As I've said before, XBL and PSN's problems are what keep many hardcore gamers firmly rooted to the PC as the platform of choice- sure it doesn't always cost as little as an X-Box or PS3, (AT ALL.) but you're almost guaranteed the ability to play a game without seeing 'HOST ENDED GAME' or the dreaded 'CONNECTION LOST.' messages.....besides, user generated content and Mods are prevalent for PC games.....what has the 360 and PS3 got.....theme packs? That we have to PAY for?! Give me more levels anyday! :)
Is X-Box Live worth £40 (UK Sterling, not dollars- a fair amount more than you Americans get to pay.) a year? I'm going to say a pretty emphatic 'no.' Why? Because Microsoft make ridiculous amounts of money every year in each field of their product spectrum, they make money on the games we buy at £40 each ($70-80 Roughly) they make money on consoles, Marketplace and other computing applications; yet they don't meet the demand for X-Box Live Gold constantly which is evident in the fact that every day there are connection and Gameplay issues to do with XBL as a service. There is nothing more frustrating than paying for a service only to use that service and be told that your Connection was Lost, or 'Host Ended Game' 2 minutes into it.I have no doubts that PSN probably suffers the same problems, however, as a user of PS2's connection for a few years playing Resident Evil: Outbreak 2, I didn't have too much of a problem with the service itself. (As it happens, only a problem with Capcom for terminating the Servers when the video game was sold on the premise that it was an online game.) In saying that, that may not be an accurate reflection of PSN considering the fact that it is a very upgraded service to the one I once used.
I'm also left somewhat underwhelmed by the amount of players we usually get per game.....on PSN the maximum is between 16, 32 or 64 players- XBL, a service we all pay for can only really support 18 - 24 from the games I've seen so-far. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we supposed to be using the stronger service?
Yes, I agree that it's a small amount to pay a year, however for that money we should be dominating PSN and we should be recieving a service comparable to PC services- services I remind you that are free and subsidised by the game manufacturers on the sales of their games.....but anyway; I find it strange that I can play Team Fortress 2 over Steam completely free and with strong servers that offer smooth competitive gameplay after buying the CD Key, but we have to pay annually for a service that usually fails to deliver stable server activity, smooth gameplay and most importantly in terms of enjoyment a good Localised Matchmaking service that pits us up with people with similar connections. No offense to you Americans out there, you're hilarious at times to play with and very vocal, however, when my connection is at 2/4 bars with a direct Internet Connection, there is something not quite right there. I'd rather be able to join games on a server list by Location, so that I can match myself to people in Europe, rather than have my connection skewed across the world. (No offense to anyone, if it wasn't so damn stat based it wouldn't matter so much.)PC users on the otherhand get more choice when joining games (Not to mention the ability to host games Locally, rather than relying on ONE COMPANY and their dedicated servers.) they get more choice and downloads for their games, they pay less for their games and definately get the better options when it comes to multiplayer. In all I guess it all just comes down to the usual 'Who do you support' argument; we have X-Box fans talking about XBL being awesome, we'll have PSN defenders talking it up, and we'll have PC afficionados advocating the PC as being dominant in terms of quality. One thing is for sure, regardless of what is the better service, there's no winning this argument, because we'll always have three fanboy sides bashing one another in all arguments of the Console (Gaming) war.
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