The feature list comparisons are nice but my biggest trump card however isn't a bullet point list like most people like to throw in each others faces but the community itself.

The XBL community is just vastly larger then PSN. I've had my 360 for right at a year now, my PS3 for 8 months. For the first few months I didn't have internet on my 360 so the times spent online are very similar. In that time I've accumulated over 20 friends on my XBL list and 2 on my PSN. About 4-5 of those are IRL friends and the rest I've all met in multiplayer games. I still think the smartest thing Microsoft did was include a headset with the 360. So many more people are chatting online and it makes teamwork and meeting others much easier. Most online games I've played on PS3 are a virtual ghost town as far as chat goes. Maybe you're anti-social and prefer multiplaying gaming quietly alone (oxymoron much?) but I'm not one of those and look forward to playing with others. That community feature is why I've graduated more and more to buying online multiplatform games for the X360 over the PS3. For exclusives I'll obviously go for the PS3 and single player games it's a toss-up as far as features & performance.

My biggest complaint as far as XBL goes is that the online store is so crowded with content that it makes finding some things somewhat of a chore. I remember a month or so back even Microsoft expressed some disappointment that they hadn't planned more for the huge influx of content they have now. One positive though is at least it loads fast and is easy and quick to get to. The PSN store is visually nice but I don't like having to load it separate from the XMB and it seems to load quite a bit slower then the marketplace.

@ jasonnc80

That is probably true for the United States where the 360 performed relatively well, but here in Europe (minus the UK) and especially in Japan it's probably the other way around. I know more friends who own a PS3 and some of the 360 owners I know aren't subscribed to XBox Live (some own both platforms).

Past data seems to suggest the vast majority of 360 owners aren't subscribed to XBox Live Gold (required to play online). I guess Gold penetration may relatively be higher in North America compared to Japan or Europe.

MikeB said:   Some Blue-Tooth headsets support a respectable battery life of up to 16 hours talking, that's quite long. Personally I have a mini-USB (and a normal USB) cable extension from my PC on the to of my desk. The mini-USB port I use to recharge PS3 controllers, recharge my BlueTooth headset and to connect my photocamera or MP3 player. For me it's not much of an issue. The normal USB port I usually use for flash drives, but if I would need another mini-USB port I'll just get the PS3 extension cable from the desk drawer. After several hours of gaming, the headset probably still has something like 10 hours of battery life left. You could easily connect it to the PC to recharge. I'm however not using the headset all of the time with my phone, just when being on the road. The battery of my phone runs out quicker with Bluetooth enabled, a phone without battery charge is worse than a headset running out of battery charge.

 

Bluetooth just isn't a viable solution for gaming IMO.  It's a passable solution for mobile phones but voice quality even on high end headsets isn't going to touch even a basic wired solution.  While I was in college I was a sales manager for about 2 years at a national carrier here and used and sold dozens of models of headsets in that time.  I've owned myself about 10 different models from several manufactuers during my employment and can say I would prefer almost anything (gaming wise) over any of those.

I have a Turtle beach setup I use for both my PS3 and 360 and it's vastly superior to any bluetooth headset you'd find and fairly comparable in price to one of the nicer bluetooth models.

EDIT: @ second point on community size

I don't think we have a huge Japanese demographic here on VGchartz.  Europe however the roles of XBL/PSN could be reversed.  I'll give you that.  The problem still lies in the fact I don't see many people communicating while I'm on PSN. Maybe your experiences are completely different from mine but I'm just giving my first hand experiences from owning both consoles.  But I guess that's why they offer diferent consoles and games for different people. What may work for one person may not for another.  Such is life.

how isnt it better

XBL>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>PSN

bumidan said: I really like the Media Center in XBOx. I can listen to all the music/songs in my PC and can watch videos in my pc. Also, the picture sharing is cool. Friends and family can look/watch a slideshow of all the pictures in my PC and while playing background songs/playlist.

 

 

MY ps3s are doing the exact same thing.  Nice to have 1.3TB of store on the media center pc :)

leo-j said: reptile168 said: PSN started a subscription fee for Qore stuffs like demos and videos, which are available for free on Xbox live. Xbox Live charges you for multiplayer. So, it's your choice to decide whether Multiplayer fees or Demo/video fees are more ripping you off. On top of the mentioned Xbox live and PSN stuffs, I believe the XBox Live Graphical interface is much more friendly than the PSN. Media Center for streaming contents from PC is really simple too. I'm not sure whether the following option is xbox live exclusive, but Live has full parental controls.   No thats complete bull $hit. QORE does not charge you for vidoes or demos.. its like paying for a magazine. And no demos are not FREE if you want them immediately on XBOX LIVE.

 

Demos usually appear earlier for Live anyway. Silver membership waits 1 week before being able to play a demo, wow, that's absolutely ridiculous amount of time for those extremely anticipated demos.

Every game videos and demos are free for Live, while Sony is starting to charge you guys a monthly magazine fee to view some "exclusive" videos and demos.

ocnkng said: reptile168 said: PSN started a subscription fee for Qore stuffs like demos and videos, which are available for free on Xbox live. Xbox Live charges you for multiplayer. So, it's your choice to decide whether Multiplayer fees or Demo/video fees are more ripping you off. On top of the mentioned Xbox live and PSN stuffs, I believe the XBox Live Graphical interface is much more friendly than the PSN. Media Center for streaming contents from PC is really simple too. I'm not sure whether the following option is xbox live exclusive, but Live has full parental controls.   It took me upwards of four hours to make streaming work on the Xbox, it took me 10 minutes to do the same on the PS3 with Tversity. The problem is that Xbox forces you to use streaming only with the Windows Media player 11, it takes a lot to work around that and use a media server of your own (Tversity). Also there is the well known problem of Xbox only running WMA files. What are you talking about? All the demos that I checked out on the PSN last night were free. The PS3 rocks in that all the themes and wallpapers are completely free. I wanted to install the Mass Effect theme in my Xbox but I am not willing to pay $$ for that (its not free). I have got the MGS4 theme installed on my PS3. I think the idea of a Web browser in the PS3 is frikiin awesome, I watched Youtube videos in that. All the above positive points about XBL, pounted out by other members are true. But I am pissed at paying $3 to rent a movie for only one day. I think the tv show collection in Xbox is great, and u can buy them for quite cheap. In short the XBL is great, if you got money to spend. The PSN is awesome in the stuff that it gives to you for no cost at all.

 

Of course demos that were available before the introduction of Qore are free. As far as future demos, they won't cost you a penny, but you won't be able to access it unless you pay for Qore.

You obviously have a slow network or something, I can stream movies within seconds of pushing the play button. Even when my brother is downloading, I still play immediately thanks to QOS.

You also get FREE themes for the 360 if you didn't know. You're not FORCED to buy them.

Right, I also really enjoy watching 10 minutes home made videos on the PS3. It makes the experience much better thanks to the browser. I can throw my computer away.

PSN is free unless you want to watch "exclusive" contents and play future demos.

MikeB said: Profcrab said: MikeB said: @ Profcrab think the included headset with the 360, and ease of setup and use, has contributed a lot to the 360's rep as the best online console. I expect Sony will include a headset with the next console. It's a good strategy. I don't think so, I already have a good Bluetooth headset I can use with my phone as well. It may help to get more people talking, but IMO that's not always so great.   The problem with the Bluetooth setup, especially if you are using your headset to pull double duty as your phone headset and PS3 headset is battery capacity. I sometimes like to play games for several hours. If I'm using my bluetooth headset for my phone, it won't last very long in an online game if even one or two people are talking constantly. This makes that solution not viable. That isn't to say there aren't other options for the PS3 (USB wired or wireless), but none of them are included with it so many people don't use them. Having a headset dedicated to the system with a decent battery life and is included with the console makes for a talkative community. As for the classic tired comment about how it is not always great to have people talking, that is why they include the mute feature and friends lists. I've never found it too difficult to just mute people. I give that post a 9.3.   Some Blue-Tooth headsets support a respectable battery life of up to 16 hours talking, that's quite long. Personally I have a mini-USB (and a normal USB) cable extension from my PC on the to of my desk. The mini-USB port I use to recharge PS3 controllers, recharge my BlueTooth headset and to connect my photocamera or MP3 player. For me it's not much of an issue. The normal USB port I usually use for flash drives, but if I would need another mini-USB port I'll just get the PS3 extension cable from the desk drawer. After several hours of gaming, the headset probably still has something like 10 hours of battery life left. You could easily connect it to the PC to recharge. I'm however not using the headset all of the time with my phone, just when being on the road. The battery of my phone runs out quicker with Bluetooth enabled, a phone without battery charge is worse than a headset running out of battery charge.

 

Some bluetooth headsets can have a long battery life.  They are not usually found in the cheaper variety.  I find it odd that Sony doesn't offer a Sony branded headset.  Maybe a USB wireless headset with replaceable batteries at least in some sort of effort to promote online voice chat.  Unfortunately, all of these solutions, outside of a corded USB headset, are costly for anything of real quality.  So, again, not a big fan of how they implemented voice on the PS3 and it's inaccessibility out of the box is reflected in the lack of voice conversation online.  Next time I play an online game on the PS3, I'll probably use an extension cable and connect my USB headset to it.  That defeats the purpose of this whole wireless migration though.  

For comparison, the 360 headset is a simple corded headset that plugs into the controller.  No setup or battery concerns outside of the controller.  That makes the headset pretty inexpensive and easy to use, therefore, more people use it.

I give that post a 9.4.

ocnkng said: reptile168 said: PSN started a subscription fee for Qore stuffs like demos and videos, which are available for free on Xbox live. Xbox Live charges you for multiplayer. So, it's your choice to decide whether Multiplayer fees or Demo/video fees are more ripping you off. On top of the mentioned Xbox live and PSN stuffs, I believe the XBox Live Graphical interface is much more friendly than the PSN. Media Center for streaming contents from PC is really simple too. I'm not sure whether the following option is xbox live exclusive, but Live has full parental controls.   It took me upwards of four hours to make streaming work on the Xbox, it took me 10 minutes to do the same on the PS3 with Tversity. The problem is that Xbox forces you to use streaming only with the Windows Media player 11, it takes a lot to work around that and use a media server of your own (Tversity). Also there is the well known problem of Xbox only running WMA files. What are you talking about? All the demos that I checked out on the PSN last night were free. The PS3 rocks in that all the themes and wallpapers are completely free. I wanted to install the Mass Effect theme in my Xbox but I am not willing to pay $$ for that (its not free). I have got the MGS4 theme installed on my PS3. I think the idea of a Web browser in the PS3 is frikiin awesome, I watched Youtube videos in that. All the above positive points about XBL, pounted out by other members are true. But I am pissed at paying $3 to rent a movie for only one day. I think the tv show collection in Xbox is great, and u can buy them for quite cheap. In short the XBL is great, if you got money to spend. The PSN is awesome in the stuff that it gives to you for no cost at all.

 

I've setup TVersity also with the 360.  It didn't take that long, maybe 15 minutes.  The instructions on how to set it up are pretty clear.  No workaround necessary.  I found it took me about the same amount of time to setup the 360 for it and the PS3 since most of the work is done on the PC.

I give that post a 9.4.