XBOX 360 are they starting to take the mick??

swvillafan

vyle wrote: »

Indeed you can, but also the ps3 network infastructure is inferior. It's down far more often than XBL, and it's a lot slower, too, when it comes to downloading. You do get what you pay for. It also lacks many of the options and the flexability of xbox live.

Can you explain in what way the PSN (or SEN as its now known) is inferior?

I can't say I notice that my download speed is slow, Gotham City Imposters (almost 2gb download) came through fairly quickly considering I'm using 5mb connection.

You don't actually have to pay for anything on PSN/SEN unless you want to. Unlike XBox gold, services like BBC iplayer, 4od are available at no extra cost as is netflix and lovefilm (although they require a subscription to the respective companies).

Can you also give a few examples of what options it may be missing and perhaps where its less flexible than xbox live?

Many thanks

pitkin2020

vyle wrote: »

Well, see, the point is that when you buy a used car, most people do not expect it to run as well as a new car. You get less of a warranty, and you inherit all of the issues and niggles it's developed, with far less of a right to reply against them. Used cars are cheaper BECAUSE of the degredation.

Not entirely accurate, if I buy a new car and sell it 1 month later having only used it to go to the shop and back, the new buyer will still have a near pristine car, they will still have the warranty and support of a brand new car yet they don't need to pay the dealership for it aswell.



Going back to the car analogy (or, actually, my other half's motorbike) -- If he bought a second hand bike, other than a very limited warranty from the dealer, any big malfunctions and he'd be buying parts from Honda and paying the dealer to repair them.

Buying new, Honda foots the bill up to a certain point, as a reward, if you will, for buying new.

The dealership will honour the manufacturers warranty, if I bought said bike 1 month after it was released I would have the same rights as buying new as the warranty would be transferred over. They couldn't decide that because I am the 2nd owner they are going to remove their obligations.


Don't forget, as well, that when using the likes of netflix and 40d online through a computer, you're being bombarded with adverts at all sides. Through a console, it's a far more direct, relatively advert free affair. You're not getting the pop-ups, and banner ads, but because of that, the companies aren't getting the ad revenue they get from PC users.

I don't get the adverts when using my smart TV, that is the agreement that is made between samsung and that provider in exactly the same way microsoft have made that agreement.

Again, the problem is that with other pre-owned sales, say, a telephone, or something else, you're paying for the goods, and you use the goods. They are self contained. Now, you're paying for the goods, but EXPECTING the company to continue investing in the infrastructure to maintain the game online, and to deliver patches and whatnot to you.

Patches are a continued support, a cost that should be built into the production of the product. Just like any other product that gives support after the sale. How many other companies in reality would expect you to pay again to fix an error that shouldn't be there. The online play should be maintained via the cost of xbox live, not the sale of 2nd hand disks.

Now, when it comes to online you could argue that if there were 1000 people online who bought new, and they got rid of the game, and those 1000 were sold pre-owned, it's the same income and the same number of players, so it's fine. However, if they're also delivering large patches, and free DLC to another thousand, that's taking FROM the developers/publishers without you giving them anything to continue the service.

Firstly the patches are created to fix game issues, they don't have to rebuild it for each new player. People have paid for that service to begin with by paying the high game price if bought new. They have had the privilege of playing the game first and thats their choice rather than waiting for prices to drop or pre-owned to become available.

That is one issue with games. They are viewed as "software" And you're not buying the game, but the right for yourself to use it. That's where PC gaming/steam have got it right. You can buy giftpacks of games, where you're getting, three or more copies of the game to distribute to other users for a highly discounted price.

I fully appreciate that your buying the software that just happens to be on a disk but the goal posts seem to have now moved in favour for more revenue. If your buying new you get the license to play online for free, fair do. If you buy preowned you have to buy another license aswell as the game and the access to the xbox live service aswell.

DCFC79

WelshBluebird wrote: »

People seem to forget that MS isn't EA (or any other third party publisher)
If EA want to charge a fee for online pay for those who buy the game second hand, then that is EA. Not MS. You cannot blame microsoft for that.

I think the OP was having 2 rants, 1 aimed at MS re the Gold subscription to use lovefilm(of which you need to be a member) and second 1 was aimed at EA for paying for a code to play pre owned games online.

Not bought an EA game for ages but i might end up breaking that promise by getting battlefiled aat some point.

pitkin2020

DCFC79 wrote: »

Im think the OP was having 2 rants, 1 aimed at MS re the Gold subscription to use lovefilm(of which you need to be a member) and second 1 was aimed at EA for paying for a code to play pre owned games online.

Not bought an EA game for ages but i might end up breaking that promise by getting battlefiled aat some point.

LOL yes it was two rants, exactly as you put.

DCFC79

pitkin2020 wrote: »

LOL yes it was two rants, exactly as you put.

You do bring some valid points especially the 1 about used games.

vyle

swvillafan wrote: »

Can you explain in what way the PSN (or SEN as its now known) is inferior?

I can't say I notice that my download speed is slow, Gotham City Imposters (almost 2gb download) came through fairly quickly considering I'm using 5mb connection.

You don't actually have to pay for anything on PSN/SEN unless you want to. Unlike XBox gold, services like BBC iplayer, 4od are available at no extra cost as is netflix and lovefilm (although they require a subscription to the respective companies).

Can you also give a few examples of what options it may be missing and perhaps where its less flexible than xbox live?

Many thanks

No party chat in PSN unless one of the people is a member of PS+.

No cross game voice chat on PSN.

Relatively few demos compared to Xbox 360 (but then, that is also due to Sony charging devs per gb downloaded).

More downtime for maintenance than xbl.

There may be others, but those are the ones I'm still certain on, due to very rarely playing online these days (I get 300k connection at the best of times, so with my other half running a web business from home, online gaming is pretty much a no-go). However when I did use it a lot, the general quality of service on xbox live was smoother, matchmaking was faster, and it really felt like a premium service compared to PSN's performance.

pitkin2020 wrote: »

I fully appreciate that your buying the software that just happens to be on a disk but the goal posts seem to have now moved in favour for more revenue. If your buying new you get the license to play online for free, fair do. If you buy preowned you have to buy another license aswell as the game and the access to the xbox live service aswell.

I expect MS would argue that you're paying for far more than just the online play, even if you're not using the other features, while EA or whoever would argue that they're not getting anything from the Live subscription.

It is more cut and dry on the PS3 though. Now, I don't know how to quote adding red bits, so I'll have to do it in a cumbersome fashion:

The dealership will honour the manufacturers warranty, if I bought said bike 1 month after it was released I would have the same rights as buying new as the warranty would be transferred over. They couldn't decide that because I am the 2nd owner they are going to remove their obligations.

However, after the warranty has expired, I presume they wouldn't provide a second warranty and resolutions of any fixes would come from parts purchased from the manufacturer.

Then you've got stuff like TVs where you register the warranty online and cannot transfer it.

Patches are a continued support, a cost that should be built into the production of the product. Just like any other product that gives support after the sale.

While I absolutely agree that a game should be shipped in a working, finished state (I hate this online enabled "we'll ship it today, and make sure it works sometime later" mentality), some patches enhance the game beyond the original, working state.

Fallout 3 saw patches that improved the graphics. Some fighting games have received patches that rebalance characters following fan feedback.

Witcher 2 added gameplay tweaks, some extra missions, extra modes and more, out of the good of their heart.

the PC version of skyrim just saw the creation kit patched in, as well as higher quality graphical textures.

These are updates that weren't to fix a faulty product, but to improve it. While they may have been factored in during production, they were delivered digitally at a cost of the company's servers. The price of which is in no way covered by pre-owned sales.

In many devices, ongoing support is factored into the cost of the item when bought new. Cameras for instance.

I had a chat with a guy from Fuji who mentioned how grey market imports aren't covered by the warranty, because they're brought in from India and other places where they don't have warranties, and are sold on the cheap. Because you haven't paid Fuji directly (well, indirectly I guess) for the warranty, you're not provided with te ongoing support. The same principal applies to games, and it is only now that developers have found a way around it.

I don't get the adverts when using my smart TV, that is the agreement that is made between samsung and that provider in exactly the same way microsoft have made that agreement.

Fear not! Samsung is way ahead of you:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/09/samsung-launches-new-smart-tv-ad-platform-samsung-adhub/


I fear that the situation will only get more annoying during the next generation of consoles, but as a single poor selling game can kill an otherwise brilliant studio, I am more than happy to pay to keep a decent studio in business.

I will never give money to activision though, because they are the most evil company of all.

pitkin2020

vyle wrote: »

I fear that the situation will only get more annoying during the next generation of consoles, but as a single poor selling game can kill an otherwise brilliant studio, I am more than happy to pay to keep a decent studio in business.

Oh its going to get a lot worse when games are removed from disk and everything is cloud based. There will be no second user games, no hiring of games and I suspect prices won't fall either as they will have you over a barrel.

A poor single product can kill even the best of businesses so I don't think we should all start paying extra just to support businesses because they have produced some good stuff at some point. Game developers are no different and just like any business they have to take the rough with the smooth. When its good they don't complain, MW3 sold $775 million worth of copies in just 5 days and MW2 didn't do too bad either.

Xbox live is a good service, I don't dispute that. It is temperamental and isn't perfect and they have had some major hiccups at key times which has caused plenty of frustration and annoyance. The game is issue is with the developers but my biggest gripe is with the 360 gold.

The xbox has become more than just a games console, you now have twitter, facebook, tv apps etc plenty more than just games, but unless you have a gold account they are redundant. Now all of those services are offered to its members on a free basis. Channel 4, 5, facebook and twitter do not charge a penny to use their service, a service they provide. The xbox acts as nothing more than a tool to access these features so why should microsoft be profiting off the back of these.

Like I said earlier, add a couple kids into the mix and the cost of accessing these free services become expensive.

[Deleted User]

pitkin2020 wrote: »

Oh its going to get a lot worse when games are removed from disk and everything is cloud based. There will be no second user games, no hiring of games and I suspect prices won't fall either as they will have you over a barrel.

I remember the same things being said about Steam when it was first released, now you could consider it a model example on how to deliver digital content to your target audience successfully.

vyle

pitkin2020 wrote: »

Oh its going to get a lot worse when games are removed from disk and everything is cloud based. There will be no second user games, no hiring of games and I suspect prices won't fall either as they will have you over a barrel.

There are currently two other alternatives (in a way).

First is onlive (and also Gaikai, dunno if that's out yet, though) where you stream over the cloud, and only ever subscribe, but I don't like that idea. I like having hundreds of games on my shelf, on tap at any one time (and more in my steam library).

The other option is Green Man Gaming, the only digital distribution company I know of who does allow trade ins. I bought Trine for £5 in a sale, traded it in for £10 the other week and bought the incredible To The Moon. Best decision of my (gaming) life.

In fact, !!!! it, abandon this thread, and buy To The Moon this instant. It's more a movie than a game, but by god is its story brilliant.

michaelro

For those asking why PSN is worse, the recent hacking should be enough.

Game companies are like the Film/Music companies believing they are missing out on a significant amount of revenue.

I'm not agreeing with piracy, but at a reduced cost / no cost people will consume things they wouldn't if they had to pay full price - Relating to the game industry, without trade-ins, a lot of people wouldn't buy new games.

EA are the main culprits with the passport and they're probably the worst for the support this passport cost is supposed to subsidise.