utopaline said:
Not to troll here, but you asked us a question, we are giving you answers and you are basically arguing with everyone's answers. You knew that people would say
- to play multiplayer
- to be secure
- or because we have to
why didn't you just name the thread "PSN is FREE and XBL is not" instead of asking a question.
just saying
I'm trying to show people Microsoft is not a required element to play multiplayer. Microsoft literally withholds your access to game content you bought, then charges you to access that already paid for content. If you bought COD or Halo for $60 and only have Silver, then you just basically flushed $30 down the toilet. Why would you pay somebody for something they aren't doing? It would be like buying a PC game and then Microsoft (or Apple if you have a Mac) not allowing you to install the game on their OS unless you gave them money. Do you not see how this doesn't make sense; you bought the PC hardware, you bought the OS, you bought the game, and you still gotta pay more?!?!
Security? No PSN users had their identity stolen or their credit cards used by unauthorized individuals. That's secure enough for me. Nothing negative has happened to any PSN users outside of having PSN down. Sony should've had better security in place (and they will now) but nothing important got stolen, they shut down the network to protect anything bad happening to any PSN accounts.
Why would you have to pay? If Xbox users just didn't give Microsoft free money, then multiplayer would be free.
Elamdri said:
It's only like 60 bucks, who cares?
Then give me $60/year for doing nothing, it's only $60, who cares? I'll gladly take your money for doing nothing.
Paragon Fury said:
Why?
Because for $60 a year ($5 a month/.16 cents a day) I get a service that:
1 - Has integrated, reliable cross-game and cross-media chat/services with multiple people.
That's a feature most PSN users want, I wouldn't use it but it's nice to have. However, Microsoft really incurs no costs when people use those features. If you have a Netflix party, the movie is being streamed from Netflix servers to you and your friends (no Microsoft involvement), and the party chat uses peer-to-pear networking (again no Microsoft involvement). Party chat is the equivalent to a program on your PC, and you don't pay a yearly fee to use PC programs you bought unless they constantly update (like a anti-virus). You don't even have to pay money to get Windows updates.
Paragon Fury said:
2 - Provides free matchmaking services to a variety of games, and a (fairly) reliable TruSkill system to ensure fair matches, as opposed to the terrible server systems of the PC and most PS3 games.
I really don't know much about TrueSkill but from what I can tell it seems like a good feature for games with matchmaking. I'll give you that, but again that doesn't cost much to run; the algorithm was developed years ago and the TrueSkill servers just have to track some stats. But there is some cost so I'll give you this one. I think you're the first to actually mention this feature and the thread is over 10 pages.
Personally, I really don't like matchmaking, I much prefer a lobby/room system even over a good matchmaking system. I love Metal Gear Online because the gameplay is really the best of any online shooter I've played and finding a good room is great and you can stay there for hours with great games throughout. Metal Gear Online has a level system and it's pretty damn good as a team of level 15s will almost always beat a team of level 14s.
Paragon Fury said:
3 - Provides a number of content exclusives/early releases, like the Call of Duty map packs, game betas (Endwar, Crysis 2, etc.) and has an easier to use system than the PSN.
I really hate timed exclusives because no one actually wins, or there's only a winner because somebody loses. If Microsoft or Sony sends a truck of money to whoever to get content early, then nobody is actually getting the content sooner, some people are just getting the content later. Timed exclusives only screw customers and nothing else. PS3 users get exclusive/timed exclusive content as well, we got Red Dead content and Assassin's Creed content. Sony has more exclusive disc games like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Valkyria Chronicles plus all of the Sony 1st-party games, and Sony has more 1st-party games than Microsoft because Sony owns more developers.
Paragon Fury said:
4 - Good customer support. As annoying as the people can be sometimes, Microsoft and Xbox Live easily have the best customer support in the business. They have answers and can help, and are actually reachable by normal people, unlike say, Steam or PSN services.
5 - Good technical support. Yes, Xbox Live has gone down before. But never for as the long as the PS3 (longest was less than a week, due to a mess-up with the Dashboard Update), they keep you constantly up to date, and have yet to have a serious breach in security that wasn't related to their own users being stupid (such as that Modern Warfare 2 incident).
I personally don't really get why people value customer service so much as I can google whatever issue I'm having and get a solution faster than calling anybody's customer service, which always will take you through the basic troubleshooting methods that you should've already did before you called until they address your actual problem. I used Sony's customer service due to a YLOD and the guy I had was very nice and answered all of my questions as I had a game stuck in the system and wanted to make sure I got the same model of PS3 back as I have a PS2 BC model.
Paragon Fury said:
6 - Better community interaction. We get free programing/updates with Major Nelson, the Tech Lady, IGN's Tip Service and other services. PSN gets none of that, and most other services don't either.
And to clear up some of the BS: no, you don't pay anything for XBL except the yearly/monthly fee. The only game you have to pay to play online in addition to the XBL fee is Phantasy Star Universe, which is an MMO. Silver Accounts also don't get deals of the week, can't play games online, choose their own Gamertags and don't get a lot of the community updates.
I don't really care about getting The Tech Lady or IGN's Tip service, I'll go online and look up stuff if I want to. PSN gets program updates via Pulse bi-weekly (for free) and Core (payed service, free with PSN+).
What if I don't want party-chat, TrueSkill matchmaking (since I like games with a lobby/room system), programming updates, etc. and I just want to play online (the content I already paid for)? Or what if I just play single player games and want to use Netflix?