XBL vs. PSN

[sakicfan84]

Also, $50 for 13 months really isn't that much. That's less than $5 a month to play every game online. If you complain about that, then you're kinda being silly. Anyone can afford that if they can afford the console, controllers and games.

I refuse to pay for a Gold membership, even though I can easily afford it. I have a problem with them charing for it in the first place. For the past 10 years I've been playing online for free on my PC, with one exception: WoW. I accept WoW's fees because the fees get me a large amount of post-release content, plus the upkeep of running the servers. Xbox Live is doing nothing more than Battle.net does, which is why I won't pay for it. As a result, the 360 is the last place I go to for games, so the only titles I have are the exclusive RPGs for the system.

Yeah, you've been playing online for free on other servers that people are probably paying for. You play any UT or CoD on the PC? Those servers are all paid for buy someone so that you can have access to play. It's only free for you because some other individuals are footing the bill. There are master servers which deal with verification and information tracking, but the people generally play to host games on a lot of the popular PC games.

It's true that battle.net did offer a free network for people to play on. They definitely have upgraded over time, because I guess battle.net offers voice chat, video chat, downloadable content, instantly accessible stat tracking, parental controls and a gaming ID that ties into every other PC game that you play. Oh wait, they don't offer any of that.

I was a huge Starcraft fan, so don't try telling me that the game could be a huge mess at time. You'd have someone that "red bars" enter in the same game as you, and the enter game would lag out. Not just for that person with the bad lag, but for every single person. The whole game would have to stop for 45 seconds before you had an opportunity to drop that player. That happened a lot because Blizzard did not host games. Battle.net games relied on a peer-to-peer network. You connect to the Battle.net server and you sit in a lobby and see other people and a list of games, but when you wanted to play, you'd have to connect directly to another host. This led to the lag of each individual game being tied directly to connection of the slowest person in each game. If you had someone with bad lag, every person in that game was guaranteed to have bad lag also until that person was kicked.

Live does everything that battle.net does and a whole lot more, and they centrally host all of it. They aren't relying on the people playing the game or every developer to handle the hosting responsibility. The design, implementation and execution of their network isn't free, but I'm more than willing to $3 dollars a month to have access to it. Regardless, it's completely unfair and inaccurate to say that battle.net does everything that XBL does.

[Niode]

I don't think anyone really has an excuse not to softmod their Wii now. It's so unbelievably easy, I can do it within 20 minutes. All you need is an SD and Twilight Princess. Softmii is method I used and it's perfect. Plus it enables full backup loading via the disc channel (without a mod chip). This includes GC backup loading as well (including multi game discs if you use the GC backup loader homebrew, I have all my GC games on a few DVDs now).

Since modding my Wii it has become the centrepiece of my gaming set up. I've finally retired my Xbox. I can put all the games I already own on it as VC channels and I can use emulators for the rest.

I simply refuse to pay for a game again just to be able to play it on a different console.

[MrPopo]

Yeah, you've been playing online for free on other servers that people are probably paying for. You play any UT or CoD on the PC? Those servers are all paid for buy someone so that you can have access to play. It's only free for you because some other individuals are footing the bill. There are master servers which deal with verification and information tracking, but the people generally play to host games on a lot of the popular PC games.

Yes, other people are footing the bill. Which is their business. If I wanted I could set up my own dedicated server for play as well. Do you browse websites? Most of those are paid for yb someone so you can have access to browse them and post on their forums.

It's true that battle.net did offer a free network for people to play on.

Does. No past tense here.

They definitely have upgraded over time,

You bet they have.

because I guess battle.net offers voice chat,

An option to listen to random assholes.

video chat,

The option to see random assholes. And video chat, you don't even use that in game on Live.

downloadable content,

Isn't this called a patch? Or are you talking about downloadable games, which I can get off of Steam, who's client is free?

instantly accessible stat tracking,

You mean the win/loss record I can get? Or are you talking about stats like "number of Zerglings killed"?

parental controls

You got me here. Call me old fashioned, but I feel the best parental controls are when parents control what their kids get.

and a gaming ID that ties into every other PC game that you play.

Battle.net doesn't. Steam does, and it's free.

I was a huge Starcraft fan, so don't try telling me that the game could be a huge mess at time. You'd have someone that "red bars" enter in the same game as you, and the enter game would lag out. Not just for that person with the bad lag, but for every single person. The whole game would have to stop for 45 seconds before you had an opportunity to drop that player. That happened a lot because Blizzard did not host games. Battle.net games relied on a peer-to-peer network. You connect to the Battle.net server and you sit in a lobby and see other people and a list of games, but when you wanted to play, you'd have to connect directly to another host. This led to the lag of each individual game being tied directly to connection of the slowest person in each game. If you had someone with bad lag, every person in that game was guaranteed to have bad lag also until that person was kicked.

So we're comparing modern day broad band games vs. the Starcraft era of dialup modems?

Live does everything that battle.net does and a whole lot more, and they centrally host all of it. They aren't relying on the people playing the game or every developer to handle the hosting responsibility. The design, implementation and execution of their network isn't free, but I'm more than willing to $3 dollars a month to have access to it. Regardless, it's completely unfair and inaccurate to say that battle.net does everything that XBL does.

Yes, I should be fair. Live has more "features" then Battle.net does. Steam comes closer, as the outstanding voice chat is usually supported in game or can be done with Ventrilo (albient Vent is more cumbersome then Live is) and video chat is not in-game, so you can substitute with any PC app. But are any of these features actually worthwhile? Yes, they don't rely on other people to handle hosting. But every worthwhile PC game I've seen still has a dedicated community that does the hosting. And, as mentioned, they don't charge me for it. It's not the dollar amount. It's the principle.

[sakicfan84]

Yes, other people are footing the bill. Which is their business. If I wanted I could set up my own dedicated server for play as well. Do you browse websites? Most of those are paid for yb someone so you can have access to browse them and post on their forums.

My point is that most games require people to pay money for them to have access to on-line play. If someone wasn't hosting a UT server, there wouldn't be any on-line UT. These games provide code for servers to support on-line gaming, whether or not an on-line community exists though, relies on the desire of people to pay to host a server. Instead of relying on a select numbers of individuals to foot the bill to provide on-line gaming, Microsoft provides all of the infrastructure and charges each individual user.

An option to listen to random assholes.

I'm almost always chatting with my friends on XBL and never in the chat for open games Yes, voice chat can be accomplished via TS or Vent, but those also require someone to host a server. Of course an individual can setup their on TS or Vent server, but most people don't have the connection to support more than a few users chatting constantly. Although I don't generally do open chat in games on XBL, I do have option to do so without having to get a TS/Vent address and go and connect to a different server every time in order to join the chat.

So we're comparing modern day broad band games vs. the Starcraft era of dialup modems?

I just played SC a few months back and the same stuff happened...even in the day of broad band gaming. Even if everyone that enters a game has a high quality connection, which isn't a guarantee, the game can still get completely lagged out. If one person's connection is slowed by doing something like downloading torrents in the background, the entire game will be lagged out. Relying on a peer-to-peer gaming interface guarantees that stuff like that can and will happen. They don't run a centralized server to host games for battle.net, so unless everyone has broad band connections and doesn't haven't something slowing down their connection, lag will occur. Problem is the lag doesn't effect just one person like it would on XBL, PSN or any other gaming service, it effects the entire game. Why would they charge for battle.net when most of it relies on the individuals to host games?

Yes, they don't rely on other people to handle hosting. But every worthwhile PC game I've seen still has a dedicated community that does the hosting. And, as mentioned, they don't charge me for it. It's not the dollar amount. It's the principle.

What principle? You don't mind other people paying for your gaming enjoyment as long as you don't have to pay the bill...that the principle? I could see if PC games were free to play on-line, but they generally aren't.

Xbox Live is doing nothing more than Battle.net does, which is why I won't pay for it.

You have to know that just isn't true at all. The fact that Battle.net doesn't have a centralized network for hosting games pretty much makes them completely different. They aren't even close to providing the same the same thing. Saying that XBL provides the features of battle.net+steam+ventrillo+some video chat program would be more accurate than your statement. I don't mind paying $3 a month to have all those PC features available on a console.