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December 31st, 2006, 17:23 Posted By: wraggster
via zeegzaag
With their third home console, Sony has launched their online service, the Playstation Network Platform. An attempt to match the popularity and success of Microsoft's XBOX Live, which is already four million members strong.
One thing that completely sets them apart from eachother is the price. Microsoft's XBOX Live Gold is about $50 annually, meanwhile the Playstation Network platform is FREE. It may be free, but this doesn't make it the better of the two. PNP does complete it's main objective, and this is just simply getting you online and playing your favorite Playstation 3 titles. In fact, it executes it pretty well too, I can be playing a 20 v 20 match on Resistance with no lag whatsoever. Aside from that, PNP is just missing all those little features we have come to take for granted everyday with XBOX Live. These being voice messaging, private chats and customizing your own profile. Not to mention the absence of a unified friends list. Of course, Sony is probably hacking away at these issues somewhere, but that fact that these were absent out of the box is dissapointing. The Network will once in a while go down due to an excessive amount of people on the server ( which is the cause of error 80710D23 when logging in). It may sometimes even take 5 attempts before you can actually log in, but thankfully this isn't very common.
The Playstation Store is Sony's version of the XBOX Live Marketplace. Both contain demos,game + movie trailers and arcade titles. Although, the XBOX Live Marketplace has full TV shows and Movies for rent. You can probably expect something similiar from Sony(maybe even music) , due to the fact that they own several movie studios and record labels. The Playstation Store is made more like a website, so if you do not have a USB/ Bluetooth keyboard + mouse then it might become a bit annoying navigating it with the sixaxis controller. The one thing that really sets these two apart is that the XBOX Live Marketplace uses "Microsoft Points", while the Playstation Store uses the currency of your home country. The bad thing about the Microsoft Points is that you have to buy them in small/ big packages. So if you only want to buy a gamerpicture which is 20 points( $0.25), then you must buy the smallest package of points(400 points, which winds up costing you a whole $6.25). Also, another cool feature on the Playstation Store is the ability to buy PSOne games, to then put on your PSP.
I must give Sony kudos for integrating a browser onto the PS3. This actually works pretty well, wether you want to check your yahoo email or watch Youtube videos. It defianetley reminds of the PSP's browser, and oddly enough the same " out of memory ' alerts are present(those who have the PSP know what I'm talking about). You can do all the usual here as on Internet explorer or firefox which includes saving files, bookmarks, having several tabs on at once, except that reading text on web sites is not that easy on the eyes, as it offers little in the way of anti-aliasing. I definitely suggest sticking with a USB/Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, because I can guarantee you will go mad using the Sixaxis controller to type. Overall, this a great edition to the PS3 and definately something I wish that the XBOX 360 had. Although the PS3 browser does not stack up to what can be done on Yellow Dog Linux for the PS3(which I will be installing tommorow)
The one huge plus of XBOX Live is the ability to have your very own gamercard. This includes a gamer picture,21 character motto, your rep, gamerscore, country, your "zone" and all your games played with the achievements you got in each game. An awesome feature it is, giving everyone a disinct identity.
In my opinion, the thing that makes XBOX Live so great is that I can be playing in the campaign of Gears of War and my friend "MasterPlayer 360" sends me a voice mesage asking me to play an online match in Saints Row with him. While still in my game, I push the guide button and quickly listen to the memo. I send him a private chat invite and we babble while I continue to play my game of Gears of War and he's in his match in Saints Row. Then he can join my game through clicking "Join Session in Progress" on my profile, and voila, we are playing side by side in the Gears of War campign. Then after a while he say's , "hey man, I gotta go eat some dinner", and he drops out, still leaving me in my own game by myself, nothing is lost or neither does it exit my session when he leaves.
Overall, these are two good online gaming services which get the job done by deliviring a lag free game experience and an awesome virtual store.Both services will get a case of "the hiccups" every once in a while. but as of now, my vote must go to XBOX Live. Despite it's $50 annual price tag, it definitely satisfys you with awesome customization features, the ability to download tv shows and renting of movies from the marketplace and over 100 great XBOX live titles. Granted the Playstation Network Platform has only really been out for a month + few days, but it feels a bit bare boned, with the exception of a cool web browser. If Sony wants to match the excellence of XBOX Live then they have along trek uphill.
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