It’s a great example of the sort of thing which MS thought through and had designed into the system from the start.

@ Phoenix: By “local downtime”, I actually meant a catch-all phrase for all install issues relating to firmware updates, game patches and mandatory installs plaguing the PS3. I didn’t actually mean server downtime, and in my experience that’s a much or little an issue on both platforms equally.

Dont really understand how anyone could complain about patches, or as they’re also known as DEVS SUPPORTING THEIR GAMES AFTER RELEASE.

Sony’s “local downtime” problem is an ongoing matter that affects each and every PS3 user, new and old alike. This knowledge has definitely affected my purchasing decision – I’m surprised Microsoft haven’t exploited it as I bet I’m not the only one who’d want to avoid this.

No fanboyism, just the comments from someone who has maybe 10 times in the last year saw an anticipated hour long session reduced to almost nothing.

It’s only outrageous (IMHO) because of the huge quality difference in the way this beneficial feature is handled between the two rival platforms. Nobody’s saying that patches and updates aren’t a good thing (they clearly are), I’m just surprised that nobody makes a bigger deal out of the PS3′s comparatively poor implementation of a feature that’s so unobtrusive on X360.

I swear, I’ve downloaded 3 FW updates in total since obtaining my PS3. Which have taken 10 mins to DL/UD each. Really, this is getting a little rediculous now.

Yeah, I’m missing it at the moment, but the mp5 is good enough to get me up to level 40…

I must be making people feel pretty useless, cos they keep getting beaten by ‘some newb with a low rank’. lol!

lol Geki, we haven’t played yet, but we will soon, I’m sure…

“Oh you got 5ooo points well I got 10 million” I find it absolutely pointless then again I am not a competive person.

I had to go to Maplin today to get an optical switcher and another optical cable for the PS3, but only realised when I got back that I actually needed another one to join the two to my surround system, so I’ll have to go back again tomorrow.

I found the XMB functional, but nothing special. It lacks a lot of features that XBL has, and the PSN Store is a bit lightweight too. It seems a bit odd that there isn’t a section for demos and that everything seems to be bunched together…

I got CoD4 with it, because there aren’t any PS3 exclusives that I’m interested in, and I wanted to test the difference between PSN and XBL when it comes to my favourite online game. I have to say that XBL is much more stable so far. Of the games that I’ve had, probably most have been laggy, although I managed to get 3 good quality connection games in a row this morning.

I tried the KZ2 demo, but I didn’t like it. I understand what people are talking about now when they complain about too much recoil…

I almost had to choose another username as well, until I realised that the G1GAHURTZ that I registered way back in 2007 was still mine! I also found out that someone else has registered ‘G1GAHURTZ_PS3′, believe it or not.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with it. I don’t really intend on buying any games for it that I can get for my 360, because I still like collecting gamerpoints, so it should be an exclusive games only console for me, but as long as Sony keep churning them out, I should have plenty to choose from.

Then I’ve got nothing to moan about.

Edit: Again, thinking about it, Snake smoking may have made the wait easier for me. It was so beautiful, I had to light one up for myself.

As I said before, I wouldn’t have minded so much but having to do the installs a second time was really annoying.

Edit: Now that I take the time to think about it, its most likely due to the anti-piracy security Sony has in place. Checking and re-checking the system for unsanctioned firmware and whatnot.