I 100% without a shred of doubt in my mind guarantee you if PSN or XBL made online free for current gen, they'd still keep the majority of their subscriber base, as there are still tons of reasons to keep those subscriptions beyond online play - but alas, not you or I could know for sure unless that ever happened (fingers crossed right?). Hmm one feature I've never seen on Steam (unless an individual publisher occasionally felt generous) is free games (no, not F2P trash) - especially at the quantity and quality of those found on PS+ or XBL. If you want to call them cheap and not worth it, or that nobody cares, good for you, that doesn't suddenly make that fact. And as I told you, sales on PS+ went way up before the release of PS4, and PS3/Vita still has free online, PS3 is still very popular, so if it was really that big of a deal, I think people would stick there.
If you really want to sit here and lie to yourself that you can't find the same deals for console games as with PC, be my guest, but you're not looking hard enough. By all means link me to a site that has better deals consistently than Amazon, Ebay or Glyde because Steam sure as hell isn't one of them and apparently talking about G2A is "derailing the issue." I already told you, and you seemed to ignore (obviously because you must have not read through my comment) through actual research, through looking almost every week for the last 2 years across all platforms, on most occasions of a sale (happening across PSN, XBL and Steam (without subscriptions I might add)) deals presented across all platforms were generally equal, with PSN almost always having better deals than XBL, and in many instances better than Steam as well. Yes, Steam will sometimes include a deal on a few games with a better price, this happens on any platform, but you're in fact wrong if you want to tell me that Steam regularly has better deals than PSN or XBL. No bias, just literal facts, you can look up sale history yourself on those platforms for equivalent sales (holiday sales, publisher sales, etc.) on Google.
There are downtimes for any service - again, if you can't wait a couple hours in a day every once in a while because of maintenance or some DDoSing dickhat, reconsider your priorities. They're just VIDEO GAMES.Is it really the end of the world if you can't play your precious Fifa for a couple hours? Do something else? "Oh that's not the point blah blah.." It is the point. Gamers nowadays have become so affixed to their monitors, clenching harder and harder, the very thought of letting go for a day is so baffling, it's met with rage and anxiety to the extent that nobody in their right mind could possibly take them seriously - or their hobby as a legitimate one. It's like the needle is jammed in and they're shoving back and forth to get that last squeeze of juice, like dude it'll be okay. You will live. Fifa will still be there in an hour.
AGAIN you say I'm "wasting" $150 "over the years" on a service I along with many other people enjoy but put this into perspective. You go out maybe once a month, shit, once every 2 months, to eat a nice dinner out alone or with a friend. You buy a meal that's around $15-30 (pretty reasonable) - a one time, 2-3 hour experience, that is virtually completely useless after the end of the day. That's $15 you literally just pooped out. $15 X 6 (once every 2 months) = $90 in one year for SIX meals out of 365 days. It costs me $40 for 365 days to play unlimited online, get free things, extra discounts, enjoy countless memories with people all across the world, awesome games and way more, literally half the price of a couple meals. You think I'M wasting money here??? You waste more money breathing, paying taxes, paying for electricity, buying dinner napkins over the course of a year. A graphics card upgrade alone every 5-6 years will cost anywhere from $350-600+ which at most is what, $300 for 6 years of PS+? I can think of a hell of a lot more things to waste my money on than a 13 cent a day subscription. Complaining about something as insignificant as an incredibly cheap service that does nothing but improve your experience with console gaming is so beyond me. You don't want it? COOOOOOOOL BRUUUHHH many people do, required online or not - you're fighting a war you will never win, I'm sorry to tell you. Nobody wants to pay for online, nobody wants to pay for anything, tough luck. I'd love AAA and new indie games, online play, a back massage, a car, a wife, all for free, but this is real life. I understand and respect your point of view, but you let your bias get in the way. If you prefer PC gaming over console, I'm honestly there with you for the most part (it's extremely fun), but be real here, console gaming is clearly not cut out for you and that's alright, just simply get over it because it won't change for you. Complaining on the internet (on a GS forum no less) isn't going to get you or me anywhere.
Oh nooooooooo! There goes my $150! Oh weelllllllllllll! :)
Why the hell would a song like this even be in the game? No doubt it's a blatant rip-off but this is just god awful and out of place for Final Fantasy (and I do enjoy PM5K) So weird...
@putaspongeon: Whoa buddy cool off with some sunny d. I never mentioned whether it was a bad idea to own platforms or not. I do own both a PS4 and Vita (which I love and recommend picking up), I was mentioning how you stated you won't support Sony products because they charge for online, which is fine and good if you don't want to. What I found ironic is that you'd be willing to shell out cash for more of their products (some of which don't even charge for online play) if they seized paid online. So in that case you'd be spending more money to play for free.
@joalopes: PS3 is 100% free online play and their PS+ sales skyrocketed in the last few years (before PS4) because of great deals and game offerings, your point on nobody wanting the service is invalid..
Steam does NOT offer all the same services as XBL or PS+, not sure where you pulled that from but keep it.
Actually, Steam has gotten significantly worse in terms of sales/deals ever since their interface change, any sales they do have are so lackluster and in many cases (because yes, I own every platform and have done my research) the deals you see on Steam for decent AAA titles are the exact same price or even HIGHER than you'd find on an equivalent sale on PSN. At this point, the absolute only way to get the best deals on PC is through services like G2A or GMG, so at that point you're using far more than just 1 service to fit all your needs unlike on console, which loads of gamers don't care to deal with.
You must have never heard of a little thing called *clears throat* AMAZON? Yeah it's this weird brand new service that lets you buy brand new things like video games on PC or CONSOLE for usually way cheaper than on a digital first party store. I know it's crazy, who would have thought you could find deals every single day on console games, just like you'd find on Steam - which by the way, since I'm on it like every day, has pretty laughably horrible daily/weekly deals on games nobody's heard of or played in the last 15 years.
And no, I do not notice PSN or XBL downtime, because usually any maintenance is set for a time the average person is more than likely asleep or at work and is typically no more than 2-3 hours. If 2-3 hours of your time reallocated to something probably more important than console gaming is too much, quit now. Also that little online check you're talking about is a form of DRM, which is what Steam is entirely built around. It also has nothing to do with the console, it's the publisher (EA) shoving their policies down your and my throats. So that's completely irrelevant to PSN or XBL.
I can agree that console makers want to sell their consoles as a service, just like CDPR wants to sell TW3 as a service - you buy a game, they strip out unnecessary parts, give it back to you for "free" so you see how well they treat you, and in the end build trust, so you buy more of their product. Such simple baiting tactics these companies pull, and Sony/MS are no exception. But should any of this really come as a surprise? This is how any successful business works - build that community, give them what they want, then start, optionally, charging incrementally for things that don't really matter for the most part. They make more money, which in turn allows for more features (which can't just come from thin air) then when you decide you want out, there's nothing stopping you. They control nobody. Not you, not me - nothing. If we didn't want to pay for their services because we thought it was a bad deal on our end, why in the hell would we continue to shell out money? Because senpai will notice? And consoles were never built for power, everybody knows this. If you want a super feature heavy, totally customization, powerhouse rig, that will last so many years and give you everything you could dream of and more, nobody is looking at a console for that. They are a convenience item, an accessory to make media consumption far less of a hassle for most people. This is what YOU need to understand. They charge for consoles as a service because people want it - if they didn't, it would show. If you don't like it, you don't need it, that's cool, but dismissing it will get you nowhere in this day and age, as this is the future of console and mobile gaming.
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