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- swr1ght, on 10/12/2007, -8/+39I like the fact that they will have a wallet with just real money in it, as opposed to those damn points that Live has. It just always seemed so dishonest to not tell you what something you are buying costs.
- Brian48216, on 10/12/2007, -5/+29in all the PS3 hating, it tends to get left out that their online service is free, which I think is a redeeming quality.
- jasper976, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21"Has the author of this article ever used Xbox Live? Silver membership IS free. You can do everything (download videos/demos/trailers) but play multiplayer games with Silver."
umm, every person that i've met that uses xbox live uses it for multiplayer gaming. i think that is the biggest draw - Hoovooloo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17You realize that not being able to play online with others is kind of a big deal, right?
- Hoovooloo, on 10/12/2007, -5/+18I agree. After paying $400-$600 for a next gen console that promises great online game play, I don't want to have to pay a monthly fee.
- interiot, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Since PS3 online service is definitely free, hopefully Microsoft will follow up by making XBox Live online play free as well.
- Bootes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Uhm the game companies pay gamespy to run the servers. I've never seen an advertisement in a game that helps pay gamespy for the server.
- firen, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17agreed
It's not that the point system is difficult, it's just that its another hurdle. It's something that doesn't need to be used, it causes slight confusion. The straight up money system is definitely better in my opinion.
here is the Eurogamer article : http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=68677&page=1 - DoctorNo, on 10/12/2007, -5/+15>>Providing millions of broadband players with this service for free means one thing: either more cost elsewhere or ***** service.
People tend to forget that online gaming is free on every other platform and only XBL charges to play. My personal opinon is that the price to play online should be included in the $50-60 you pay to buy the game, which is what I get on the PC. Especially now that console games are more expensive then their equivalent PC versions. - GrantTheGr8, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11@betterth: Did you read the article?...
> 'The other difference between Sony's online service and Xbox Live is that there
> will be no system of "points" that gamers can exchange for games and
> rewards.'
By the way, the Eurogamer article (that firen linked to) was much more in-depth and better written than the arstechnica one in my opinion. - Electrox3d, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Sony has already has a large online platform via PC games/MMO's, first party online titles, etc. M$ didn't have that, and needed to start fresh.
- kingofthescreen, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11The main problem I see with Sony's online strategy is they are not taking a hard stance with all the game developers. No games are being required to use Sony's multiplayer gaming system nor are they being required to connect to the network to upload stats and leaderboards. Microsoft has made these things a requirement for having a game on the Xbox 360. They developed the TrueSkill matchmaking system to take advantage of all the information hat is being sent their way. Sony's system seems like Xbox Live version 1.0. Don't get me wrong. I think the competition is great for the consumer. It's a step in the right direction but it needs to go a lot further before it can compete with Xbox Live.
- meepus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Let's wait and see whether or not Sony can provide a quality online service before we start asking Microsoft to get rid of subscriptions. Sony has pretty much zero track record for console online services, whereas we know that Microsoft is currently providing a certain standard of quality and already worked out most of the kinks via the original xbox live. Remember, Sony's promises aren't going to mean jack if the service turns out to be poor.
- Singee15, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Taking into account the cost of xbox live, the ps3 (including the possible price cut in the US) is going to be roughly the same if not less than the xbox (including the $100 HDDVD since ps3 will have blu-ray).
- DoctorNo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Right, that's why playing for free online on most PC games sucks right?
- darthsnoopy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8um, I'd rather just pay the 50 bucks and keep the quality, rather than get a 'free' crappy service. Not saying Sony's is crappy, but I think that the money paid into Live allows for the ridiculous infrastructure that must be needed to run it's backend..to be maintained
- TangentThought, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I agree. A nice fixed price system is a good way to find out exactly how much money I'm putting in. It keeps the money circulating around rather than crippling it by point values that aren't static to their money values.
- superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Personally, I'd pay $100/year for an online service with an age limit - that is to say, no one under 21!
- daborg, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7"Unlike Nintendo and Microsoft's offerings, Sony doesn't hide the price of items behind an arbitrary "points" scheme - instead, everything simply lists a price in your local currency, so European types will see a Euro price, British people will see prices in Pounds Sterling, and so on."
- distrbnce, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6"If I know Sony, they will come up with some hardware product that is needed for this free service and charge some more for it."
They already have, it's called the PlayStation 3. Get with the times. - lukeamotion, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I'm pretty sure MS has the wait and see approach. If they offer everything free and it seems to work good, I think they'll have no choice but to make it free. But if only "basic services" are free, and you have to pay for each individual game you play online that's gonna make it about even for MS so they'll keep charging. I guess we'll see.
- distrbnce, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"It will take them at least a year before you have a solid only multiplayer title for PS3."
Actually, Resistance is a launch title. 40-player multiplayer is already working fine on the playstation network. - ZeroMP, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The real issue is that paying for a seperate multiplayer gaming "privelege" when you are already paying a monthly fee to your ISP is ABSURD.
If they want to milk people with Live they should stick to doing it with Micro-Transactions.
Think of it like this: CounterStrike - buy the game, pay your ISP every month - and play away...
WoW - buy the game, pay your ISP every month, then pay Blizzard every month... lame. - superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Don't confuse the overall unpopularity of a device with the quality of its UI. I would never buy a PSP but the UI is actually pretty well done and shoudl work well on a console.
- superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3SOny is not as hands off this round though, from reading the Eurogamer article there is a common username and buddylist and so on across all games.
What is seemingly not as well defined yet is the storage of in-game accomplishmnets that Live has, which is a cool feature. But Sony will probably do something like that as well, and I think the original poster was commenting they would like to see this be more of a mandatory thing for all games so your sony gamer ID has some depth to it. - WaveRunningNakd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Does anyone know if the PS3 will have something similar to the XBOX's Media Center Extender? I can't seem to find any info regarding the PS3's home media streaming capabilities.
- superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Blu-Ray is there for larger games, not just movies. Fall of Man is already supposedly using much more than a DVD worth of storage to hold game levels and textures.
The lack of large storage capacity in delivering games is really going to hurt the 360 down the road, when developers have to slim down ports for the 360. It's going to make the system seem weaker than it really is.
You do not have to take into account any price cuts to arrive at the result of the PS3 being cheaper - the base PS3 is $500, the premium 360 is $400. That's just two years worth of Live. I'm going to use a console longer than two years myself... - distrbnce, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yeah, that'd be nice. It sucks that you get both on XBL.
- staticneuron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2 Your Sony rants are immature and biased because there are many stark comparisons to MS that can be held.
Rootkit to the WGA fiasco
proprietary tech is how most companies make thier profit. Sony has had some failures and some successes.
How would you like a company to act? as if they are inferior to thier competitors? That is stupid.
blu ray isn't proprietary..... do more research.
UMD's should have never been used for movies period. But that was just a bad choice.
Microsoft has lost around 5 to 6 billion dollars to date. That kind of loss would have killed most other companies and force sony to bow out. Whether or not they have the money to waste is irrelevent to success and vision in the marketplace. Anyone who believes that the Xbox is a success is seriously deluded. The reason it is still on the market is because MS has really deep pockets and has no bearing to the quality and appeal of the console.
I am glad that MS has provided real competition but all this belly aching about trust and confidence lost must either come from teenagers or people who still think like teenagers. Sony has done what most companies would have done in thier position. AS a whole Sony is still a damn good company or nobody would be trying to tear them down so much. - dzmetcalf, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The only worry I've got is that it's free but individual games may cost you a fee to play...oh well I'm loving any sort of positive Sony news on this site, it's about time.
- betterth, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Three cheers for every EA game using EA ***** online services once again!
- ryllharu, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7The thing I worry about, is the precedent set by Gran Turismo HD. Micro-transactions. Sure, the service is free, but can you imagine paying for regular updates? Or content that everyone else is using and making the experience better, like maps, weapons, etc. The article specifically states their intention to make up the losses elsewhere.
Not only that, think about it from the game developer's point of view. Say you make a new map-set, but Sony charges for the download? Are people going to bother downloading them if they have to pay for it? That could result in a good amount of work that no one is using. Think about the demos for the Battlefield Series. Thousands of people play the free demos, but when you need to purchase the game, only fans tend to pick it up as readily.
With XBL, we pay the monthly fee for full service. The micro-transactions are up to you though. Don't want to play the full version of Geometry Wars, don't buy it. That brings up another point about XBL, all the demos from XBL Arcade to actual games are free. They are never close to being "complete" but they're demos, so the user doesn't really expect more than that. It costs money to host servers to send these demos off of, and the regular XBL charge can offset some of that.
With Sony's service, would we be seeing charges to download demos? These are some concerns we won't be able to address until it goes live, but if they're not making money on the service, where is all the money going to come from to offset the server charges?
Some worthwhile things to think about. - betterth, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5"Sony has experience"
Apparently you've never played a Sony MMO. As a veteran of EQLive, EQ2 and SWG, I have low hopes for their online service. If it's twice as good as EQ servers it'll still be half a good as XBox Live :p - HappyScrappy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4More people play PS2 online than play Xbox online (Live). PS2 had online play (THPS3) before Live even shipped.
The battle isn't all that steeply uphill. - superkendall, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sony does however have a track record for online services, console online services are not that much different than the kinds of things you have to do for MMORPG's.
Sony has shown they can keep large-scale systems up and running, even if some of those games themselves have not been that great (Galaxies). Sony doing the infrastructure thouhg with good games on top from other publishers could work really well. - Bootes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4That's why Sony is smart enough to post the price in whatever currency your country uses, just like every multi country retailer on the internet.
- SuMizzle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Actually, 40 player online is working fine @ Insomniac. The network isn't in a live state.
- EtherGnat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"It's unfair to those who've already paid."
??? Do you really think Live subscribers would be mad if they no longer had to pay? - ZeroMP, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"The user interface for the service will look and feel familiar to owners of Sony's other gaming device: the PlayStation Portable."
..sounds like a winner already! - GliTCH82, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well I think for a lot of future PS3 owners, at least those who are making the decision on whether or not to pick up the console this holiday season, they are going to sort of be like Sony's guniea pigs. Hey, the Xbox users had to do it at some point, now it's your turn!
Seriously though, I think for a lot of people who are deciding on whether or not to get a PS3, a free online gaming service is going to weigh in on their decision. Let's hope Sony's promises don't amount to a huge disaster, where the service gets "delayed" due to a shortage of diodes required to manufacture their proprietary BluRay servers.
Ok, all joking aside, I think everyone gets the idea - DoctorNo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4@ryllharu
Only game that mentioned microtransaction was GT:HD, all other games are full fledged games, and Yamauchi, creator of the GT series, has said that GT:HD would be much cheaper then normal games.
As far as paying for demos, the comment was taken from Kutaragi out-of-context at TGS, he was saying it would be up to the thrid-party publisher to decide if to charge for demos, extras, etc. However, since the point of a demo is to have as many people download them as possible its unlikely that they will actually charge for it.
It seems that Sony intends on making money from selling downladable version of PS1, PS2, and other downloadable games. Also, I'm assuming they plan on selling music, movies, etc.
Free online gameplay is not a stunning or out-there concept, as the Wii isn't going to charge for such service as well. Wii seems to offer other online services like the various channels, virtual console, and a little Mii version of yourself as a login, etc and is a dramatic jump version the DS (which also doesn't charge). - teamparadox, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I could have sworn this was revealed on the front page of digg last week too..amazing!
- PFS1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Kudos to them...they certainly do seem to have their head screwed on straight for this one. I hope the fact that it's free doesn't mean that support & development for it will be will be anything less than solid...while it would be stupid not to do maintain and upgrade the service, if people aren't paying for it, they're not strictly bound to do so if they want to concentrate elsewhere.
- Bob042, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I hope noone even remotely involved with SOE/SWG is responsible for PS3 online, or else I don't have much hope for it.
- distrbnce, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3When has Sony ever done something like that, interiot?
I mean, I know they favor their own formats (and the PS3 supports competitor formats), but I haven't heard it with content. The PSP plays movies and music that aren't Sony's. Explain how that would even make any sense.
Anyway, even if you couldn't stream things from your computer, you could just put things on the HDD and watch them. It will probably play at least every movie codec the PSP does. - billyliberty, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It is assuredly another way to maximize user profits, but I know from personal experience that the Microsoft points can often be purchased through third-party vendors at heavily discounted prices. The exchange rate from points to real currency is not static. This is just a side-effect of Microsoft's decision, but if these were denominated in straight currency, do you think anyone would sell at a discount?
- Electrox3d, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Not yet, but its all upgradable so who knows.
- DoctorNo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Don't count on it, with Halo 3 coming people will pay just for that one game. Also, refunding money to people that have just paid would be a nightmare.
- Electrox3d, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7In further good news, no one seems to realize that the PS3 doesn't have a power brick, very much unlike the massive grey block of the X360, which actually makes the PS3 smaller. It is also very very quiet. So, this makes the PS3 cheaper, smaller, and quieter than X360. Amazing!
- betterth, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5@Acurism
Nothing from Google is free.
You're trading your personal information and habits for a service.
If you knew anything about how rich Google gets off this information, you'd know that they're ripping you off. You should be paid to use Google services :p -
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