I've always been curious about what the 'real' difference was between Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. For every, 'My Online is Free' post, there's the contrary, 'You get what you pay for' follow up. But outside of forums and blog posts, I've never really known. Now, thanks to a friend destroying his 360 trying to clean the DVD lens (somehow the motherboard snapped in half) and his subsequent revenge purchase of a PS3... I have a much clearer, informed opinion.

     To keep this post short and to the point, my friend, after only four days, returned his PS3 and is right now, as I type this, picking up a replacement 360 to occupy the same dusty shelf in the same musty basement it was in before, where he can once again get his 'online' fix going. To be fair, the PS3 has some incredible games, but my friend's main reason for gaming at all is to play against others, and that is where the PS3 falls painfully short. The online interface is clunky and lacks so many of the community features that are intergrated into Live, that navigating between games with friends is complicated and time consuming. With so many varying degrees of blue-tooth quality headsets, the noise levels during games makes communicating a complete pain, to the point that we had to actually call each other's cell phones to hook up. Not good.

     Overall, just a very frustrating experience... at least in the eyes of someone who's used to how things work on the 360. Sure, Live costs, but I can finally say with absolute certainty that if online is where you want your cosole to be, the quality and community driven features of Live are more than worth the price.

    Both great systems with plenty of must have exclusives for each, but after experimenting with the PS3's online capabilities for a few days, I won't be second guessing my purchase for a quite awhile. For the past two months or so, the PS3 has made some serious inroads towards the sales lead established by Microsoft, every week the numbers push it closer, Sony definitely has that going for them. Now on the other hand, the Playstation Network still has some serious catching up to do.

Strongly disagree.

Damn them for giving gamers choices!

This will not end well for you my friend, and so young with only a 51 post history. (returns to playing online for free with others in uncharted 2)

Agreed. But sadly this won't end well....

vg$ -1,105.43? Seriously,stop trolling.

think of it this way, instead of paying whatever free for XBL, i could be eating lunch, taking my family out for dinner, or going to the movies with that money, with PSN i dont need to worry about a fee that'll pop outta know-where. im sure XBL is good, but its not for those who dont want or need to recklessly spend extra money. Free online is the one thing i have to admit Sony did 100% right this gen.

PSN is a great service. Is Live slightly better in some gaming regards, currently yes. To a person who only plays games to play against others online I could see a little bit of your argument but I don't agree at all that it is clunky, that is a matter of taste is all, not a factual statement.

On a side note, not everyone who owns a console buys one so they can sit around and play "my weapon is bigger than yours" online. Some of us prefer the campaign mode and just playing the game the old fashioned way. As I said above though, if online is what you want, Xbox live is slightly ahead at this stage but the gap isn't nearly as big as you make it sound, well to you it is.

And there's the banhammer.

is this leo-j's alt account?
how did you get this much negative $$ ?

How do you get negative vgchartz money anyway?