Xbox live price going up !

[tha_con]

Are you serious with PS3 having better voice chat quality?!?!?
I experience the exactly opposite...the only game I knew on PS3 is UC2, which has kind of acceptable voice chat and Resistance 2 being the best overall. But on Xbox360 voice chat quality is not only more consistent but IMO overall better - at least in my experience.

Here an example for you:
The biggest problem is when you want to meet up with people in a game and something unexpected happens.

If everything works ok, you meet in the lobby and can typically chat there...but if someone is missing due to what ever problem, and factoring in that he is probably new to online gaming - what next...where to meet, call by telephone is often the only option and is ultra lame IMO.
Getting back to XMB and meeting in the chat room, to talk - is ultra lame as well. If we had at least 1 to 1 chat, you could coordinate everything with a breeze...and it sucks that PSN does not support this!

Now talking about meeting not with one guy, but with a bunch of people gets frustrating very fast when something unexpected happens...how do you coordinate things when you cannot communicate?

If you are talking about playing online alone, which I do for instance in BF:BC2 - no problem at all, I just get online, right in to a game, and play...in such a case, there is indeed nothing missing...

The quality is better. There is no cap on PS3 games for the bitrate used in the audio codecs, and many times developers will spring for the higher quality (since they can). On the 360, currently, they are limited to the old voice chat codec that has been around since the original Xbox. There is absolutely no question that the quality of the voice chat is better.

The consistency of the user base using voice chat, or the lack of cross game voice chat, etc, is not a part of this.

As for the whole cross game chat, parties, etc. It's a comfort convenience. I participate in forums online, we set up times to play, we're there and we play. There's no absurd "one hour waiting period". That is self inflicted. NEVER will you encounter an experience where you are FORCED to wait for an hour. If you're waiting for other players that is YOUR fault, period. It's extremely easy to coordinate with friends, set up times, etc.

We start our games at a set time, if people show up late, they wait until we're finished, we're not going to wait for them.

 

[AlNom]

We start our games at a set time, if people show up late, they wait until we're finished, we're not going to wait for them.

That doesn't sound very friendly.

I participate in forums online, we set up times to play, we're there and we play.

So basically... you're using the PC or the PS3 web browser in order to coordinate instead of communicating in real time with the rest of the party.

Although functionally equivalent, that's pretty terrible for the "average" user.

I apologize for us not all adhering to such stringent schedules for gaming.

 

[Billy Idol]

The quality is better. There is no cap on PS3 games for the bitrate used in the audio codecs, and many times developers will spring for the higher quality (since they can). On the 360, currently, they are limited to the old voice chat codec that has been around since the original Xbox. There is absolutely no question that the quality of the voice chat is better.

Seems to be that my perception is off, because I think that in the games I played, 360 quality is as least as good, and far more consistent (probably some theory VS practice thingy?)

The consistency of the user base using voice chat, or the lack of cross game voice chat, etc, is not a part of this.

As for the whole cross game chat, parties, etc. It's a comfort convenience. I participate in forums online, we set up times to play, we're there and we play. There's no absurd "one hour waiting period". That is self inflicted. NEVER will you encounter an experience where you are FORCED to wait for an hour. If you're waiting for other players that is YOUR fault, period. It's extremely easy to coordinate with friends, set up times, etc.

We start our games at a set time, if people show up late, they wait until we're finished, we're not going to wait for them.

Maybe we have a different definition of friends, but I will NEVER start just a game when one of my friends is not there before I don't know what's up with him ...


But just a question to you: so you think everything is perfect? You don't want Sony to improve PSN? You don't want party chat? You are happy that Sony, instead of giving what people demand since day one (e.g. cross game chat), give us idiotic Home, text chat (supi dupi), pointless System updates (now I get ads, wow) and finally PSN Plus (no comment, because probably kids are reading this forum) - I say: thanks for nothing!?
The only real PSN feature I use (and mind you: this is indeed a brilliant one!) is free online gaming...but that's it!

 

[Arwin]

That doesn't sound very friendly.

It's what I always do with online gaming, or indeed most meetings in general unless the customer is paying me to wait. Especially if you're meeting with a bunch of people at the same time then anyone who is late is wasting a lot of other people's time. The 'penalty', waiting a maximum of 10-15 minutes for the next round to start, isn't particularly severe either.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

NEVER will you encounter an experience where you are FORCED to wait for an hour. If you're waiting for other players that is YOUR fault, period. It's extremely easy to coordinate with friends, set up times, etc.

We start our games at a set time, if people show up late, they wait until we're finished, we're not going to wait for them.

I think you misunderstand my situation. Those hour waits are caused by meeting up on time and the games not connecting properly, with an hour's troubleshooting until we get the damned thing to work. Also it's not the cross-game chat that's the priority as much as working in-game chat, but by extension to that a unviersal comms system makes sense as an extension to that system. Every suggestion I have made has come from what I have wanted to do in real life and found issues with, so they are based on actual need/want and not just features for features' sake. And yes, you can "make do" with what we have, but humanity has been able to "make do" with caves and rocks. Wanting things to be better leads them to be better.

 

[zed]

Seems to be that my perception is off, because I think that in the games I played, 360 quality is as least as good, and far more consistent (probably some theory VS practice thingy?)

you perhaps are too young

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090302/0130073943.shtml

So, I'm sure they're going to be upset to hear that a growing number of young folks actually prefer the sound of MP3s to other, much higher "quality" systems.

 

[BRiT]

This shows as Out Of Stock, but you can still order and wait for them to be shipped out.

Dell has 12 month Xbox Live subscriptions for $29.99 + Tax, if you order 2 you get free shipping.

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...43&acd=10550055-1225267-u0t2214524f9fp0c0s441

 

[tha_con]

That doesn't sound very friendly.



So basically... you're using the PC or the PS3 web browser in order to coordinate instead of communicating in real time with the rest of the party.

Although functionally equivalent, that's pretty terrible for the "average" user.

I apologize for us not all adhering to such stringent schedules for gaming.

How is it not very friendly? I don't have any friends who are sensitive enough to begrudge me if they miss the first game. We generally meet up at a scheduled time, sit in the lobby and talk for a few minutes, and when our party is big enough to have an enjoyable game, we go. If a few people aren't there, we don't wait around. If they're online, we send a message, if they don't respond we start. There is no point waiting around, it has nothing to do with friendly.

As for using the PC, well, in part, yes, that's true. I encourage most of my friends to post on my forum. We use it as our own place to BS, discuss games, etc. I've put a lot of effort into the site to give it as much functionality I can, and generally my friends appreciate that, so meeting up on a PC in our off time (or during work, lol) isn't a huge issue. No one spends 24/7 at their console

Sure, it's not ideal, but the reality is, to me, that XBL simply isn't worth the money they charge, period. I can get each and every feature XBL has for free on my PC. Sure, I may have to use a multitude of software, but that's not the point. Should I really be made to pay because someone wrapped this stuff up in a nice package? I mean, nearly every bit of the online gaming service is peer 2 peer, with server costs being negligible.

Would you be so accepting if your phone company arbitrarily decided to raise your price for your service, without much explanation as to WHY they're doing it?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Would you be so accepting if your phone company arbitrarily decided to raise your price for your service, without much explanation as to WHY they're doing it?

They've been known to, and we complain! Sadly being in a cable-free part of the UK (just off the main commuter route to London, 10 miles from Guildford, the game development capital of the UK, so obviously out in the sticks) there's zero competition to the £10 per month 'line rental' money to BT for doing sod all.

 

[Rotmm]

They've been known to,...

Haven't they just done so in fact... from October no less

 

[Scott_Arm]

How is it not very friendly? I don't have any friends who are sensitive enough to begrudge me if they miss the first game. We generally meet up at a scheduled time, sit in the lobby and talk for a few minutes, and when our party is big enough to have an enjoyable game, we go. If a few people aren't there, we don't wait around. If they're online, we send a message, if they don't respond we start. There is no point waiting around, it has nothing to do with friendly.

As for using the PC, well, in part, yes, that's true. I encourage most of my friends to post on my forum. We use it as our own place to BS, discuss games, etc. I've put a lot of effort into the site to give it as much functionality I can, and generally my friends appreciate that, so meeting up on a PC in our off time (or during work, lol) isn't a huge issue. No one spends 24/7 at their console

Sure, it's not ideal, but the reality is, to me, that XBL simply isn't worth the money they charge, period. I can get each and every feature XBL has for free on my PC. Sure, I may have to use a multitude of software, but that's not the point. Should I really be made to pay because someone wrapped this stuff up in a nice package? I mean, nearly every bit of the online gaming service is peer 2 peer, with server costs being negligible.

Would you be so accepting if your phone company arbitrarily decided to raise your price for your service, without much explanation as to WHY they're doing it?

The way the people on xbox live play EA NHL online, there's no way what you're doing would work unless everyone was sitting beside their computers as they were playing. Most people are sitting on a couch somewhere without access to their PC.

Well, I guess they do play on PSN, but the behaviour must be completely different than what I'm used to.

 

[egoless]

Delete

 

[Scott_Arm]

So, if they're increasing the bitrate for chat, are they increasing the maximum bandwidth allowed for multiplayer games on Live?

 

[Arwin]

360 audio is not good? I own both a PS3 and a 360 and I hadn't noticed, but thanks for the info. Also, the codec gets updated in the new dashboard update, probably as a side effect of Kinect.
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2010-08-26-xbox-headset-sound-quality-to-improve

We didn't say (I certainly didn't say) that 360 audio is not good! I just said that sometimes PS3 audio can be much better. I pointed out that consistent quality is more important as well, just that some games on PS3 have better sound quality than the best on 360, and sometimes by a fairly significant margin too.

Don't you see any link at all between the two statements you made? Why would Microsoft bother to up the bitrates at all?

I think Microsoft scored big time when they set standards for their service and interfacing day one. I don't think Sony can ever fix that problem this generation. But at the same time, I would have recommended them to at try as much as possible, in order to have something that can be built upon for the next generation.

I do wonder how expensive the voice chat is, in terms of bandwidth, and how much it's responsible for the monthly fee of Live. Remember that Home had voice chat for all spaces at the beginning, not just the personal ones, which they had to cut in order to stop connection errors as apparently the voice chat overburdened the system.

 

[egoless]

Delete

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So, if they're increasing the bitrate for chat, are they increasing the maximum bandwidth allowed for multiplayer games on Live?

I imagine so. The explanation for Live's current quality setting was a specification that had 64Kb as broadband. I assume they'll go 512 Kb for broadband and the minimum spec to use Live, allowing for more everything.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I imagine so. The explanation for Live's current quality setting was a specification that had 64Kb as broadband. I assume they'll go 512 Kb for broadband and the minimum spec to use Live, allowing for more everything.

This bodes well for Battlefield 3 or Bad Company 3.

 

[tha_con]

The way the people on xbox live play EA NHL online, there's no way what you're doing would work unless everyone was sitting beside their computers as they were playing. Most people are sitting on a couch somewhere without access to their PC.

Well, I guess they do play on PSN, but the behaviour must be completely different than what I'm used to.

I don't understand what you're trying to say?

We don't communicate on our forum while we play. We use it to set times and meet up with people, in advance.

i.e. "Anyone want to play MAG sometime this week? I'm free Wednesday and Friday after 5pm". Then we discuss, make plans, and before too long a few of us are ready to play at a set time. While we play, we'll send messages to a few other people, maybe see if other folks are interested, etc. But we certainly don't message everyone or send invites then randomly wait for folks to maybe join, or maybe not join.

We still all have headsets, we all talk and communicate, and the games function just as they would on XBL. The mere fact that we can't do cross game invites or have an open party chat across multiple games doesn't change that. We're still in a party, playing together round after round, and talking to each other. I'm sure NHL is no different.

 

[eastmen]

I don't understand what you're trying to say?

We don't communicate on our forum while we play. We use it to set times and meet up with people, in advance.

i.e. "Anyone want to play MAG sometime this week? I'm free Wednesday and Friday after 5pm". Then we discuss, make plans, and before too long a few of us are ready to play at a set time. While we play, we'll send messages to a few other people, maybe see if other folks are interested, etc. But we certainly don't message everyone or send invites then randomly wait for folks to maybe join, or maybe not join.

We still all have headsets, we all talk and communicate, and the games function just as they would on XBL. The mere fact that we can't do cross game invites or have an open party chat across multiple games doesn't change that. We're still in a party, playing together round after round, and talking to each other. I'm sure NHL is no different.

I don't use my ps3 much and I never try to hide that fact. However this is my question about the ps3.

The way my friends and I currently work on xbox live is simple. One smuck will get the idea that we haven't killed each other and talked shit enough for awhile and so they will send out an xbox live message to everyone. Now some will responed though msn messanger , some through the xbox website and some through xbox live. But we all respond and the user only needs to send the message out across one format. No needing to email some , message some or even call others. I'm sure in the future we are going to even start using windows 7 phone featuers to set this up.

is there something similar for the ps3

 

[Scott_Arm]

I don't understand what you're trying to say?

We don't communicate on our forum while we play. We use it to set times and meet up with people, in advance.

i.e. "Anyone want to play MAG sometime this week? I'm free Wednesday and Friday after 5pm". Then we discuss, make plans, and before too long a few of us are ready to play at a set time. While we play, we'll send messages to a few other people, maybe see if other folks are interested, etc. But we certainly don't message everyone or send invites then randomly wait for folks to maybe join, or maybe not join.

We still all have headsets, we all talk and communicate, and the games function just as they would on XBL. The mere fact that we can't do cross game invites or have an open party chat across multiple games doesn't change that. We're still in a party, playing together round after round, and talking to each other. I'm sure NHL is no different.

That all sounds very organized. I rarely ever want to plan my gaming in advance. For NHL, what we do is come online, check to see what games people are playing, start a live party and people jump in and out as they want to play. It's very easy to have a mutable group of people that can discuss which positions they're going to play and when. Usually some people in the party are playing another game while waiting for a spot to open up. It could be done over messages, but it would take a lot of messages back and forth between 6 people to figure out which positions everyone is going to play. You might have two guys that can play center, but one is good at wing and the other is not. Or maybe two guys that play right wing, but one is ok at left or center, and the other only plays right, so you have to shift the other two around. Same for defence where some guys only play left or right, or maybe you have a d-man that can jump up to forward and a forward that can drop back to D, if the forwards favourite spot up front is already taken. Or maybe you have a bunch of guys and a few can play goalie, but which one ends up being goalie depends on how guys fit all of the above. And trust me, this is not a rarity. This is what goes on pretty much any time a line tries to get going on a medium to large team, or on a club-hopping team. For a while I was on a small team and everyone had set positions, so there were no problems like that. But it was cool that we could all talk about the game while playing other games, if we were waiting for one of our guys to come online, or if we wanted to talk things out after we'd finished with NHL for the night.

Just in general, I think the cross party chat is a nice feature. I can play good games and talk with Alstrong while he plays the same old games over and over and over and over and over again. The simplicity of group chat makes it very easy to get spur-of-the-moment gaming going. I never plan to be on at a certain time, or play a particular game on a certain day. I just get online, see who's on and end up chatting with somebody and we'll invariably end up playing something. I'm sure you can communicate all of the same things through messages, but it's a hell of a lot faster if all the parties involved are able to speak with eachother and hear the entire conversation. And I'm sure advance planning can help, but what do you do if the plan starts to fall apart?