Aside from download times :/ really isn't that big of a deal but XBL has a faster download time then PSN, if I wanted to play a demo I would get on my Xbox and download it there but that's not to say it's that big a difference it's just more convenient. Aside from that and Cross game chat they really are the same, and I don't know if people just like to live in 2006 or they just never even tried PSN to make a fair comparison. You can't deny that they perform at relatively the same level.

I must preface my opinion with the fact that I do not own a PS3 nor have I spent more than 2 hours on PSN myself.  That said, I have spent at a minimum 50 hours watching a friend of mine play various games on PSN, so I feel that I am capable of giving my opinion on the subject. 

Obviously I prefer XBL over PSN. My primary reasons are that few PSN users seem to use voice chat, I noticed no ability to "avoid or prefer" specific users, I thought that the download times and the browsing of arcade styled games on PSN seemed 2nd rate in comparison (ease/speed of use), and I also thought that entirely too many folks on the PSN friends list had the same avatars.

I would say that while the PSN is free, I have never had an issue with the XBL subsciption simply based off the excellence of the product.  If seeing PSN in action gave me the impression that it was on par with XBL, then I might feel ripped off.  For me, having an online service is about alot more than just playing the games,  it is also about being in an online community.  This includes party chat, game comparison, user ID cards, played game comparisons, game demoes, movie services, text/voice messaging, diverse avatars, etc.. all of which XBL provides for me.

I prefer PSN

- I have a larger variety of sleep modes to choose from. This helps when I'm downloading stuff.

- I actually prefer the exclusive games online ( I was really big on Resistance 2, Killzone 2 and Warhawk a while back).

- I prefer the PS3 D-Pad when navigating the store. The Xbox D-Pad is just horrible, sometimes I'd be trying to go up on the demo section and then it was change the menu by going left, which restarts my search progression and it pisses me off.

-  I like that PSN has fewer developer restrictions.

-  I like that I can use any Bluetooth headset for PSN, while I'm limited to Microsoft supported headsets for the 360.

- I do not know what everyone's talking about with PSNs download speed compared to Microsoft's. The download speed is exactly the same on my connection. Even the Live updates ( I updated for the first time in a while just the other night) took the same amount of time.

- I do use the browser from time to time. The browser isn't as bad as people make it out to be, but it's nothing compared to a full PC, it's still useful though for those random Youtube videos you want to show to the whole family.

- I actually like Home. I rarely use it, but when I do, I'm impressed and I spend a decent amount of time just walking around and starting chats. It's an interesting thing and it's free, I like that I have a free option just sitting on my XMB.

- All my friends have PS3's. They frequently play COD online and so I'm rarely alone when I play. I've learnt to make friends on PSN depending on the specific game, every game I've played, I played with different people (Little Big Planet audience is going to be different to the Killzone 2 audience). 

- I hate playing online with idiots and I've found that PSN has a lot less idiots than Live. My friend and I played Halo 3 and COD4 online for a while after they launched ( on his 360) and Jesus fucking Christ are people annoying. I was surprised to see him pick fights with everyone that spoke and how everyone enjoyed yelling at everyone else and it was just messy and rude. My friend (who can be a dick) was talking to this 12 year old kid on Halo and he was just wasting him with insults. I wasn't impressed.

- I like PSN for it's PS1 games and it's weird Japanese games.

- I also find that prices vary far more on PSN, while most of the titles I want on Live are pretty much dead set on a specific price.

- A few extra reasons why I choose PSN over Live includes some hardware specific reasons which either enhance or take away from the experience online. My 360 sounds like a jet engine, if I spend the 20 minutes it needs to install a game to the hard drive. then it sounds like a lawnmower, I do not like the sound my 360 makes when I play games on it. It's fine for exclusives, but when I have another option to choose from, then I'm going to choose the other option.

I only have a 20 gb hard drive, which means I only have about 13 gb for some reason (which is disgusting). I don't want to spend $100 on a new hard drive, so I prefer to download all my games and demo's from PSN. I also don't have to go through the habit of deleting stuff, so I can install the next game I want play on the 360.

- I like the PSN store better. People keep saying how the Live store is way better and easier to navigate, but I don't think that's to be true at all. The PSN store is easy to navigate through, the search feature is useful, I know were everything is and all laid in a classy looking menu. the Live menu looks messy in comparison and it's colour scheme just doesn't fall in my favour. 

- When I use to play my PSP, the interactivity with my PS3 and PSN was extremely useful.

- The final reason why I like PSN better than Live is that I can do all these other things that I prefer for free, while I'd have to pay $80 to do thing's I don't prefer to do on Live. Take into account that I had Live for free for a whole month and outside of a broken Gears of War 2 match and just a few random drop ins with some of my other online games, I never went back to it after the first week, mainly because it didn't impress me.

I play against everyone, since MAG doesn't have that many people throughout the world, and it works like magic at any given time of the day. But it has dedicated servers. 

Another example is COD. I have played CoD 4 on 360 and CoD 5 on PS3 and they run the same. 

Cross game (voice) chat is the only thing that XBL gold has over PSN. Then again, PSN has 16 player cross game text chat as well. And first party games usually get dedicated server support.

And the DLC part? Assassins Creed Brotherhood and Mafia 2, both have exclusive and free DLCs for the PS3. I don't know games that are available on both having free DLCs on PS3, but its possible that publishers might not allow it in the fear of non platform-parity. I am not sure. We will see with Portal 2 what happens.

But why don't you compare PS plus with XBL if costs don't matter? With PS plus you get free (sometimes)l DLCs, and regular psone games along with discounts and PSN games and avatars and dynamic themes, and exclusive betas and qore and god knows what else. It depends upon the region though. But the price depends upon the region as well.

Oh and you get automatic updates as well. The regular PS users don't consider all of these features as important, why will they consider cross game chat as important? Or voice messages, for that matter. 

The gaming we aren't going to agree on, but enough people (in my opinion) have noticed what I have, maybe it is Playstation is better supported away from Australia, but ask people from Australia, Europe etc and they will most likely have the same issues as I have talked to plenty of people on the ps3 about it.

Cross game chat is as I have said to you and has been posted in this thread it is NOT the only advantage. You need to get over the small world you seem to live in.

DLC part... they are exlcusive to PS3. Find me an example that is clear enough that is free on one console and you have to pay on the other there is none. If I looked hard enough I would find enough of your examples on the 360. They are exclusive, its not the same thing.

Portal 2 will be most likely more supported with the 360 or evenly done across the board. As portal: still alive, is that even on the PS3 yet?

Ok I will compare plus to 360 gold.

Little thing ps1 games... really, you can find old ps3 games for 5-10 dollars even in australia, can you imagine how cheap the ps1 games would be now. XBL does discounts whether you have gold or not so that is not really comparison,  you are comparing silver in that regards. Again early demos and exlcusive betas happen on the 360 Gold instead of silver...

Automatic updates... okay if thats a feature some people are interested in, I hate that steam does it never mind a ps3. It slows down my damn internet, I am generally downloading and only one adsl1 speeds because of my distance from the cbd of melbourne and my truly unlimited plan.

A lot of those problems are ps3 vs 360. Rather then psn vs xbl, but I like you have stated your reasons :)

The bolded are what I see to be console reasons but each to their own :)

Theres a very simple argument which goes as follows:

If people like a service they will use it. If people like one service more than the other they will use that service more. If people use a service more they will spend more money on it. Xbox Live has around twice the revenue from non subscription services therefore Xbox Live is better given comparable user base sizes especially given the number of banned consoles.

If the Xbox 360 used Xbox 360 network and the Playstation 3 used Playstation Live would the answers and responses in this thread be significantly different? Just because people say something doesn't mean that they won't actually end up doing the opposite. Have you seen the COD MW2 boycott page full of Steam users playing COD MW2? Most of what is said on a forum like this is just talk.

Is it anything like the World at War boycott when in first came out in favour of modern warfare 1.

But yeah I know what you mean, if people were at the end of the other side of a conversation, there would most of the times be reversed positions. That is why I think it would be really good to see if sony made Kinect and Microsoft made Move it would have been fascinating to see the response.

I may personally like Kinect because it is a Microsoft product. I honestly dont know

setting up a match of Black Ops or Gran Turismo 5 on PSN is easy. I have no problems. And my PSN used to sign me out too but it was a router problem. (problems started after i moved it to my basement when it used to be 2-3meters from my router) now i use a wired conection and the download times are faster and it never disconnects me randomly.

As soon as I see "XBL and PSN are the same,"  I just stop reading the comments, because I can't take them seriously.  They aren't the same.  They just aren't.  And if you think they are, then you haven't used both.

People saying "PC online" is better are also ridiculous.  Whether you're talking independent game-specific servers, WoW or other MMO's or BlizzNet in general, or Steam, they are COMPLETELY different entities doing absolutely unique things in a very different space on vastly different machines and in different environments.  It would be like saying elephants are better than oranges.

And as for people saying "Oh Dreamcast was online."  Yah. For 8 people.  What the Xbox Live team at MS did was beyond audacious and bold, and it cost a great deal to develop and institute and run.  They have every right to profit off it and to help fund further developments, which they absolutely have clearly had, as someone who's been on Live since the MechAssault days.  

People forget what a gamble Live was at the time, a time where only a small percentage of people had broadband in their homes and no one expected anything along these lines the way people do now.  If Live failed, it all failed.  MS took that risk and sunk a LOT of money into the research, development and upkeep.  Even with all the money pulled in over PSN in movies and Home items and ads and ames and other downloadables, PSN has yet to come close to breaking even FOR  A QUARTER, let alone recoup the losses sunk into it.  And it HASN'T won over a significant enough number of users.  Shouldn't it?  If it's free and the same?  Why are they still being outsold and outspent ?  LIve users pay for it AND spend more online per user.  Why?  It's horrible, horrible business by Sony, and if I were a stockholder I'd be pissed.

Look at what the majority of the people keep saying that defend PSN.  "Because it's free."  "I don't use online that much so I don't care."  "All I want to do is play online."  Then the Playstation network has failed.  PSN or Live or Steam is not developed to be only a portal to connect multiplayer sessions.  They are meant to be communities and attractive features in their own right.  Live is that, and it has been since it launched.  PSN is not, and it is only now limping toward that goal.   

I understand that some of you with strong opinions don't actually have both consoles, so you can't really base a comparison.  Or by your own accord, you say "I haven't used Live since 2004", or "I only used it for like 10 hours".  You don't have to tell us you only use one.  We can tell by the comments and your reasoning.

There ARE things that are better on PSN - the Netflix software is better, the layout's a bit cleaner which might be nice for some (I find it a bid sterile, though easy to use), you have a few more options in terms of video services and the browser and the like (though does anyone REALLY use the browser?)  But the tangible qualitative differences in PSN's favor and few compared to what Live offers - if you choose to use the service to its full capacities and capabilities.