| J_Allard said: The way you "explained" it was needlessly long and irrelevant. It's a great read though, hilarious. And I don't really care about what you said regarding Live, my post that you quoted was in response to this comment from someone else: If I were an XBL user, I'd simply prefer to receive for free what's free everywhere else (basic multiplayer, etc) So yeah, my analogy works perfectly fine, thanks. What you get from one business does not mean you automatically get the same thing from another business. It's not hard. And lol @ comparing PS+ to XBL. Also, do you have any sort of credible source regarding some "shrinking" gap between Live and PSN? And your entire post can pretty much just be trimmed down to "value varies among people" and that's all that needs to be said and has been said many times in this thread already. |
"If I were an XBL user, I'd simply prefer to receive for free what's free everywhere else (basic multiplayer, etc.)"
There isn't anything wrong with this sentiment, you just seem to think that it would require the service to degrade perhaps? Say Live decided to free up online multiplayer and provide other features as its reason to get Live Gold. That they decided to continue providing the dedicated 1st party servers which would ensure their quality control. Would that be a bad thing? If Live could add exclusive features to still make it worth having Gold while at the same time competing for value against competitors like PSN? Or do you think that impossible?
If you play both XBL and PSN you might notice that both services are very similar, PSN having made leaps and bounds over the years. Despite dedicated 1st party servers 3rd parties and PSN has been able reach a level of quality. Let's entertain the thought of that quality being on par with XBL, even if you think its not. What if PSN reaches the same level as XBL, how will it compete for consumers? I say, there are few routes, free some things up, provide more features, or a mixture of both.
Even if you feel that XBL and PSN are not equal in online quality, there are those who do feel so and that can dip into the XBL consumer base. I've played on both services, and they feel far more equal to me than perhaps you feel they do. If that perception becomes more common and it most likely will since PSN has been improving over the years while XBL sits on diminishing returns of server quality, the services are becoming more equal. That is true, as servers can only provide such a quality as to have everything run smoothly. Once things are running smoothly there is no where else to go, so PSN is in fact catching up to XBL as PSN has been improving. The only space left for XBL to showcase any superiority is to provide additional features but as one of its main feature (online multiplayer) is equalled by a free service it is harder to justify having it under the pay method. So XBL should be advancing in one of the directions I mentioned, either provide more for its free Live users or make their Gold Live more valuable to handle creeping competition.
I don't see your analogy working since you use two different quality burgers that both still cost money. That anlogy is better suited towards home console games vs handheld games as your analogy is more about quality to price rather than pay service to free service.
Before the PS3 everyone was nice to me :(
