Also, many topics are complex and have lots of factors that a short, succinct reply may not do full justice.

I’m succinct where necessary, I can assure you.

I totally agree that Sony is in a no-win situation here, though. They’re spent a long time on top and everyone loves to hate a winner. And nothing brings more glee to the winner-haters than that self-same winner suddenly ‘not doing quite as well’.

When they do something different from the 360 standard, gamers tend to moan about why they didn’t just follow the example set by Microsoft.

When they do something directly comparable to the 360 way, gamers moan about how Sony are unimaginative and just copying another company.

I recall gamers ‘demanding’ the PS3 get a price drop. It got dropped. I’ve seen the same gamers now stating that a price drop was a bad move and clearly shows Sony must be scared.

Even when people get what they want, they’ll still complain.

If 2.4 doesn’t have what others have speculated there will, I’m sure, be a bunch of gamers bleating about how Sony lied to them or something – simply because those gamers let speculation set their expectations instead of facts.

With regards to ‘better game, better network, cost of online’ argument. It’s different things to different people.

One train of thought is that, with any 360 game you buy you’re paying a premium on top just to play 100% of its features.

For example. Gears of War costs £x.xx in the store. You take it home you play it.

But if you want to play the multiplayer online component the game ships with you have to pay for the access to online courtesy of your XBL subscription fee.

So, one way of looking at it is to say every 360 game costs you extra if you want to use all of the features you thought you’d already paid for. The competition doesn’t have that issue. (And 2.4 or not, that’s a fact that’s unlikely to change)

Then again, that’s the been the Xbox story all along. It looks cheaper. But when you actually kit it out properly it comes out the same or, depending on what you want – like a wifi connection, it might even cost more.

The genius is that these ‘stealth taxes’ of Microsoft’s get percieved as an unconquerable advantage (somehow) and that those already paying feel an obligation to stick with the machine.

I personally don’t care if and when this XBL-like features turn up. If they’re comparable (and I’ll just go ahead and assume that any 360 owner will instantly claim they’re not) then it means competition. And competition is good.

What’s really annoying is Nintendo isn’t doing anything like this at all and it’s shitting over the competition with its last-gen featureset.

The main reason being that its harder to develop on the PS3 so makes more financial sense to make the game on the PS3 and then just downgrade/re-engineer it slightly to the 360.

No Europe figures for the 360, obvious why of course.

PS3;
Region Units sold First available
Canada 342,400 as of February 1, 2008[62] November 17, 2006
Europe 5 million as of May 6, 2008[63] March 23, 2007
Japan 2 million as of March 30, 2008[64][65] November 11, 2006
United States 4.29 million as of May 1, 2008[66] November 17, 2006
Worldwide 12.81 million as of March 31, 2008[2][3] (more…)

360;
Region Units sold First available
Canada 736,400 as of February 1, 2008[89] November 22, 2005
United States 10.08 million as of May 1, 2008[90] November 22, 2005
Japan 602,558 as of March 30, 2008[91][92] December 10, 2005
Worldwide 19 million as of April 25, 2008[1] (more…)

Your right about the XBLA stuff, but you do need to remember of course you need to pay for it (which is of course right due to dev costs).

The good news is that now the PS3 is starting to sell more than 360s, publishers are now starting to make it their lead SKU meaning we should get much better PS3 games.

You’re of course right when you say hardly any technical differences on the major games… but the differences are still there, pretty much without exception. Being a graphics whore I have to go for the version that looks and runs best. \o/

The price I’d pay for the year of XBL could buy me a new game.

You say its worth it, quality wise, the recent multiformat releases have had hardly any technical differences (COD4/GTA for example) so it seems devs are finally getting to grips with the PS3 architecture.

My question is; If you own both consoles, regardless of price, why pay to play multiplayer if you can play it for free?

Thing is, I very rarely play on Live anyway, but for less than £2 a month it’s worth it. IMO

No, I’ll pick the one which costs me less. Maybe im just a tight git but once my Live sub goes, the only way I’ll be able to play multiformat games for free will be using a PS3.

As for being willing to pay… my last 13 month subscription cost me £22. It’s irrelevant to me, though I think it’s pretty crappy that it doesn’t give XBL Gold access to everyone on my console rather than just me.

Ironically, I think MS being the only ones charging will actually work in their favour. If Sony charged too, I reckon people would pick one or the other – since it’s only MS who charge, people will be more likely to carry on paying and take Sony’s free offering as well (if they have both consoles).

I’m, for example, not thinking about not extending IF these PSN updates really are good.

I think your see the PS3 sell more games which are multiformat due to the above reason if the PSN updates are great.

Before 2.4 they could say; Does PSN have media downloads such as movies (which may not be coming in 2.4 but coming soon), in-game friends/messaging and achievements.
I mean, even sony offers servers for games such as Warhawk without a fee!
Now the PSN is finally coming up to speed, what exclusive features does it have to warrant the yearly (or monthly) charge?

Now my XBL account is coming to an end, I’m really thinking to myself ‘Do I need one?’. The only multiplayer exclusive im interested in is Gears 2, everything else I can get on the PS3 and play online for free.

Shame really. If they knew how to react we’d have a much more interesting console landscape. They’re all about the bean counters right now though.

This can only add pressure to MS to give XBL for free.