XBL price increase because I understood its value to some gamers. I even said the increase is fair value exchange (for them). \^o^/

 

[AzBat]

I only wish my ISP would limit the price increases to once every 8 years.

I fixed that for you, but totally agree. The naysayers always forget that little bit of data.

Tommy McClain

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Or perhaps the user would sell their ps3 like I did as it because obvious that psn was not going to evolve this gen. I mean they can't claim to be targeting the hardcore, and then offer the hardcore psn! That makes no sense. As best I can tell Sony just aren't interested in the hardcore audience when it comes to online play and they have decided to relinquish that audience to Live, which is really bizarre given how much money Sony funnels into game studios to cater to the hardcore. On the one hand they want the hardcore and spend a fortune to aquire them, on the other hand they scare them away to Live by not offering them a decent online service.

That's not really right though, as the Sony 1st party titles tend to have better online support. Uncharted 2 is very good, although it had a painful birth and I don't know if they resolved the game data corruption that required updates to be deleted and reinstalled from scratch. UE3 seems a big culprit on PS3, and someone, somewhere, should be plugging that hole. Also the issues with PSN are mostly to do with playing with friends. Going online against unknonwn people still works. And the lack of voice chat cooperation will probably be lost on most PS3 gamers who didn't experience it on PS2 and are used to silent gaming, and see voice chat as nothing more than an abuse channel. Which, let's be honest, it probably is on all platforms in competitive play!