Xbox live price going up !

[patsu]

Sale of virtual items and renting space to advertisers.

...and sales of Home spaces and games.

If they simplify the Home UI, I don't think people will be mad. XMB Chat Room is more lean and accessible everywhere. Home is more open and powerful (16P closed room voice chat, but at that point, text chat may be more manageable). I think the Chat Room can host up to 24-32 players, while Home can go 64.

 

[-tkf-]

Home is imho way of what it should have been, i imagined a world that was in one piece where i would walk from one place to another without having to wait for stuff to be loaded. I expected a short load for the initial space (which should be my apartment). I guess i was to used to World of Warcraft that ran on something as basic as a laptop with integrated graphics back then.

What i got was something else, way else, i am walking around in single piece areas with no aparent connection to the other spaces. And the integration with games is poor, and i can understand why. Having to login in to home to use what i would consider basic features is pretty stupid.

I still find home to be worth a login, once in a while, and the content in there now is pretty solid, but everything is really attached to a price label

Give us simple voice chat with our friends, let us chat no matter what games we play, and a simple lobby function please. And for the next home, make it seemless.

 

[zed]

That all sounds very organized. I rarely ever want to plan my gaming in advance

I rarely play games, but if theres certain ppl u want to play with then planing it in advnace seems the best way.
Ive seen ppl do this on this forum with halo3
Turning on the console + hoping the others will be plaing on the console at the same time seems very hit + miss

 

[BRiT]

Your pointing out of the "Halo" gaming sessions isn't as rigidly defined as you need to be on the PS3 because of Sony's pathetic online experience.

For the gaming sessions on the Xbox Live is simply a "Lets do some ____ game on Friday/Weekend. See you when you show up." Then as people sign in online, they join the live-party-chart to see what's up and if the current games will be much longer, they can do a quick match while waiting. When the initial game is done, you send out a invite to the entire live-party. It's that simple and easy. During the entire time it's very fluid and natural; it's nothing as horrible as the PSN/PS3 experience.

I really can't fathom how PS3/PSN users can tolerate the absolute craptasticness of their experience.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I really can't fathom how PS3/PSN users can tolerate the absolute craptasticness of their experience.

There's no choice, other than using XB360 or PC instead which are different devices with different titles and features and so aren't direct replacements.

 

[patsu]

The PSN experience depends on individual games.

For the gaming sessions on the Xbox Live is simply a "Lets do some ____ game on Friday/Weekend. See you when you show up."

That's not what tha_con and I meant.

By pre-planning, it means I will make an effort to clear my work, fetch my kid, eat my dinner early. That sort of thing. Even if I am on XBL, I will still need the pre-planning. Some of us are very busy you know. ^_^

If you say "See you when you show up." to me, it usually means I won't show up.
I most likely will forget a few seconds later.

During the entire time it's very fluid and natural; it's nothing as horrible as the PSN/PS3 experience.

On the contrary, my favorite PS3 games all have stellar online party experiences. Save for KZ2. That game is great, but the party system is too limited.

 

[BRiT]

On the contary, the PS3/PSN has no party system across games/apps. By definition that is a horrible experience. I'm not talking about the experience once you're in the game. I'm talking about the experience you have as soon as you sign in to the network.

 

[patsu]

*Shrug* We simply start the game and play until others show up. Sometimes with beer in hand... well, on the table.

 

[Scott_Arm]

...
By pre-planning, it means I will make an effort to clear my work, fetch my kid, eat my dinner early. That sort of thing. Even if I am on XBL, I will still need the pre-planning. Some of us are very busy you know. ^_^

If you say "See you when you show up." to me, it usually means I won't show up.
I most likely will forget a few seconds later....

I prefer to schedule my gaming around my life, not the other way around.

 

[patsu]

I do that too, but then again, few Americans will be able to join me. I game alone @ 2am - 4am sometimes, or with Asians and Europeans. That's my free time. ^_^

If we have 7pm - 10pm PST RFOM game, I will have to make arrangement.

 

[makattack]

For the gaming sessions on the Xbox Live is simply a "Lets do some ____ game on Friday/Weekend. See you when you show up."
...
I really can't fathom how PS3/PSN users can tolerate the absolute craptasticness of their experience.

On both, PSN and XBL, I use an Android App on my phone to see who's on and playing what... well, I can see who's playing what on XBL... not PSN. At any rate, that helps me decide to go online or not... XBL definitely makes it easy to stay connected if your friends as it offers more information such as:

Soandso is watching Netflix
Whatsisname is playing Limbo
Whosthis is playing Bad Company Rush on X Map
Thedude is playing MW2 campaign.

Unfortunately, with all the PSN apps, it's just who's online/offline and when they were last on, with their trophies list (the XBL apps show achievements and their avatars/gamer pics).

 

[Arwin]

On the iPhone I use iTrophies. This shows online and offline and all trophies, with very good sorting and compare features. I don't know how if it shows what game you are playing now though EDIT: it doesn't - but PSN itself does of course. No idea if it's supported outside the API, but I'm guessing not.

Shifty, have you had any connection issues to Home this year? This is not generally an issue anymore.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Shifty, have you had any connection issues to Home this year? This is not generally an issue anymore.

I don't know that I've tried this year. Certainly the last time I tried to go on it failed. Maybe it all works lovely now, but that boat has sailed as far as I'm concerned. Sony would have to start paying me to visit Home!

 

[Arwin]

I don't know that I've tried this year. Certainly the last time I tried to go on it failed. Maybe it all works lovely now, but that boat has sailed as far as I'm concerned. Sony would have to start paying me to visit Home!

You'd be surprised though. I started it on my new Slim, and it installed, reserved disc space, came up, and got me into the Wipeout space in the time it used to take to get to the old Home's 'press x to enter' screen with the stupid tile logo.

 

[patsu]

On the iPhone I use iTrophies. This shows online and offline and all trophies, with very good sorting and compare features. I don't know how if it shows what game you are playing now though - PSN does, but no idea if it's supported outside the API.

Shifty, have you had any connection issues to Home this year? This is not generally an issue anymore.

The PSN web interface does not show what you friends are playing. Only whether they are online, and their trophies.

I left Home for 2-3 months a while ago and came back. There's been some improvements but I will most likely disappear for a few more months. Some of the basic problems are still around. It doesn't have the freshness of user generated content sites, and yet we all are paying the dues for the incremental update (Home space download). Official updates can be done more transparently. The platform allows us to toy with the other players' widgets (e.g., bubble machine), but there is no real use for them. The Home space developers don't use them. The users are restricted to a very limited set of actions.

When a free to play MMO (e.g. Free Realm) is released, they may lose a big chunk of users. Should XMB include community features, they may lose another big bunch. ^_^


It remains a chatter's app. The main draw is the users. But I should be able to get that in any community/social site or MMO, with a much more elegant UI. There is no news on 3D or Move enhancements so far.

 

[tha_con]

I prefer to schedule my gaming around my life, not the other way around.

Right, because that's OBVIOUSLY what we do! You solved the big mystery here!

No, the reality is I'm a full time college student with a part time job, so when I get the opportunity to game, I need to say "okay, on Thursday Nights I'm free, so let's see who I can get to play online". I don't just hop online on Thursday, and start spamming out game invites (that is a stigma, like it or not, of XBL). I know some of the people I'm going to hop online with, and from there maybe we will or won't get more folks.

As much as you don't "plan your life around gaming", I don't expect any of my friends to alter their plans or choices around my schedule.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Right, because that's OBVIOUSLY what we do! You solved the big mystery here!

No, the reality is I'm a full time college student with a part time job, so when I get the opportunity to game, I need to say "okay, on Thursday Nights I'm free, so let's see who I can get to play online". I don't just hop online on Thursday, and start spamming out game invites (that is a stigma, like it or not, of XBL). I know some of the people I'm going to hop online with, and from there maybe we will or won't get more folks.

As much as you don't "plan your life around gaming", I don't expect any of my friends to alter their plans or choices around my schedule.

The point is that what you are describing is just damn sorry.

My friends list contains people I want to play with, whom I've met while playing other games, or people on here that I maybe haven't played a lot with, but we can still get together sometimes to have a game.

I feel for you and your college status. But Live is so much easier it isn't even funny. I know the players that have the game. If they're online playing something else, all I have to do is a send out a party chat invite and I can lasso them all up together to play whatever other game it is I want.

And we can start the game while the others finish their games or get to a save spot so they can come and join us. In the meantime, we can all be talking about the game we're playing while 1 or 2 or 3 other people are playing their own individual games trying furiously to finish them up to join us.

I'm sorry, but you keep making excuses and saying that you have "work arounds" that enable you to do what those of us who use live can do without a second thought. Or a second computer, or a smart phone.

I mean.. for example, as I've been reading other things, I've suddenly become aware that there are alot of people out there that HATE Borderlands because they've had problems with the multiplayer aspect of the game. They're either PC gamers or PS3 users. I'll say it again: Borderlands worked FLAWLESSLY on Live. It was fully integrated, and if I wanted to play and one of my friends was playing something else, I could just send him an invite and BOOM, he's in the game. Or, if I'm playing with a group of friends and one of my other friends is on, he can JOIN my party and listen to us talk and scream and yell about what is happening while he's playing a completely different game.

Or, you can switch between Party chat and Game chat. So if you're playing a squad based FPS and you're the only one playing while all your friends are playing something else, you can switch back and forth between chatting with those numbnuts your'e playing with and your party of friends.

No, LIVE is what the Xbox is all about. LIVE is what MS wanted to create when they made the original xbox. It is a far superior content delivery system that really exceeds everything that Myspace or Facebook has to offer because it does so in REAL time.

PSN doesn't hold a candle to what Live is.

 

[patsu]

There is no denying that Live works much better as an integrated online party system. But it does not mean PS3 online games are automatically bad. The responsibility rests on the developers. The good developers will usually do a great job, but game UI is usually not a top priority for all devs.

It also does not mean that everyone will be willing to pay for Live. It looks like iOS Game Center will be free too. ^_^

 

[AzBat]

It also does not mean that everyone will be willing to pay for Live. It looks like iOS Game Center will be free too. ^_^

They're in the same position that Sony was in: late to the party. They can't afford to charge for it. They weren't the trend sitter. BTW, the same can be said for Windows Phone 7 too. They're not charging for it either because they're late to the game on the phone too.

Tommy McClain

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There is no denying that Live works much better as an integrated online party system. But it does not mean PS3 online games are automatically bad. The responsibility rests on the developers.

But it shouldn't. The service is PlayStation Network, and not Independent Game Network. The existence of friends lists and forms of chat shows Sony appreciate the multiplayer infrastructure is their responsibility.