• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Xbox Live vs. PSN: Are we at feature parity?

Stumpokapow said:
For most people? More or less.

I have some specific beefs. PS3 has no operating system level multi-profile support. You cannot have two controllers signed in, receiving and sending messages, buying content, at the same time. Some games support this, but they are recent only, few and far between, and not at the system level. This significantly impedes my typical use case. I live with my girlfriend, we both play games. The 360 accommodates this swimmingly.

Mandatory demos for XBLA are a feature that aren't present on PSN, and they're great. On the other hand, they're not part of Gold. Both of the things I've said so far aren't Gold vs PSN, they're Xbox Live vs PSN.

Cross-game voice chat is pretty cool. I don't use it. Some people do. Some people use it a little bit, some people a lot. I know some people who use 360 voice chat while playing PS3 games, which I thought was comically overkill.

The thing about $50 is that you're not necessarily paying $50 for just online play. Xbox Live Gold includes a lot of the same kinds of discounts and early demo type stuff as PSN Plus does. I have no idea if you'd personally take advantage of those discounts--obviously paying $50 and getting $20 in discounts is not a good idea, but paying $50 and getting $100 in discounts is a good idea. You also have exclusive content--you might not enjoy Halo or Gears or Forza or whatever else. Some people do.
Click to expand...

I'd also like to add that if you're on top of things, you can usually get live for 35 bucks. I'm re-upped till like 2014 because of deals like that.
 
For someone who plays Co-Op Games, the lack multi-local profiles on PS3 annoys the heck out of me.
Perfect example this year being Portal 2.
 
Nope, not yet. XBL still delivers pretty good bang for it's buck since it trumps PSN on PS3. PSV PSN on the other hand looks to rectify my two huge issues (Cross game chat/party chat and Cross game invites).
 
Kyon said:
I think both serve the same purpose: Online Play. So paying $60 for cross game chat, a flasher interface and online (which should be free anyway) isn't worth it at all. PSN does pretty much everything XBL does but it's free. I don't think it can get better than that
Click to expand...
Read this thread -- it would be a joke if they were to charge for PSN. No cross-game chat on PSN, which is actually available to all members, free or paid, on the 360. No cross-game invites. And Gold has some of the benefits of PS+: discounts and early demos.

And anyone who just drops 60 is a moron. Even on Amazon, the price to get a digital code for a year is $48.99. I bought mine for $40 from a Gaffer in the Buy/Sell/Trade thread, pretty sure he still has some for sale. Loads of people got it for 35 on an eBay deal from buy.com.
 
Zabka said:
This is my biggest issue with PSN. Download speeds can be pretty bad, especially with popular releases. XBL isn't always super fast but it never hits the lows PSN does.
Click to expand...
I usually get about 1MB per second through PSN. Maybe I'm in the minority.
 
Even though I do the majority of my online gaming on the PS3, one thing I miss from Live is the ability to just appear offline while playing. Sometimes I just want to do some solo gaming and it's nice to do it without getting invites popping up.

Oh and I'm not even sure because I never got to 100 friends on the 360, but I know on PS3 I'm limited to that which I've hit. Again, perhaps the 360 has that same limitation though.
 
As long as my PS3 cannot offer Partychat/System AND a Gameinvite-system like Xbox Live (Press X for Invite to game) All my Multiplaying will be played on Xbox 360...
 
Tomasooie said:
Read this thread -- it would be a joke if they were to charge for PSN. No cross-game chat on PSN, which is actually available to all members, free or paid, on the 360. No cross-game invites. And Gold has some of the benefits of PS+: discounts and early demos.
Click to expand...
As was said earlier: PSN supports it, not all games implement it. It's a sad state of affairs but saying that there are no cross-game invites is wrong.

PSN regular has some benefits that XBL Gold doesn't have, discounts and early demos. (When compared to the other platform, not the same platform as in the case of 360.)
But this was also said before, that's not feature parity, that's content.

What XBL Gold has over PSN:
- xbox.com purchasing system and adding things to the queue.
- sending messages to your friends via xbox.com
- cross game party chat (gold)
- cross game one-on-one chat
- universal cross game invite
 
Deadly Joker said:
Where have you gotten Xbox Live for $30 in the past year?
Click to expand...
I haven't paid more than $30 in 4 years. Used to be subscription cards on sale, now I don't bother.... I just call customer support and threaten to turn off auto-renew, unless they can offer me a deal.
 
bandresen said:
As was said earlier: PSN supports it, not all games implement it. It's a sad state of affairds but saying that there are no cross-game invites is wrong.
Click to expand...
Which games support it? How does it work? It doesn't really mean much if only a handful of games support it. The whole point is for it to be seamless and all-encompassing. And it shouldn't even be solely cross-game, you should be able to invite someone who's on the XMB to a game, or allow them to join your game straight from the XMB or another game, with no invite required. Which is all possible on the 360.

bandresen said:
PSN regular has some benefits that XBL Gold doesn't have, discounts and early demos. (When compared to the other platform, not the same platform as in the case of 360.)
Click to expand...
Wait, what? Free XBL accounts also have access to certain sales, and demos for hundreds of Live Arcade games, lots of which are on PSN with no demo at all.

bandresen said:
What XBL Gold has over PSN:
- xbox.com purchasing system and adding things to the queue.
- sending messages to your friends via xbox.com
- cross game party chat (gold)
- cross game one-on-one chat
- universal cross game invite
Click to expand...
Do you mean just XBL (minus the Gold) at the beginning? Add custom soundtrack support across all games to the list and demos for all Live Arcade games (new ones every week).
 
GavinGT said:
It's not even necessarily features. It took me 44 hours to download the 1.7 GB Uncharted 3 beta, for instance.
Click to expand...

Must be your connection than. Because it never takes me that long to download anything off of PSN.
 
Adam Blade said:
The better question is "will PSN be free on PS4?"
Click to expand...

Basic features (including Party) free across Vita/PS4. PS+ sub for stuff like Cloud saving and free trials, games etc.

I don't see PS4 charging for something the Vita gives for free.
 
Tomasooie said:
Which games support it? How does it work?
Click to expand...
I don't have a list, but the last few games I've played multiplayer from EA had the feature. Uncharted 2, as well. 3 does not!
You usually have a in-game menu point called 'invite player' and then your friends list is popped up and you can select them.

A XMB message is generated with a button to 'Join' or 'Ignore(?)'
Because it's a XMB message it can be received even when you're offline, but the message is only valid for a few minutes.

Tomasooie said:
Wait, what? Free XBL accounts also have access to certain sales, and demos for hundreds of Live Arcade games, lots of which are on PSN with no demo at all.
Click to expand...
I was specifically speaking about the early demos. There have been several cases where the 360 Silver demo came a week later than the same demo on PS3.
Discounts happen on both platforms. PSN+ is more aggressive with its discounts across the board however.

Tomasooie said:
Do you mean just XBL (minus the Gold) at the beginning? Add custom soundtrack support across all games to the list
Click to expand...
The thread is about Xbox Live vs. PSN, not about the different consoles itself. It would be silly to have someone in here say that the 360 doesn't have access to Uncharted 2. Or that the PS3 doesn't have Alan Wake.
 
I could see Gold going free with massive built in ads.

Oh wait, they already have massive built in ads and you still pay...Maybe integrated video adds everytime you go back to the home menu?
 
No way no how OP.

It's not just the major things either like party hat, cross game chat, cross game invites. It's little things too like background downloads (which I think the ps3 could probably do), 10 times faster game updates (not necessarily live related though i think), being able to sign in multiple accounts on one console.

Being able to restore an account on any console, being able to carry your profile around on USB.

I'm sure there's more, but it all adds up in the end and makes the $50 seem irrelevant. I'm sure Sony should be able to at least be at what Live is now next gen though. Unifying their ram will make a huge difference to that I think.
 
Nope, not at feature parity. Or performance parity. Even in things supported by both platforms, Live always seems much faster and much easier to use. Convenience well worth pennies a day, imho.
 
Oh yeah, one other benefit to PS3: I can easily access any PSN store around the world from my system and download whatever I like, as demos go. Buying stuff is trickier, but still doable.
 
Hahahaha...no! Look I love my PS3, and I do game on it more than the X360, but come on, Live has PSN beat pretty good.
 
cj_iwakura said:
Oh yeah, one other benefit to PS3: I can easily access any PSN store around the world from my system and download whatever I like, as demos go. Buying stuff is trickier, but still doable.
Click to expand...
That's actually a good point. I'm regularly buying content from 3 different regions on my PS3.

My 360 has the problem that my profile region is not the same as my IP-region any more, so I'm even getting locked out from content that I should be able to buy. It's displayed, but after purchasing I just get the error message that it's not available in my region.
(MS telephone support told me that this is by design, they said that they will have the option to change my profile in the future.)
 
I just bought an Xbox 360 for all the banging shmups. Do I have to pay for a subscription to download games from XBOX Live/Games on Demand?

An incredibly stupid question, I know. I'm just so used to PSN and don't quite understand the whole subscription thing.
 
$50 > Party Chat

Himself said:
I just bought an Xbox 360 for all the banging shmups. Do I have to pay for a subscription to download games from XBOX Live/Games on Demand?

An incredibly stupid question, I know. I'm just so used to PSN and don't quite understand the whole subscription thing.
Click to expand...
no
 
Himself said:
I just bought an Xbox 360 for all the banging shmups. Do I have to pay for a subscription to download games from XBOX Live/Games on Demand?

An incredibly stupid question, I know. I'm just so used to PSN and don't quite understand the whole subscription thing.
Click to expand...

No
 
bandresen said:
The thread is about Xbox Live vs. PSN, not about the different consoles itself. It would be silly to have someone in here say that the 360 doesn't have access to Uncharted 2. Or that the PS3 doesn't have Alan Wake.
Click to expand...
No, I said that because most of the features you have under there aren't exclusive to Gold. You even put "gold" in parentheses next to one of the points, even though the title of the list contained "XBL Gold".
 
Tomasooie said:
No, I said that because most of the features you have under there aren't exclusive to Gold. You even put "gold" in parentheses next to one of the points, even though the title of the list contained "XBL Gold".
Click to expand...
My mistake. They are XBL and the one in parenthesis is the one that is only gold.
 
Himself said:
I just bought an Xbox 360 for all the banging shmups. Do I have to pay for a subscription to download games from XBOX Live/Games on Demand?

An incredibly stupid question, I know. I'm just so used to PSN and don't quite understand the whole subscription thing.
Click to expand...
No, unless it's a purely multiplayer shooter like Battlefield 1943.

I've tried plenty of times to take the PS3 seriously for multiplayer but I just can't when it's not even close to Live in terms of most everything.
 
Speedymanic said:
Unless it's a new feature, you can't. It usually requires you exiting a game. (but it's been a while since I last tried it on my triple, so it might have been added since then)
Click to expand...
It depends what you're playing. With PSN games (and presumably PS3 games) you can press whatever the guide button on the PS3 controller is called and launch something new from the XMB within the game. Though for some reason it does load the dashboard and then load the game, rather than just kicking straight to the new game.

If you're playing a PSone game or watching a DVD, though, you can't load the XMB from within it so have to go back to the dash to change. It's kind of a nonsense.
 
toythatkills said:
It depends what you're playing. With PSN games (and presumably PS3 games) you can press whatever the guide button on the PS3 controller is called and launch something new from the XMB within the game. Though for some reason it does load the dashboard and then load the game, rather than just kicking straight to the new game.

If you're playing a PSone game or watching a DVD, though, you can't load the XMB from within it so have to go back to the dash to change. It's kind of a nonsense.
Click to expand...
Either way, those are console features not online service features.
 
i like how you can just join friends that are playing a game as long as they're available and it doesn't matter if you're in a different game or watching a movie on netflix or browsing the marketplace. you can just see them as available and press x to join session and it just goes.
 
Digital Limit said:
In some weird way, I've convinced myself that paying for Xbox Live is paying for the Xbox Dashboard.
Click to expand...


The overall revenue allows for a bigger budget for the team which in turn allows them to revamp the dashboard and such. So yes, the full system benefits from revenue model.
 
Both are awful, but paying for p2p online is just scam.
Any of Gold features justifies the cost, even if You're hunting for promotions like 30$ for a whole year.

LowEndTorque said:
No, not quite.

They will most likely be at parity when next-gen hardware is released, but the question is: will PSN still be free?
Click to expand...
Yes, it will be. Online being free is an industry standard.
 
I know XBL has more features there is more content on the marketplace (Sony really needs to increase the amount of retail game downloads they offer), but for the actual part most people pay $60/year for, the online mp, the two are identical. I don't care what anyone says, I put time into Halo 3 online and it works the same exact bloody way ps3 online games do. Only you have to pay to do it. That alone makes PSN far superior for me.
 
Man God said:
Another thing to note is that a lot of Live's additional content that supposedly makes gold worth it is US/North America only.
Click to expand...
This. Don't get me wrong, there is a similar story to PSN but not on the same level, and ofcourse, It's free.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Asha - We are Xbox
4 5 6 7 8
395
890
Zacfoldor replied
Xboxera: Xbox is Dead. Long Live Xbox
Opinion Platform  2
99
2K
ChorizoPicozo replied
Nvidia at Live GTC : DLSS 5
36 37 38 39 40
2K
4K
evanft replied
We have gone batshit insanes price vs performance in the GPU space.
2 3
137
934
manfestival replied
  • Poll
Would you welcome original Xbox One features on next generation hardware?
10
201
Thanati replied
Top Bottom