So what is it you're actually paying for with Live Gold?

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Miles Tormani

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Mariakitten said:
I was simply stating you are misinformed and judging by your recent posts, quite rude. Make of that what you will.
Keep in mind that you did pretty much say that he was misinformed on account of his forum avatar alone.
 

Mariakitten

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Miles Tormani said:
Mariakitten said:
I was simply stating you are misinformed and judging by your recent posts, quite rude. Make of that what you will.
Keep in mind that you did pretty much say that he was misinformed on account of his forum avatar alone.
Perhaps I should have also said that Sony has stated in multiple Interviews and press releases that keeping online free is one of their most important goals when it comes to PSN. It just annoyed me that he would disregard all that just to make a rude quote.
 

Miles Tormani

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Mariakitten said:
Perhaps I should have also said that Sony has stated in multiple Interviews and press releases that keeping online free is one of their most important goals when it comes to PSN. It just annoyed me that he would disregard all that just to make a rude quote.
Well, I still don't particularly trust that myself, since I remember them claiming that they would stick to their guns in terms of backward compatibility on the PS3 as well. Then it gets cut, but just as an extra kick in the balls, the memory card utility on the PS3 still supports PS2 data.

(At least all PS3s can run PS1 games, but that's not something I consider impressive.)

Why people are getting so angry over the Install Other OS feature being removed is a different story. I found out about it from a Gamestop employee, and never heard anything about it since, aside from word of mouth, until it got removed.
 

Dexiro

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Double A said:
Irridium said:
Double A said:
360's cheaper than the PS3, and now that Sony is gonna start charging for it, we're still cheaper.

Also, there's a mute feature.
You do realize that PSN as it is will still be free, right?
I heard somewhere that they'd start charging.

Also, Microsoft doesn't ask for your freaking address.
They're never charging for PSN. Only for PSN+ which just gives you discounts on a few games.
 

Kermi

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Mariakitten said:
Miles Tormani said:
Mariakitten said:
I was simply stating you are misinformed and judging by your recent posts, quite rude. Make of that what you will.
Keep in mind that you did pretty much say that he was misinformed on account of his forum avatar alone.
Perhaps I should have also said that Sony has stated in multiple Interviews and press releases that keeping online free is one of their most important goals when it comes to PSN. It just annoyed me that he would disregard all that just to make a rude quote.
I didn't disregard anything. I have acknowledged that Sony have said online will remain free. What you are failnig to acknowledge is all the other things Sony has stated which they've then gone back on later. I've gone over them in this thread a few times already: backwards compatibility, other OS support, rumble. Those are just the things I can come up with off the top of my head, and they are all things that Sony has at some point flat out lied about the future of.
Do I know for sure sony will charge for online gaming via PSN+? Well, I'm not a sony employee or corporate spy of any kind, how in hell would I really know what they have planned?
The point I am making, the only point I have been triyng to make, is Sonyh ave not historically given me any reason to have confidence in the things they say. They are introducing a pay model that, when you really look at it, is kind of worthless. There's absolutely no incentive for a buy in. Yes, you get free games, earlier/exclusive demos etc. But really, they're doing the same thing with PSN as Microsoft did with XBL - withholding features from free users and giving them back to paying users.

So aside from "exclusive" demos etc, what are the PRIMARY draw cards for each sservice?
For their money, XBL users get to play online while free users do not. This is significant!
PSN users get free games - which, mind you, they will no longer be able to play once they stop subscribing. This is... kind of shit. What if you paid for the games instead of a subscription? Would you come out ahead? Sure, you won't get the other features, but are any of them actually worth paying for? They've simply snowballed a bunch of questionably valued features into one service. When they have underwhelming sales, they will expand the service. How about some plus-enhanced multiplayer? That sounds good, right? Then every game has enhanced features for plus-subscribers playing online. Then they start reducing features for non-plus subscribers, forcing you onto some kind of limited multiplayer service, like free-to-try MMOs that cut off at a certain point or impose a level cap unless you subscribe.
Technically you can still play online for free, but at this point do you want to?

Just saying, that's one way Sony could get people to pay to play online without technically lying, and I'm not even trying. Add to that that historically it appears that Sony LOVE to lie about this kind of thing and go back on it 6 months later and I'm sure you can start to see where I'm coming from.
 

demoman_chaos

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Of the few online games I've played, PSN ran smoothly The Uncharted 2 beta had no problems and Demon's Souls had only a few issues during PvP (main server is in Japan, I am not).
The odd part is my PS3 and PC have good online gaming, but the Wii online for SSBB was unplayable.

Double A said:
360's cheaper than the PS3, and now that Sony is gonna start charging for it, we're still cheaper.

Also, there's a mute feature.
PSN is still free, PSN-Plus costs $50 for 15 months. Everything you could do before on PSN is still free, but you get free games, free premium themes, and a lot of other free stuff (plus more coming). And cheaper is not a synonym for better, generally the opposite really (cheap cars generally aren't as good as the more expensive ones, for example).
 

migo

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Miles Tormani said:
Specific extraneous influences do not justify the CEO claiming that certain features are "last generation."
It's Sony. Sony's cocky. They'll take any opportunity to spin a bad situation for them into an opportunity to trash talk the competition.

They also said early on that the PS3 would always be backward compatible with the PS2. The exact claim was that it was an extremely important feature to them, and they would not want to let go of it for any reason.
And then they saw some workable hacks that made use of PS2 BC, just as a number of PS2 hacks make use of PS1 BC.

Then the Slim comes out...
You're slow on the uptake, they took PS2 BC out a looooong time ago.

As for being reluctant to change, how? The PS3 is the system that has definitely changed the most this console generation, and most of the changes have quite literally been the removal of features.
They removed memory slots because nobody was using them, and they cost extra money. They removed SACD support because nobody was using it (it's not like SACDs are easy to come by anyway). They removed PS2 BC because it was a security liability. The case is the same with Other OS support. The changes were to either cut down on production costs to make the features people actually wanted available at a more affordable price, or to protect them against piracy.

Me? I don't mind paying for Xbox Live. It gives me that extra sense of comfort that even if Microsoft loses money on sales, they can make up the difference through subscriptions. The difference being made up means that they don't necessarily have to cut features just to cut price.
Plus they're raping everyone who buys a 360 on WiFi and HD upgrades.
 

migo

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Miles Tormani said:
danpascooch said:
It can't be LIVE's problem since nobody else has these troubles, but knowing Migo, he'll insist that he's right and we're all lying.

That may have sounded rude to Migo, but he won't see it, I'm already on his ignore list for "not agreeing with him"
Here. I'll quote you so he does see it. :) Maybe I'll get on the ignore list as well, so we can make fun of him behind his back in light of his obvious immaturity on these matters.

"Oh, well, I don't like you, so I'll just block you and win the argument!"

Totally how that stuff works.

Here's another idea, before you just write off Live as a whole: try playing a game that people actually, you know, play. Like Halo. Modern Warfare 2 I wouldn't recommend because what you think is "lag" is more likely to be straight up modding/hacking.

Oh, wait, it uses the "inferior to touch screen" dual analog controls. Nevermind then.
Good job, you're on it now too. Anyone who supports danpascooch gets on my ignore list, so don't bother trying it again, you'll just waste everyone else's screen space.
 

migo

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Nouw said:
Migo, no matter how good your connection is, it CAN lag and slow down.
And your problem seems to be with UNO. Ignore anything else, its the fact that you're trying to find a game of Uno that is the main problem.

Also, am I the only one that rarely faces lag. Probably because I don't play any of the new games. Only play Bad Company 1.

migo said:
Kermi said:
]And Sony have never changed their policy on anything ever. Remember when rumble was a "last generation feature" and "impossible" to include rumble with the sixaxis?
They were getting sued for patent infringement at the time that the PS3 was released, the DualShock 3 got released once the patent issues were resolved.

I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but it's seriously only a matter of time before PSN+ is required for online gaming. All they have to do is start releasing games that require PSN+ support to play online, then start removing support for games that don't.
That would be suicide for them.
Microsoft did it and look at them. I agree it would be suicide but thats a road thats inevitable to skip.
It's not that I can't find a game, it's getting dropped. If I went looking for a game and saw nobody there, that would be one thing, and perfectly understandable. It's another to connect to a game and get immediately dropped after connecting. That's a problem with the service, and it's not something that should happen with a low bandwidth and low CPU usage game.

If the solution is just to not play certain games online, then again, what am I paying for? The inability to play every game out there reliably (barring absolutely nobody else playing it)? Xbox Live Gold is touted as being more reliable than PSN, but it's damn unreliable evidently. If I'm paying I want it to be perfect.
 

migo

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s69-5 said:
migo said:
I live in the second largest city in Canada and am a couple hour drive from Seattle and Redmond
Psst! Vancouver is smaller than Toronto AND Montreal... just sayin'
With all the separatist tendencies coming out of Quebec I guess I just disregarded them as not being Canadian. But thanks for bringing that up.
 

migo

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Kermi said:
So aside from "exclusive" demos etc, what are the PRIMARY draw cards for each sservice?
For their money, XBL users get to play online while free users do not. This is significant!
It is also significant that PC and PS3 users do not have to pay for this privilege.

PSN users get free games - which, mind you, they will no longer be able to play once they stop subscribing. This is... kind of shit. What if you paid for the games instead of a subscription? Would you come out ahead?
You mean PS+ not PSN. But yeah, it's shit. Then again you're not paying for something you can get for free on a different platform.

How about some plus-enhanced multiplayer? That sounds good, right? Then every game has enhanced features for plus-subscribers playing online.
They already have that with cross game chat for PS+ subscribers, who can also chat with regular PSN users cross game, just PSN users can't initiate it.

Then they start reducing features for non-plus subscribers, forcing you onto some kind of limited multiplayer service, like free-to-try MMOs that cut off at a certain point or impose a level cap unless you subscribe.
Technically you can still play online for free, but at this point do you want to?
That doesn't make any sense though. If you look at everything Sony has changed their stance on there was a good reason for it. They stopped being so cocky after losing to Nintendo and Microsoft in home consoles and to Nintendo and Apple in mobile consoles. They brought rumble back in once the legal issues were resolved. They took out features nobody was using and they took out features that were a piracy risk. PSN online play is a feature many people are using and it's a strong selling point for the PS3 over the Xbox 360, plus they're making money from developers who are charged for demo downloads, so they're still making money.

Just saying, that's one way Sony could get people to pay to play online without technically lying, and I'm not even trying. Add to that that historically it appears that Sony LOVE to lie about this kind of thing and go back on it 6 months later and I'm sure you can start to see where I'm coming from.
There's a difference between straight up lying and PR spin, and also a difference between lying and changing your mind. At the beginning they thought they would include PS2 BC and Other OS support, piracy risk changed their mind. They were blocked from including rumble in the SIXAXIS, but they didn't want to make it look like that was the reason (or alternatively it may have just been a bad idea to comment publicly on an ongoing lawsuit). There would need to be a significant external change for Sony to change their minds on PSN.
 

Jumplion

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My friend's Xbox LIVE account always disconnects him, sometimes 5 minutes after connection. His games are always laggy, it takes forever to connect, and obviously the 9-year-old kids whine in his ear all the time. And I'm pretty sure he has a 10x better connection than me

My PSN account rarely disconnects (though oddly enough when it does it's during a single-player game), connects relatively quickly, and obviously no 9-year-old kids whining on my headset since there aren't too many people with headsets (good or bad thing depending on your stance), and my signal strength barely musters 30-50%.

Personally I find it stupid that LIVE costs anything, no matter how debatable "small" the cost is. You're essentially paying to access half the game depending on the game of course. You're not even paying for the servers, it's P2P which also limits the amount of players to 16 I believe with some exceptions (could be wrong, but I know there's a limit). In contrast, PSN is free and they actually have servers they have to pay for, with the current largest game being MAG with 256 simultaneous players at once (I'm reluctant to mention console MMOs on either system since, eh, doesn't matter).

But whatevs, my $0.02, I would quote someone and go into a lil' friendly debate but I don't really feel like it.
 

Nouw

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migo said:
Nouw said:
Migo, no matter how good your connection is, it CAN lag and slow down.
And your problem seems to be with UNO. Ignore anything else, its the fact that you're trying to find a game of Uno that is the main problem.

Also, am I the only one that rarely faces lag. Probably because I don't play any of the new games. Only play Bad Company 1.

migo said:
Kermi said:
]And Sony have never changed their policy on anything ever. Remember when rumble was a "last generation feature" and "impossible" to include rumble with the sixaxis?
They were getting sued for patent infringement at the time that the PS3 was released, the DualShock 3 got released once the patent issues were resolved.

I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but it's seriously only a matter of time before PSN+ is required for online gaming. All they have to do is start releasing games that require PSN+ support to play online, then start removing support for games that don't.
That would be suicide for them.
Microsoft did it and look at them. I agree it would be suicide but thats a road thats inevitable to skip.
It's not that I can't find a game, it's getting dropped. If I went looking for a game and saw nobody there, that would be one thing, and perfectly understandable. It's another to connect to a game and get immediately dropped after connecting. That's a problem with the service, and it's not something that should happen with a low bandwidth and low CPU usage game.

If the solution is just to not play certain games online, then again, what am I paying for? The inability to play every game out there reliably (barring absolutely nobody else playing it)? Xbox Live Gold is touted as being more reliable than PSN, but it's damn unreliable evidently. If I'm paying I want it to be perfect.
Okay, first of all you have to lower your expectations a bit. And secondly, I'm not the one to talk about your droppings as I've done my bit, can't say anything else.
 

CobraX

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On Xbox we have cross game private voice chat and our microphone quality doesn't blow. Also I find Xbox's servers are much more reliable than PS3's.
 

WIUtomato

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Live also gets you content earlier. Remember they have to pay to develop that, so part of your $ goes to Microsoft who pays to get videos, demos, movies, that kind of thing as soon as they come out. PSN plus is doing the same thing(I assume), but, I have to be honest, I've never had a good experience playing on PSN, I can't see paying for more content I don't want. Honestly, how many almost-pornographic anime themes can people buy? Granted, you can still play games online for free, but since I had my 360 first, any cross platform game I buy is on the 360. The friends list is easy to use (and lets you join your buddie's game!) and more people seem to use voice communication on live than psn (although, that does increase the smack-tard quotient) so... I hope that helps.
 

migo

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Nouw said:
Okay, first of all you have to lower your expectations a bit.
No I don't, that's just retarded. It's a for pay service (admittedly I'm on my one month free trial, but that doesn't change anything). If I'm supposed to pay for something I expect something better than what I'm getting for free - not worse!

And secondly, I'm not the one to talk about your droppings as I've done my bit, can't say anything else.
Well if there was any doubt that your previous statement was retarded, this quip just confirmed it.
 

migo

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CobraX said:
On Xbox we have cross game private voice chat and our microphone quality doesn't blow. Also I find Xbox's servers are much more reliable than PS3's.
Well it's already been established that Xbox Live doesn't have any servers, so it's not like they can be more reliable as they don't exist.