No in-game group chat kinda defeats the purpose for me. As for it not being user friendly, to me it feels like I have to jump through hoops to do anything with the PSN.
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And now, an objective view on the PS3 vs 360 debate: First, I own both PS3 and 360, as well as a PSP, a DSi and a Wii, I don't have a strong opinion one way or another and am here to point the pros and cons of both consoles in an objective way. First, hardware capabilities: Believe it or not, the two consoles are actually more equal than Sony would have you believe. Yes, PS3 is technically more impressive, but graphics wise, the better looking games are going to depend more on the developer. For multiplatform games, graphics are usually equal in effectively every respect. The biggest differences in graphical quality is generally going to be lower quality textures and/or a lower framerate. The version that is technically inferior usually depends on the version that was built first. For example, Fallout 3 looks and runs a bit better on 360 due to development being based on the 360 while Mirror's Edge looks and runs better on PS3 due to development based on the PS3, but for both games, the opposite versions are only marginally inferior. This is not to say that a port is always going to be inferior to the original. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion was based on the 360, but looks and runs better on the PS3 due to to the PS3's faster processor, but Ghostbusters was based on the PS3, but looks and runs better on the 360 for reasons I do not know. In the PS3's defense, the pre-emptive use of Blu-Ray was brilliant, despite the initial price. In the 360's defense, it is an easier platform for developers to work with due to similarities with development on the PC. Hardware wise, I give the nod slightly towards the PS3 due entirely to Blu-Ray. Multimedia Features: Both consoles play videos, music, display pictures, etc., but each system has their specific ways of doing things. The PS3 has its Blu-Ray drive, which is great if you have an HDTV, but is entirely useless for those without an HDTV. It can also recognize an external harddrive and play videos and music off of that, which would be amazing, but you have to have anything you want to play in a single folder on the root level of said harddrive, which is downright moronic. Even if your music collection is half the size of my constantly growing 63 gigabyte collection, that's still a few thousand songs on the root level of a harddrive that the PS3 will only sort by filename. The same applies for any video collection of significant size. It is the exact same problem the PSP has with its multimedia features and one would assume that Sony would have fixed such a stupid way of doing things before they put out the PS3. The 360, on the other hand, will happily read any major Mp3 player and will sort the music on said Mp3 player by artist and album. It will also allow video and picture viewing from the same portable player (assuming said player is capable of displaying pictures and/or video). Sure the 360 doesn't have a Blu-Ray drive, but it does have Netflix and, by the fall I believe will have Last.FM internet radio. The PS3 does have a video downloading service, but so does the 360. The PS3 also has no internet radio capability whatsoever. The PS3 does have an internet browser as well, but lets be honest, who the hell uses their console to browse the internet? If you say you do, then you are in the minority of people who find any use in the damn thing. I believe I've used my PS3's browser once, then never bothered again as it is quite useless. The next feature to be discussed is custom soundtracks. I love custom soundtracks. Playing Castle Crashers with 3 Inches of Blood playing in the background is one of the most awesome things I have ever experienced. Both systems have the ability to use custom soundtracks for any game. The PS3 used to be limited by only allowing supporting games to use custom soundtracks, but firmware updates have switched this feature to being firmware based like the 360's. Of course, as stated earlier, the 360 supports any major Mp3 player while the PS3's external harddrive support requires the music to be in a specific folder on the root level, which discussing my opinion on this would be a bit redundant right now. Hands down the nod is towards the 360 due to the ease of multimedia sorting, Netflix and Last.FM. Hardware Features: As stated before the PS3 has its Blu-Ray drive, which, as a person who got his PS3 partially because of the Blu-Ray drive, I like. It also has Wireless internet built in, two USB ports and, in the older models, card readers and 2 more USB ports, but that's about it. The practicallity of the card readers is about the same as the external drive support: almost none if you sort your files like a sane person. The practicallity of the USB ports is only increased by the controllers using them to charge (of course, with 7 available ports (a completely inexplicible feature if you ask me), good luck charging all of them) most third party hardware developers insisting on using USB recievers instead of the PS3's built in blu-tooth wireless (this is completely inexplicible to me, if anyone understands this, please tell me why, I would love to know). Speaking of blu-tooth, any blu-tooth headset will work with the PS3. The 360 has nothing on that one. The 360 has three USB ports and that's about it. Of course, as the application of external devices wasn't done in a completely stupid way, these are almost always full on my 360 (one always taken by my wireless headset's charging cable, one always taken by my controller's charging cable and one alternating between my Zune's charging cable and my Rock Band drum set). The 360 doesn't have built in wireless, however, only two types of people use it, 1) the people that have other choice if they don't want to string a wire halfway across their house and 2) complete idiots who don't realize that wireless connections are generally half the speed of a wired connection at their fastest. However, despite personal preference for the usefulness of the 360's hardware features, this one goes to the PS3 thanks to a combination of blu-tooth, blu-ray, built in wireless (which I do actually use as I don't use my PS3's online for multiplayer, just demos and downloadable content). Online: This one will be short: XBL has always seemed faster and more user friendly than PSN to me, so, despite the (minimal) fee, XBox gets this one. PSN's still a pretty good service, though. Software: Honestly, this one is a purely subjective debate, but both are actually equal. The difference in number of great exclusives is actually very small. Seriously, if you can't find at least 3 games on the opposite system that you want to play, you aren't trying hard enough.
And you are aware that, while still not bad, PSN isn't as good as XBL, right?
US$50 a year and a month is equivlent to US$3.84 a month. Seriously, is $4 a month so much that its actually an arguable point against the XBox? At least you don't need a credit card like you did before the 360 came out. Besides, you don't have to pay a penny if you only want to download content and demos.
Right, because you have any clue how many forums I frequent. Its called a different opinion dumbass, just because it isn't the majority opinion doesn't mean it doesn't exist and isn't valid. Besides, I'm quite sure that a lot of people hated it entirely for being 360 exclusive instead of actually hating for it being a bad game. Also, I hated Star Ocean 1 and Star Ocean 3. Have you noticed that there have far fewer reports of the red ring of death in the last year or so? If not, you really ought to do some research on the hardware revisions that were put in place that significantly reduced the failure rate. Yes, it still happens and yes, it is in a disproportionate amount of failures compared to the competition, but it is no where near the 30% failure rate it was before and is in fact, mostly a non-issue now.
But the MGS4 bundle is discontinued and there's no InFamous bundle.
I find it very humorous that people ***** and moan about Left 4 Dead 2, but don't blink an eye at the yearly installments of EA Sports games, Tony Hawk, and Call of Duty, nor at the 5 a year development cycle of games like Guitar Hero. As for wondering how long it takes to make a short game: You really have no idea how a game development cycle goes.
Machinae Supremacy has been giving free music out for years and Nine Inch Nails' two albums from last year can be legally downloaded for free as well.
And I predict that the charm of No More Heroes will plummet.
Yeah, Retro Studio's games aren't Nintendo games. [/sarcasm]. If the team is owned by a company, it is part of the company. But that's beside the point. The point is arguing that Square should only make games for Sony based on customer loyalty is rather childish. Loyalty to a major business partner means **** when you can more than double your audience simply by not limiting yourself. Square left their partnership with Nintendo for a generation because the technology to make the games they wanted to make was with Sony and they are going multiplatform because they know that limiting themselves to the worst selling console on the market is downright stupid. Here's the thing, multiplatform didn't hurt the quality of games like Devil May Cry 4 (Previously a Sony exclusive), Guitar Hero (previously a Sony exclusive series), Bioshock (originally Microsoft exclusive), Oblivion (Microsoft), Soul Calibur 4 (Sony), Armored Core 4 (Sony), Eternal Sonata (Microsoft) and Lost Planet (Microsoft). What makes you think that FFXIII is going to suffer based solely on it being multiplatform?
Actually, they were made by teams owned by Square. Not to mention that many of Square's SNES RPGs are considered to be the most influential RPGs ever released. Chrono Trigger, FFIV, FFVI and Seiken Densetsu 3 are all just as, if not more influential than FFVII.
You missed The Conduit, Battalion Wars II and Metroid Prime 3. I rather dislike how a proportionate amount of good games tends to get overshadowed by a disproportionate (but unexpected to those that know their video game history) amount of shovelware. After all, believe it or not fanboys, but the PS2 has a crap ton of shovelware as well. The DS, too. The best selling consoles tend to have the most amount of shovelware.
Same price as an Arcade and a 60 gig harddrive, US$300.
The Arcade is US$200. I personally would recommend springing for the Pro, but if you do decde to go with it, the 60 gigabyte harddrive (which also comes with a headset, 3 months of XBL Gold and an ethernet cable) is available for the US$100 difference.
Can't believe I missed this one. The Arcade comes with a memory card, yes, you can play Live, but you won't have access to backwards compatibility and downloadable content and it is US$100 to get a 60 gigabyte harddrive that comes with everything the Pro package comes with sans the XBox. In the end, you'll spend the same amount for the Arcade as you would for the Pro.
