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[Cheech]

Where the hell do you live, and how long have you been on the internet?

Because you know.. MSN is the largest IM service and the userbase has a fuckton millions of users. So yeah... way to be out of touch.

Microsoft may say they're the largest IM service, but that isn't necessarily true. You can't count the IDs people create for non-IM things that give them IM access. I have five or six various MSN accounts for work and play reasons, and never use any of them for chat.

I know billions (give or take) of people in the IT community, and Google Talk took over from MSN quite some time ago.

Hell, I have six times as many people on my Blackberry Chat list then MSN. Anecdotal evidence, FTW, right?

Also, I'm over 30, for whoever asked.

AIM is popular, but from my personal experience it's the providence of kids, housewives, and senior citizens.

 

[NumberTwo]

So, yes. Please, Sony, take my $50. Cash, check, or charge, I don't care.

Good, that's you though. The vast majority of us however have been online gaming for free on consoles for nearly a decade, and don't really see a reason to start paying now. So it's not really fair for you or others to say, I'm willing to pay, so you be should to. I mean come on. As long as it is free, we are willing to compromise in some places, while we will freely admit that there is plenty of room to improve in other places.

I'm just laymen when it comes to networking/unified systems so don't really know what would cost money to maintain if Sony were to go for a more unified experience while trying to maintain it's 'free-of-charge' appeal. I think, however, that the problem is the mismanagement and allocation of resources. Most notably with colossal waste of time known as HOME. Sony should have done as much as they could've in to match feature for feature plus more in regards to XBL while not compromising. Then after they had all the basics down on that front, they could've released "HOME Virtual Space"™ or something other. I just think that their priorities are just completely out of sync. That is what honestly frustrates to no end with Sony.

 

[chubigans]

Most notabley with colossal waste of time known as HOME.

This argument is pretty invalid given the fact that they've made millions off of it. Whether or not it's a waste of time to play is another argument, but business wise it's paying off for Sony.

 

[TTP]

So, while you may be happy with the performance of the online gaming experience in game X, there is no guarantee the next PS3 online game you buy will provide the same experience.

The same is true for Xbox 360 games isn't it? There is no guarantee the gaming experience will be the same there as well. I hear a lot of complains about Gears 2 and I recall some serious issues with Chromehounds too (ghost lobbies and such). Had issue with GRAW as well.

Overall ogaming has been mostly smooth as butter thanks to those "cheap" dedicated servers. Ever tried Warhawk? Or Resistance? Or MotorStorm? Heck, no issues with COD4 nor WipEout HD either. I actually cannot think of an online PS3 game of those I tried that had any serious *performance* issues aside from SOCOM: Confrontation.

Unless by "performance of the online gaming experience" you mean chat and invites stuff.

 

[ravien56]

Good, that's you though. The vast majority of us however have been online gaming for free on consoles for nearly a decade, and don't really see a reason to start paying now. So it's not really fair for you a others to say, I'm willing to pay, so you be should to. I mean come on. We are willing to compromise in some places, while others theres plenty of room to improve.

I'm just laymen when it comes to networking/unified systems so don't really know what would cost money to maintain if Sony were to go for a more unified experience while trying to maintain it's 'free-of-charge' appeal. I think, however, that there problem is the mismanagement and allocation of resources. Most notably with colossal waste of time known as HOME. Sony should have done as much as they could've in to match feature for feature plus more in regards to XBL while not compromising. Then after they had all the basics down on that front, they could've released "HOME Virtual Space"™ or something other. I just think that their priorities are just completely out of sync. That is what honestly frustrates to no end with Sony.

A reason I know dont even buy 360 games anymore is because of the charging to play online thing, I did it for a year, and I just dont feel like I need to pay to play online when I can get the game for ps3 and play for free online.

 

[NumberTwo]

This argument is pretty invalid given the fact that they've made millions off of it. Whether or not it's a waste of time to play is another argument, but business wise it's paying off for Sony.

You know what? That's fine, by why not focus on giving is a more cohesive and unified system first to the best of their ablities, and then focus on the virtual space?

 

[ravien56]

You know what? That's fine, by why not focus on giving is a more cohesive and unified system first to the best of their ablities, and then focus on the virtual space?

The virtual space makes $

 

[chubigans]

You know what? That's fine, by why not focus on giving is a more cohesive and unified system first to the best of their ablities, and then focus on the virtual space?

Because they wouldn't make any money that way?

Sony knows that their OS is limited at this point because of the way they've implemented it. Technically, I doubt the PS3 will be able to feature match every single thing that the 360 has to offer. So instead, they've created an entirely new online service that's built to make money through microtransactions instead of subscription fees.

It's all about the money, and there's no money in trying to feature match the 360 at this point while charging for online since it can never get there technically.

 

[NumberTwo]

Because they wouldn't make any money that way.

It's all about the money, and there's no money in trying to feature match the 360 at this point while charging for online since it can never get there technically.

Point taken.

 

[tzare]

I would GLADLY give Sony $50 a year for a similar experience to what I get on XBL

i wouldn't. I like PSN just like it is. Of course i'd enjoy all of 360/XBL features, but not if i had to pay for them. Free means i don't have to worry when i wanna play online , when will my gold account expire or if my friends are gold to play with them. It means any PS3 owner can play with me at any time.

And so far, basic communication for PLAYING is there: private messaging with XMB in-game, now this chat feature which is like having a 'forum' to keep contact with friens at any time easily, and almost every game has ingame voice chat if necessary.

That 'party' feature is more social than game bound. Lilke calling a friend using skype or phone while playing. I'd like to be included sometime, but i don't see it very relevant.

 

[Cheech]

The same is true for Xbox 360 games isn't it? There is no guarantee the gaming experience will be the same there as well. I hear a lot of complains about Gears 2 and I recall some serious issues with Chromehounds too (ghost lobbies and such). Had issue with GRAW as well.

LOL, Chromehounds. That game was awesome.

Anyway, the only time I can really remember a game being messed up on the 360 for a long period of time was CoD2, which was launch or near-launch. Voice didn't work on the PS3 Battlefield BC for the entire time I played it regularly (June - end of August), because unlike MS, Sony will not beat their devs over the head to fix this kind of shit.

I don't know if it's because MS has more juice to do these things, or Sony doesn't bother writing things into their contracts like "multiplayer usability".

Overall ogaming has been mostly smooth as butter thanks to those "cheap" dedicated servers. Ever tried Warhawk? Or Resistance? Or MotorStorm? Heck, no issues with COD4 nor WipEout HD either. I actually cannot think of an online PS3 game of those I tried that had any serious *performance* issues aside from SOCOM: Confrontation.

Sure, I've played all those games on the PS3 except for CoD4 (360) and Wipeout (I hate that series). If all the PS3 games had Resistance's multiplayer setup, I would never even think to bitch about the PS3's online. Unfortunately, the two games I've spend the most time playing online on my PS3 have been Battlefield BC and KZ2, both of which had/have massive problems with the multiplayer component.

I played Resistance 2 as well, and that seemed to work fine online, but the game itself wasn't very good so I didn't put a lot of time into it.

 

[kamorra]

Battlefield BC and KZ2, both of which had/have massive problems with the multiplayer component.

Had or has? Because I never experienced such thing with KZ2. I would be interested to know what the massive problem is.

 

[womfalcs3]

I don't pay to play online. Especially when I'm using my own bandwidth to play online.

If Sony made their service fee-based, I wouldn't pay.


As it stands, PSN offers me all that I want (not just need), and more. Reliable, good social features, good PlayStation Store support, and easy to manage for me.


I want to put in a game, go online, and talk with those whom I am playing. I want to go to a commercial front, and download demos and other forms of content. I want to be able to interact with friends on my list.


Check. Check. Check.

 

[tinfoilhatman]

People this so simple it boggles my mind why you don't understand.

Sony is a hardware company, I find it hilarious that there's so many dummies here that thought the PS3 was going to be able to match the 360 on what is essentially an OS for their game console.

This is why I wasn't surprised with M$ had the issues with the RROD, BECAUSE their software company it's the same situation although much more easily resolved.(Albeit costly)

Microsoft spent BILLIONS on the live infrastructure to match the 360 dashboard AND they had\have legions of highly skilled Interface\OS developers with cutting edge tools\hardware at their finger tips working on this over a year before the 360 ever launched.

Sony has nothing like this and will never catch Microsoft from an console OS perspective, to think otherwise just foolish and illogical.

 

[andycapps]

You know what? That's fine, by why not focus on giving is a more cohesive and unified system first to the best of their ablities, and then focus on the virtual space?

Home is handled by SCEE and the firmware updates are worked on by SCEJ. So if anything, if the team that was working on Home wasn't working on Home, they'd likely be working on a game and not firmware updates. From what I understand anyway.

Problem with the firmware updates being handled in Japan is the complete lack of online know-how that they have. They probably have no clue why Americans want to be able to chat with people outside of the game that they're currently playing. Obviously I'm sure the regions are telling them that that's what people are asking for, but it's a matter of time, priorities, and how proficient the Japanese engineers are at doing something like unified voicechat, while working out the difficulties of the legalities in various territories. But that being said, I'd love to have unified voicechat but wouldn't want to pay for it. If it's pay for voice chat across games, or not pay for no voice chat, I'd gladly rather do without.

 

[Leviathon007]

Had or has? Because I never experienced such thing with KZ2. I would be interested to know what the massive problem is.

No matchmaking = massive problem to some people.

 

[ravien56]

Had or has? Because I never experienced such thing with KZ2. I would be interested to know what the massive problem is.

hmm yea I havrnt had any with kz2....it might of have had problems day one, what if 500,000 people logging in at once, but thta shit was tooken care of asap, if you wanna insult a ps3 game online, u shudda picked socom:lol

 

[Cheech]

It's all about the money, and there's no money in trying to feature match the 360 at this point while charging for online since it can never get there technically.

How do you *know* that, though?

I think people see weirdly sloppy things like the PSN logging you out when you want to watch a DVD, or dumb things like the clock bug, and leap to the conclusion that Sony's software engineering is understaffed or incompetent.

The PS3 is a big, gnarly, very capable piece of hardware. I refuse to believe that it's solely due to technical limitations that things like persistant VoIP aren't possible. I think it's more likely a patent issue, as you mentioned earlier.

 

[Snipes424]

The same is true for Xbox 360 games isn't it? There is no guarantee the gaming experience will be the same there as well. I hear a lot of complains about Gears 2 and I recall some serious issues with Chromehounds too (ghost lobbies and such). Had issue with GRAW as well.

Overall ogaming has been mostly smooth as butter thanks to those "cheap" dedicated servers. Ever tried Warhawk? Or Resistance? Or MotorStorm? Heck, no issues with COD4 nor WipEout HD either. I actually cannot think of an online PS3 game of those I tried that had any serious *performance* issues aside from SOCOM: Confrontation.

Unless by "performance of the online gaming experience" you mean chat and invites stuff.

I agree with you, and you know whats strange? When Socom and LBP had their network issues, how many articles did you read on Kotaku or similar sites about those issues? I would guess around 3-4 A DAY. When Gears 2 had it's networking problems, how many articles were about it? I think I read one.

I believe that many people who do not play on the PSN and read sites like Kotaku think that the PSN sucks and XBL is the greatest... When in reality, both are really good when it comes to online play and both have had some fuck ups.

 

[tzare]

No matchmaking = massive problem to some people.

i guess we could also talk about GOW2 online problems.

oh, by the way, in RE5 you send game invites from XMB(and accept them from XMB too), so i guess this nice 360 feature might be coming sometime to ps3 for all games and even lauch from outside of the game to join

 

[Cheech]

Had or has? Because I never experienced such thing with KZ2. I would be interested to know what the massive problem is.

This is in the realm of OT, but:

1. The gyrations to get together with friends in that game on the same team are horrendous.
2. There is no real skill-based matchmaking. Sure, you can tell the game you want to play with others of your same rank, but it rarely if ever works. I'm rank number...5 or 6, and I routinely get dumped into matches featuring invisible guys and drones flying around. Come on. Skill based matchmaking is CRITICAL for games that feature a rank-based perks system, to minimize the "haves" lighting up the "have nots".
3. The option to join a friends' game, which while nice, also doesn't seem to work consistently. The game will sometimes give me a weird networking error when I try that feature.

Otherwise, things like lag and voice seem to be pretty decent.

 

[JudgeN]

People this so simple it boggles my mind why you don't understand.

Sony is a hardware company, I find it hilarious that there's so many dummies here that thought the PS3 was going to be able to match the 360 on what is essentially an OS for their game console.

This is why I wasn't surprised with M$ had the issues with the RROD, BECAUSE their software company it's the same situation although much more easily resolved.(Albeit costly)

Microsoft spent BILLIONS on the live infrastructure to match the 360 dashboard AND they had\have legions of highly skilled Interface\OS developers with cutting edge tools\hardware at their finger tips working on this over a year before the 360 ever launched.

Sony has nothing like this and will never catch Microsoft from an console OS perspective, to think otherwise just foolish and illogical.

Glad to see I wasn't the only one thinking this. Now my question is how was xbox live during the xbox life? Cause really your comparing Microsoft second generation infrastructure to Sony first generation.

 

[tinfoilhatman]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one thinking this. Now my question is how was xbox live when during the xbox life? Cause really your comparing Microsoft second generation infrastructure to Sony first generation.

Exactly, thats a 100% true statement it's almost like Sony is a whole generation behind from an OS perspective they have allot of catchup to do and not allot of resources or experience to help do it.

This dashboard stuff is alot more complex than some people think, Microsoft just makes it look easy because thats what they do and they started on it a long time ago.

PS... to answer your question I'd say Sony is doing OK considering the Xbox1 interface wasn't even close to as nice as the PS3.

 

[Cheech]

Glad to see I wasn't the only one thinking this. Now my question is how was xbox live when during the xbox life? Cause really your comparing Microsoft second generation infrastructure to Sony first generation.

I don't find this a valid excuse on Sony's part, because I put over a thousand hours into SOCOM 1's online, which came out before XBox Live.

You know what I think Sony should do? Take the voice/party APIs from Insomniac or Incog, and tell PS3 developers "guys, these are the APIs you are going to use. Take it or go develop RAbbid Babiezzz for the Wii".

I'm sure I'm grossly simplifying things because I'm not a game publisher/developer, but they gotta start from somewhere.

 

[tinfoilhatman]

I don't find this a valid excuse on Sony's part, because I put over a thousand hours into SOCOM 1's online, which came out before XBox Live.

You know what I think Sony should do? Take the voice/party APIs from Insomniac or Incog, and tell PS3 developers "guys, these are the APIs you are going to use. Take it or go develop RAbbid Babiezzz for the Wii".

I'm sure I'm grossly simplifying things because I'm not a game publisher/developer, but they gotta start from somewhere.

I would have taken it for a valid excuse if the Sony PR people wouldn't have came out guns blazing claiming totally unrealistic things(at launch and since) and then delivered a steaming pile of dashboard code which hasn't really gotten that much better. I mean it's like they have a 5 person QA devl\team working on this.

 

[Kittonwy]

I don't find this a valid excuse on Sony's part, because I put over a thousand hours into SOCOM 1's online, which came out before XBox Live.

You know what I think Sony should do? Take the voice/party APIs from Insomniac or Incog, and tell PS3 developers "guys, these are the APIs you are going to use. Take it or go develop RAbbid Babiezzz for the Wii".

I'm sure I'm grossly simplifying things because I'm not a game publisher/developer, but they gotta start from somewhere.

Their system still has a lot of room for improvement but they've made some significant strides, obviously it will continue to evolve, home was supposed to be their universal party system but it's simply not quick enough. From a utilitarian perspective they simply need something that can group at least a party of four together and quickly transition them into an online game environment while allowing players to communicate with friends outside of the game, they're slowly getting there though.

 

[ScrabbleBanshee]

Americans use AIM (AOL Instant Messenger).

I've never understood why. MSN is no fantastic piece of software, but AIM is a total steaming pile of dogshit. Hell, it says AOL right on it... they aren't even hiding it. :lol

 

[Madman]

You know what? That's fine, by why not focus on giving is a more cohesive and unified system first to the best of their ablities, and then focus on the virtual space?

Home started as some Getaway online thing. I guess they decided to transform it instead of canceling it. So it's not directly related to the rest of the PS3's online setup.

 

[Zoe]

I've never understood why. MSN is no fantastic piece of software, but AIM is a total steaming pile of dogshit. Hell, it says AOL right on it... they aren't even hiding it. :lol

Believe it or not, lots of people actually got their start on AOL. Once AIM started to get bundled with everything, it was inevitable.

 

[Oni Jazar]

Anyone bashing home has obviously not tried Xi.

 

[Byakuya769]

Look guys, the party system, voice chat, and voice messaging are sure to come.. all you guys have to do is wait for it. And I guarantee when it does come, the ps3 will sell like 11.7 times more than the 360 each month! Just wait for it.




wait for it..





... my man.

 

[surazal]

I've never understood why. MSN is no fantastic piece of software, but AIM is a total steaming pile of dogshit. Hell, it says AOL right on it... they aren't even hiding it. :lol

AIM is a older system than MSN. AIM also bought ICQ, which was an even older system.

 

[PjotrStroganov]

Their system still has a lot of room for improvement but they've made some significant strides, obviously it will continue to evolve, home was supposed to be their universal party system but it's simply not quick enough. From a utilitarian perspective they simply need something that can group at least a party of four together and quickly transition them into an online game environment while allowing players to communicate with friends outside of the game, they're slowly getting there though.

Like an in XMB party system. Something users actually want.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Like an in XMB party system. Something users actually want.

XMB or do it in game like most do. I know I could care less for a universal if the game has it in there.

 

[Cruzader]

I would have taken it for a valid excuse if the Sony PR people wouldn't have came out guns blazing claiming totally unrealistic things(at launch and since) and then delivered a steaming pile of dashboard code which hasn't really gotten that much better. I mean it's like they have a 5 person QA devl\team working on this.

u talking about xbox or something? cuz PSN has improved alot since launch.

 

[Byakuya769]

u talking about xbox or something? cuz PSN has improved alot since launch.

MS didn't spend time showing demonstrators receiving video messages while playing Gran turismo.

(haha, sony hasn't delivered on either of those)


... my man.

 

[TTP]

Oh for christ sake I understand importance of party system / cross game chat but to say PS3 OS is shit is just dumb.

Is it shit an OS that (besides the most obvious, "gamey" stuff):

- allows to watch TV and record it while playing
- allows to upload videos on youtube
- allows to take pictures in game
- allows to attach pictures to messages
- allows to store media to HDD (not just streaming)
- allows to create your own custom themes (with sound effects)
- allows to create animated video thumbnails (still love those)
- allows to run separate OS
- supports media streaming and is certified Divx player
- supports image printing
- supports a shitload of audio signal via HDMI/Optical. HDMI is 1.3 btw, not 1.2. Hence, HD audio support.
- can be operated remotely via PSP (Remote Play)
- runs an Internet Browser. Download stuff from it.
- has an actually feature complete video and audio player. With awesome video search feature and audio visualizers.
- has a picture viewer that detects eyes and understand expressions
- spanks other players as BRD player
- has a very flexible download manager (multiple downloads from different account simultaneously plus lots of info displayed about ongoing downloading process)
- has fast and sleek interface
- has an integrated virtual community
- now has IRC-like chat

Now I understand these are mostly "who cares" characteristics to most gamers, but they are there. You can say Sony didn't focus on what matters, but to say the OS is not short of awesome for a console is simply not true.

 

[jonabbey]

Home is handled by SCEE and the firmware updates are worked on by SCEJ. So if anything, if the team that was working on Home wasn't working on Home, they'd likely be working on a game and not firmware updates. From what I understand anyway.

Problem with the firmware updates being handled in Japan is the complete lack of online know-how that they have. They probably have no clue why Americans want to be able to chat with people outside of the game that they're currently playing. Obviously I'm sure the regions are telling them that that's what people are asking for, but it's a matter of time, priorities, and how proficient the Japanese engineers are at doing something like unified voicechat, while working out the difficulties of the legalities in various territories. But that being said, I'd love to have unified voicechat but wouldn't want to pay for it. If it's pay for voice chat across games, or not pay for no voice chat, I'd gladly rather do without.

This.

Also, the PS3 does a lot more than the 360 does, and the firmware team has had to make all that happen. Here are some things the firmware team has had to work on / has to maintain that the 360 OS team doesn't have to worry about:

Blu-Ray movie playback (including the newer BD profiles 1.1, 2.0)
Fancy Cell based upscaling of DVD playback
SACD playback (on the original NA 20/60 gig models)
Dolby TrueHD / DTS Master Audio decoding
Web browser (constant fixing of the tons of bugs they've had)
Edit: Cell-acclerated Flash 9 support in the browser
PS2 and/or PS1 backwards compatibility
Printing support (the Japanese like this, I guess.. ?)
PSP Remote Play
Hypervisor support for Linux, etc.

I'm not making excuses for Sony, here, but the firmware team has had a lot on their plate. The PS3 was designed (and is sold) as a media device as much as a game device, and the firmware/OS authors have to deal with the burden of that.

Chubigans is right as well that certain functions may not be easy to add if the games weren't written to an API that supports the function. Cross-game voice chat is hard to do if the game has no knowledge of the need to coordinate when voice input should go to an ongoing voice chat rather than into the game. 'Surprise' voice chat (voice chat the game doesn't know about and wasn't design to account for) also has probable impact on memory and network bandwidth, which chat-ignorant games wouldn't expect.

Edit: Beaten by TTP. ;-)

 

[tinfoilhatman]

Oh for christ sake I understand importance of party system / cross game chat but to say PS3 OS is shit is just dumb.

Is it shit an OS that (besides the most obvious, "gamey" stuff):

- allows to watch TV and record it while playing
- allows to upload videos on youtube
- allows to take pictures in game
- allows to attach pictures to messages
- allows to store media to HDD (not just streaming)
- allows to create your own custom themes (with sound effects)
- allows to create animated video thumbnails (still love those)
- allows to run separate OS
- supports media streaming and is certified Divx player
- supports image printing
- supports a shitload of audio signal via HDMI/Optical. HDMI is 1.3 btw, not 1.2. Hence, HD audio support.
- can be operated remotely via PSP (Remote Play)
- runs an Internet Browser. Download stuff from it.
- has an actually feature complete video and audio player. With awesome video search feature and audio visualizers.
- has a picture viewer that detects eyes and understand expressions
- spanks other players as BRD player
- has a very flexible download manager (multiple downloads from different account simultaneously plus lots of info displayed about ongoing downloading process)
- has fast and sleek interface
- has an integrated virtual community
- now has IRC-like chat

Now I understand these are mostly "who cares" characteristics to most gamers, but they are there. You can say Sony didn't focus on what matters, but to say the OS is not short of awesome for a console is simply not true.

Dumb question but how does the PS3 allow you to watch\record TV while playing?

 

[Returners]

@Cheech

I echo most of the people here that just because you feel like paying for PSN doesn't mean we like to as well.

Voice chat is a thing that we would love to have. But it is already implemented in the respective games. What you require is something that I hope comes to the PSN eventually, but either way isn't going to make me want to bitch on a thread that talks about the new FW.

To me, you might find that MS gives you features that you want. And that is you coming from a 360 to a PS3. For me, its the other way around. I WISH there were hardware features (even some software) features that I could make use of on the 360.

I think people see weirdly sloppy things like the PSN logging you out when you want to watch a DVD, or dumb things like the clock bug, and leap to the conclusion that Sony's software engineering is understaffed or incompetent.

Really? I've seen some amazing stuff come out of Sony's software dev. Remote play. PS Eye head tracking etc. There was EyeToy and Singstar way before You're In The Movies and Lips.

Instead of appreciating these new features (I bet you haven't tried the text chat have you?), you instead chose to point out things that we already know (and what Sony is definitely working on). If you have used the XMB enough, you will notice a LOT of infrastructure improvements to both the PSN and the XMB.


Also of note, I don't have any problems with BF: BC at all. But I realize that its a YMMV issue. Plus, I've heard of individual multiplayer games that are also borked on the 360.

 

[Returners]

Dumb question but how does the PS3 allow you to watch\record TV while playing?

PlayTV. Currently in Europe only.

 

[TTP]

Dumb question but how does the PS3 allow you to watch\record TV while playing?

With PlayTV.

 

[Oni Jazar]

Oh for christ sake I understand importance of party system / cross game chat but to say PS3 OS is shit is just dumb.

Is it shit an OS that (besides the most obvious, "gamey" stuff):

- allows to watch TV and record it while playing
- allows to upload videos on youtube
- allows to take pictures in game
- allows to attach pictures to messages
- allows to store media to HDD (not just streaming)
- allows to create your own custom themes (with sound effects)
- allows to create animated video thumbnails (still love those)
- allows to run separate OS
- supports media streaming and is certified Divx player
- supports image printing
- supports a shitload of audio signal via HDMI/Optical. HDMI is 1.3 btw, not 1.2. Hence, HD audio support.
- can be operated remotely via PSP (Remote Play)
- runs an Internet Browser. Download stuff from it.
- has an actually feature complete video and audio player. With awesome video search feature and audio visualizers.
- has a picture viewer that detects eyes and understand expressions
- spanks other players as BRD player
- has a very flexible download manager (multiple downloads from different account simultaneously plus lots of info displayed about ongoing downloading process)
- has fast and sleek interface
- has an integrated virtual community
- now has IRC-like chat

Now I understand these are mostly "who cares" characteristics to most gamers, but they are there. You can say Sony didn't focus on what matters, but to say the OS is not short of awesome for a console is simply not true.

You forgot: Cures cancer.

 

[DMeisterJ]

You forgot: Cures cancer.

The most important one! I just folded for like six hours today to upload a work unit.

 

[TTP]

You forgot: Cures cancer.

:lol

I forgot "Fancy Cell based upscaling of DVD playback" as mentioned by jonabbey. Another impressive feature.

Besides, I want SETI@Home. Besides curing cancer, I want to find aliens.

 

[tinfoilhatman]

Oh for christ sake I understand importance of party system / cross game chat but to say PS3 OS is shit is just dumb.

Is it shit an OS that (besides the most obvious, "gamey" stuff):

- allows to watch TV and record it while playing
- allows to upload videos on youtube
- allows to take pictures in game
- allows to attach pictures to messages
- allows to store media to HDD (not just streaming)
- allows to create your own custom themes (with sound effects)
- allows to create animated video thumbnails (still love those)
- allows to run separate OS
- supports media streaming and is certified Divx player
- supports image printing
- supports a shitload of audio signal via HDMI/Optical. HDMI is 1.3 btw, not 1.2. Hence, HD audio support.
- can be operated remotely via PSP (Remote Play)
- runs an Internet Browser. Download stuff from it.
- has an actually feature complete video and audio player. With awesome video search feature and audio visualizers.
- has a picture viewer that detects eyes and understand expressions
- spanks other players as BRD player
- has a very flexible download manager (multiple downloads from different account simultaneously plus lots of info displayed about ongoing downloading process)
- has fast and sleek interface
- has an integrated virtual community
- now has IRC-like chat

Now I understand these are mostly "who cares" characteristics to most gamers, but they are there. You can say Sony didn't focus on what matters, but to say the OS is not short of awesome for a console is simply not true.

Those things are cool and all but my PC has been doing most of that and at a completely different level since 2004.

Sony really needs to focus on features for games, almost everything you listed above are "applications" not features of the dashboard\OS.

 

[andycapps]

What TTP and jonabbey ^ said. If you see where the PS3's online service came from to where it is now, there's no contest. The horrible PSN store compared to how awesome it is now. So much of it wasn't there at launch that we take for granted now.

I'm not saying I'm content with where they are, just that there's so much there now that the little things that are missing now are not a huge deal to me. When they're there, I'll be happy, but they're not a biggie.

If we're getting into dick measuring here, can you watch Hulu on an Xbox 360? I can watch it on my PS3 and do regularly. Obviously it could go further in the comparisons, but each has their own strengths and they're both constantly working on improvements.

 

[TTP]

Those things are cool and all but my PC has been doing most of that and at a completely different level since 2004.[/spoiler]

of course, that's why I specified "for a console".

Spoiler

Sony really needs to focus on features for games, almost everything you listed above are "applications" not features of the dashboard\OS.

Spoiler

Almost everything? really?

PlayTV, Internet browser and Home aside, what else can u call an "application"? Besides, PlayTV IS integrated in the OS. You can stop downloads from the XMB (no need to launch the application) and get notifications via XMB system. The whole thing sits in a dedicated category (TV) of the XMB.

Besides, who cares how you call it. Everything can be labeled like that. Even a party system.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Those things are cool and all but my PC has been doing most of that and at a completely different level since 2004.

Sony really needs to focus on features for games, almost everything you listed above are "applications" not features of the dashboard\OS.

All the features that run off the XMB into their own. WHo cares, they are still welcome.

 

[ScrabbleBanshee]

The Ariel Atom sucks, it doesn't even have a windshield or a radio... and the Kia Rio does, what the fuck? And it costs more!