I have been seeing this a lot lately and it is quite annoying. I am guessing it is because people have never used the service and so do not understand what is missing on PSN.
First off I am not here to bash the PS3. I am here to point out a few things to people that don't seem to understand the difference between the XBL service at $50 a year and the PSN at $0 a year. People who haven't played XBL say things like 'I play RFOM online, and it's FREE thus PSN > XBL' but actually playing the game online is only a fraction of what XBL is about.
Lets take a hypothetical situation on a multiplat (because there are no comparable games yet) which I am going to call Generic FPS999. So I get out the two consoles, boot up the game and dive straight into the multiplayer lobby:
The first thing I notice is a couple of my friends are online and I want to ask them to play for a bit. Lets have a look at how that works on both setup's.
1. On XBL I look and see exactly what my friends are doing, in so much detail as to actually know what level etc they are on in any game they are playing, send them both an invite to chat and then dive into a multiplayer game of Generic FPS999 while I wait for a reply. They see a message pop up on their screen in game, they can pause their game, dive into the message, open the chat channel and then continue playing their game while we discuss what to do. I know all of my friends will be able to do this as they all have a headset (included with console).
So, we are playing our seperate games and chatting and they decide they will join me when they finish their level off in Generic Platformer123. They finish up, I send both of them an invite to join my game of Generic FPS999 and we all jump straight into a game. Now, we can all join the general chat channel or we can chat privately if we so wish.
There is a guy wanting to join our game and we want to know a little about him before letting him. So I jump into his profile (all of this while still in game), check out other peoples feedback on him through his rating, see what games he's been playing recently, see that he has a headset connected and decide to let him in, after chatting to him he seems cool so I add him to my 'preffered player' list so we can meet up again.
I am enjoying the game but the music annoys me. I bring up my console in game (at the touch of a button), skip down to my media player controls and start a playlist of songs I have saved. This immediately switches off the ingame music and starts my personal list. I tap my button again and i'm back in the same multiplayer game I was before. Oh, and whats this? We've all just unlocked a Co-op achievement. Our general gaming score increased and everyone can see we have some experience playing on-line...there is much rejoicing.
2. I am in the multiplayer lobby for Generic FPS999 on PSN. I know some of my friends are on but I have no idea what they are doing. I would like to message them so I quit out of the game and send them a 'are you there' text. I do this because I have no idea what game they are playing or even if they are actively playing at all and most don't yet have a headset.
One of them responds, the other doesn't. I find out later when talking on the phone that he was playing a game and didn't want to quit out to answer a message. So I invite my other friend to chat...except he doesn't have a headset, grrr, so I type to him instead. Yes, he would like to play but he wants to finish off his current game and he'll let me know. I dive into Generic FPS999 and wait for the message. It arrives and I want to reply...but i'm doing really well in this match and I don't want to quit the game to answer. I finish up my match and quit so I can respond to my message. Damn, he's gone offline because I didn't reply quick enough...how annoying.
I try to send my other friend an invite to my game...but he's playing something else so I can't seem to find the option. Damn this all seems like hassle. Now there is someone wanting to join my game, I would like to know who but I can't really find out anything about him and he doesn't have voice chat enabled, so I kick him out.
*SUMMARY*
Playing online is about MUCH more than just 'playing' a game. It is about community and the tools provided for you to enjoy that experience. I could go on and on with lists of stuff and scenarios as mentioned above that make XBL a great place to be but no one will read that wall of text anyways so why bother heh.
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