PlayStation 2 Celebrates One Year Online

Thanks to Yahoo! for hosting the Sony press release celebrating the first anniversary of the PlayStation 2 online adaptor, as well as new figures showing "more than 780,000 gamers with online connectivity." By comparison, a recent Taipei Times article says that Microsoft has 500,000 Xbox Live subscribers worldwide. The release stresses the differences between the PS2's 'open' philosophy and Xbox Live's more managed attitude, pointing out: "...the results of the open model approach include more than 20 publishers developing more than 50 titles for the PlayStation 2 platform by the year-end." Sony also trails the PS2 hard drive with regard to Final Fantasy XI, but hint at other uses, saying it "...further demonstrates the company's focus on extending the functionalities and capabilities of the PlayStation 2 for a total living room experience including games, movies and music."

Comments

Statistics can prove anything

[Locky]

The installed userbase for the PS2 is several times that of the Xbox. Pronouncing victory is quite foolish as per customer, Microsoft is having much more success with Xbox Live than Sony is with their online facility.

Re:Statistics can prove anything

[MMaestro]

Indeed. The PS2 has sold something like 30 billion systems (correct me if I'm wrong) while the XBox hasn't even sold half of that. If the PS2 only has 780,000 gamers online at this point, they are doing horribly in terms of online capabilities.

Everquest has something like 500,000 registered users, and thats for a 4+ year old MMORPG game on the PC. Its not a fair statement to compare consoles to PCs, but it sounds to me like Sony's flagship machine is being trounced by their own decommissioned flagship game.

Re:Statistics can prove anything

[unclethursday]

Xbox Live has a better market penetration, percentage wise.....

But the fact also remains that the 500k mark for XBL has been touted for months, without changing. It looks like most of the people who wanted XBL have it; and with the dealy of Halo 2 until next year, the prospect of new people signing up for it before Halo 2's release is slim.

And when you also consider over half of the total subscriptions were from the North American launch (almost 300k from November 15 - December 31), and most of the rest are from the Japanese and European launches, it shows most XBL users are early adoptors, and the majority of the Xbox owning population either doesn't have the broadband capabilites, doesn't care about online games, or both.

XBL got a good start, but its ability to draw in new subscribers just doesn't seem to be there; at least until Halo 2 comes out.

Thursdae

"Online Connectivity"

[dafoomie]

"more than 780,000 gamers with online connectivity."

What does this mean? Is it that 780,000 people have signed up, or that 780,000 people own PS2 online adaptors? I could say that 100% of Xbox's have "online connectivity" because every Xbox has an ethernet port built in. I think these numbers are very deceptive.

Take this with a gigantic grain of salt. This is a press release written by Sony. Of course the numbers are skewed in Sony's favor. Just like how Microsoft press releases say that Windows is a stable and secure operating system.

Re:"Online Connectivity"

[bedurndurn]

What does this mean? Is it that 780,000 people have signed up, or that 780,000 people own PS2 online adaptors? I could say that 100% of Xbox's have "online connectivity" because every Xbox has an ethernet port built in. I think these numbers are very deceptive.

Well it could very well be 780,000 broadband adapters sold. Unlike the X-Box though, I'd imagine if you bought a broadband adapter (as opposed to having it come with the system), you probably intend to actually use it.

Re:"Online Connectivity"

[unclethursday]

And I do like Xbox's online system better, where you pay $50 yearly for all games (except one - PSO). With PS2 you pay per game, though some games are free, some are not.

There are only 3 games on the PS2, total worldwide, that charge per month, and only one of those is in North America right now. ALL the rest are free to play online.

Only EverQuest Online Adventures, Final Fantasy XI, and a golf game (I think it may be the Japanese version of Hot Shots Golf 4) charge to play online.

So three out of all of the online titles on the PS2 isn't quite the same as saying 'some charge and some don't.' It's more like most don't and a few do.

Besides, until the Live Now part of XBL launches, the 'services' you get with XBL hardly justify the cost. But the free long distance and conference call abilities of Live Now will definitly outweigh the cost of XBL, once it gets released.

Thursdae

Apples and Oranges

[MBraynard]

Forget the fact that PS2 has sold 5x as many consoles as Xbox.

All Xbox Live Subscribers are broadband users. It is a broadband service.

PS2 are probably mostly dialup. Broadband is the future; if you want good gaming without lag, you need broadband. And if you want a broadband platform where all your opponents have broadband, you must choose Xbox.

Not to be a fan, I'm selling my Xbox on ebay as we speak cause I outgrew it.

Re:Apples and Oranges

[Yaztromo]

PS2 are probably mostly dialup. Broadband is the future; if you want good gaming without lag, you need broadband. And if you want a broadband platform where all your opponents have broadband, you must choose Xbox.

Ever play Frequency or Amplitude online? Both of these games support a mix of broadband and dialup users, and I have never seen an issue playing with people with different connection types.

Sony was smart. They made it possible for a game to specifically function with only one connection type. Take SOCOM for example: it doesn't support the dialup element of the adapter, because it just won't work.

Sony made it so the game developers can decide wether or not to target just broadband users, or everyone. There are a lot of styles of games that work quite well on a dialup connection.

And in this big old world, there are still lots of places where telephone lines are readily available, but where broadband is not. Personally, I applaud a company that is willing to embrace players in remote (or odd) areas where broadband simply isn't an option.

Yaz.

Re:xbox live

[akudoi]

You're only half right. Sony doesn't charge you for every game individually. Many PS2 games dont require any monthly fee. Socom, Midnight Club 2, ATV Offroad Furry 2. The only games I know of that charge you for online play are the MMORPG's, which makes sence. Its exactly like the PC model for online play. You dont pay a monthly fee to play Half-Life online, do you? But you do for say, Everquest.

Unlike the Xbox where you have to pay a monthly fee to play ANY game online. Wether or not it is only 1 flat rate. You have to have live to play online.

Re:xbox live

[Yaztromo]

I own an Xbox and I used to own a ps2. I broke it and took it back to best buy under my service plan and got an xbox. It is sooooo much better as a gaming platform and the online gaming is superb. On the ps2 you get to pay a monthly fee for each game you play unless the publisher is nice enough to give you a flat rate for all the games from that publisher/cartel(sony).

Feel glad I just used up the rest of my modpoints. Otherwise, I would have rated this -1: Troll.

It's blatently false. Out of the (quoted) 50 PS2 titles that will support online gaming by the end of the year, only TWO will charge any sort of fee: FFXI, and Everquest Online Adventures. This is as opposed to the Xbox, where you can't play _any_ games without paying a monthly fee to Microsoft.

Oh and just to add...the ps2 only supports 5.1 in cutscenes whereas the xbox supports it ingame

This is also false. A number of PS2 titles support 5.1 surround via DTS encoding, wheras the Xbox only supports Dolby Digital encoding. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, SSX: Tricky, and NHL 2003 are three titles that support in-game DTS surround.

For someone who "used to own a PS2", you certainly don't know much about it, do you?

Yaz.

No true 5.1 DTS?

[Inoshiro]

The Xbox will let you use DTS DVDs and DTS cut scenes just like the PS2 will.

The PS2 DTS encoded games are only 4-point surround. Any 5.1 surround on the PS2 is done via Prologic 2 encoding, since those are the only 2 real-time surround formats available on the PS2 (barring some new algorithm for encoding audio).

Socom does PL2, as do most Sony 1st party releases from the past 8 months.

As for the online experience, well... you're getting more than just access to online servers with Live!. You're getting basic service guarantees and all that implies. Until Sony makes a real online service for their consoles, you can't really compare it to Live! since there is nothing else like Live! in the world. No one has complete, end-to-end control of hardware and software like this particular Microsoft service has.

It's like comparing the surround sound on the PS2 to the Xbox. There are 350 some Xbox titles, all of which support Dobly Digital. There are 500 or 600 PS2 titles, of which maybe 50 do surround sound at all (let alone real-time). You can't really compare that, since every single Xbox game guarantees surround sound support.

But all this talk of features ignores a major thing that people who don't own all the consoles (not just PS2/Xbox/GCN -- I mean all of them) ignore: you can't play features!

The PS2 is a great console because of its various exclusives, but the Xbox is also a great console because of its various exclusives. That the GameCube is a great console because of its exclusives goes without saying.

Games are what sell systems, not paper specs, not features. And comparing features that aren't comparable is the same as buying a PS3 because it pushes a bunch of polygons, even though there are no fucking games for it.