Who does it and what do you play?

Xbox 360

I'm currently playing the two football games (NCAA and Madden) and the free Texas Hold 'em game they just gave away. I have other stuff, but that's what I'm playing online now.

The more I see of the PS3, the happier I am that I hitched my wagon to the Xbox.

what dont you like about the ps3?

- over priced
- blueray doesn't interest me at all (I won't be buying MS's HD-DVD drive upgrade for the 360 either) and, depending on who you listen to, is the weaker of the two hi-def dvd formats. Sony has a history of dud proprietary formats. Remember Betamax, UMD, ATRAC, and MiniDisc?
- I don't need the built in wifi
- none of the alleged release titles, or titles for the near future for that matter, interest me whatsoever
- developers have said that the PS3 is difficult to develop games for
- graphics seen so far are underwhelming (not bad, but I expected more)
- they have an unproven online component, where Xbox Live has been up, running, fine tuning, and adding features for over 4 years

I'm not a MS fanboy, at one point I was actually a big Sony fanboy, but Sony has fallen too far behind on this one. And with the lower priced Nintendo Wii set to release, I can buy that and a 360 for the price of a PS3. I just feel that Sony has been coasting on their rep for too long and has become complacent in the gaming world. I hope they prove me wrong.....

PS - get your preorder(s) in because there is most def gonna be a shortage at release. Sony has admitted as much already. A couple of those on ebay could pay for all of your Christmas presents.

You must not have read my post in the $5000 thread. It is no surprise to me they didn't release it till Christmas time. I am alittle behind so I might start catching up on my PS 2 playing.

Xbox cost money to play online doesn't it?

Yes. Retail cost is $50/year if you let them auto renew on your credit card, but 12 month subscription cards are easily found on ebay for ~$30. Well worth it for the polished service it provides.

I've been playing games online a long time.

I used to play in tournaments for Unreal and Unreal Tournament, but I started getting out of the FPS to play MMO's. To list everything I've played would take some reminiscing but I have a post near the beginning of my blog listing some games. I don't play many console games... there just isn't enough out there that gets my attention.

Lately, I am taking a break from World of Warcraft. I have three level 60's and I'm just burnt out. I did the whole level grind and raid-your-ass-off thing in EverQuest for 4+ years so... I just don't have the patience for it as much anymore. I was playing Titan Quest (like Diablo) with some friends and some of us have reactivated our City of Heroes/City of Villains accounts.

I'm a beta-tester for a few upcoming titles, so hopefully one of those will be the next big thing as far as MMOs go.

What do you mean by polished? I have no trouble (so far) since hooking up my PS2 online. I used to race NASCAR Racing 2003 for the PC online for a few years even ran a league but it was too time comsuming.

I was really looking forward to the PS3 but after seeing the price I might have to either keep my PS2 for awhile or go xbox360. Maybe they will offer an Xbox/Halo3 combo deal at the time PS3 comes out. LOL

By polished, I mean it's centralized and smooth. All (except EA games) games run through MS servers, so quality control is easier handled, which means less lag. You pick one screen name, which they call your gamertag, and it's the same for any game. I remember PS2 having to pick a new name for each game.

When you log in, you go to what they call the dashboard. You have a "friends list" that shows you when one of your friends logs in to Live to play, no matter what game they're playing. If I'm playing Madden and you log in to play Call of Duty, I can send you a game/chat invite across the different games. With PS2, my only way to communicate with you is if we happen to be playing the same game. They intend to upgrade Live features approx. every 6 months. The first update was back in the spring and most of the new features were things requested by the user community.

You can text message and voice chat back and forth with your friends, no matter if you are playing the same game. In Sept., they are selling a cheap ($40) USB camera that will enable video chat over Live. They offer downloadable content such as game add-ons (WARNING - greedy MS tries to charge you for a lot of that stuff), game and movie trailers, and game demos. They've even started offering tv show content for download, the first of which is a 45 minute preview show for the new season of Battlestar Galatica.

My favorite part of Live is probably the Live Arcade. They offer small, downloadable classic, retro, and all new games that are downloaded and saved on the xbox. The trial versions are free and the full versions are $5-$12. I've bought Gauntlet, Pac Man, poker, and a few original titles. They're supposed to have ~70 Arcade titles available by the end of the year.

Microsoft's greed occasionally shows through with things like the map packs, etc. they charge you for, but their Live service is a good product and easily worth the money to me. So good, that Sony's new PS3 online model is supposed to mirror its features almost exactly. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

So games like EA Sports Madden 07 still connect outside live or go through live to EA servers? Xbox and the Live idea never caught my attention especially since it wasn't free.

Thanks for a nice detailed description.

Yeah, for the first few years of Live, none of the EA games were online enabled. They wanted to run off their own servers, with the conspiracy theorists believing their intent was to start charging $$ to play EA games online. They struck a deal with MS a few years ago use the Live interface, but still use their own servers. They get a little money kicked back to them from MS. Let me tell you, the only games I've ever had lag trouble with on Live were EA games. Go figure.

Funny. I have rare lags on the few games I have played online ( no EA games) but thats all my g/f's son plays. EA games, and he is always complaining. I guess I will let him know it isnt their home network or internet but likely EA's servers. He is always calling me asking me to tweak the router settings cause it is lagging. I usually just reboot the router from my house to make him happy. LOL