Sony Takes Aim at Xbox Live

Joystiq and the site ComputerandVideoGames are reporting on the first real action in the next-gen war. Sony is apparently readying a strong online service that will meet or exceed the features of Xbox Live. With no firm PS3 launch date yet released, the 360 still has the advantage, but if Sony is rolling out an online matching and media service with their (reportedly) more powerful console things could look bad for Microsoft's new system. From the article: "This story, together with the recent survey Sony conducted, should remove any doubts about Sony's online ambitions. Is it possible that Sony could create a network the size and scale of Xbox Live in such a short time. It has cost Microsoft, the world's largest software company, billions and taken years just to lay the framework for the current Live service. Sony is know for their hyperbolic marketing: the PS2's Emotion Engine, the PSP as iPod-killer; it seems unlikely they could take the crown from Microsoft on their first try, but any attempt is a huge relief. It was beginning to look like Sony didn't think the Live service was a valuable addition to console gaming, or a serious competitor to their hegemony. "

Comments

Coming soon!

[ShaneThePain]

Playstation 3 with rootkit pre-installed!

Right

[buffer-overflowed]

I'll believe it when I see it. Feature for feature and then some. Right. I have a bridge in NY and some beach front property in Arizona to sell you.

And the Emotion Engine is powering my workstation, Cell will dominate all electronics on the planet, the PSP will kick Nintendo out of the handheld market and beat the iPod in one fell swoop. Yada yada yada. Oh and something about incredible real-time CGI. When it all falls flat on it's face it's going to be whoever bought it's fault for not understanding the awe-inspiring vision that is exuded by the Sony corporation.

Put on your waders boys and girls, stand very still and brace yourself, the Sony people are talking and you wouldn't want to be killed by the bullshit.

Interesting Juxtaposition

[Chabil Ha']

It's interesting the juxtaposition of roles here. Sony was the incumbent of the console wars, leaving M$ in the position of proving itself. I think it is pretty safe to say that M$ has given Sony a run for its money, and now M$ is the incumbent to a firmly entrenched online gaming network.

To put succinctly, Sony has one shot to get it right--not to dethrone M$, but prove that its online gaming shows the potential to rival or better M$'s system.

Jaded about online console games...

[Yo Grark]

Ok maybe I'm just jaded about having to pay for a console then pay MS for essentially just a NETWORK CONNECTION to other players, but why NOT make it free? (as in air) I know it would make my decision simple when it came to xbox 360 or PS3.

Actually when I heard you had to PAY to change the skins, I backed off completely. Where are the days when you paid for a product and just enjoyed it without a constantly being nibbled to death by Credit Card Ducks?

No sir, I will still to my "alternatives", as offline as they may appear to MS, Sony or Nintendo until one day one of these companies gets a clue stick and sets up their system to be more P2P in nature then B2B.

GIMME MY FREE MULTIPLAYER ONLINE! (not like the game, the console the internet connection cost me anything eh? :| )

Yo Grark

Re:Jaded about online console games...

[jchenx]

FYI, the Silver account mode for Live has everything EXCEPT for actual multiplayer. Silver accounts are free. It's the Gold accounts that cost money. You're paying for the network connection (bandwidth), the servers that host the matchmaking, as well as any updates to the service in the future. And I'm sure some of the money goes back into R&D for future versions, or subsidizes the Silver accounts, or even (*gasp*) profit. I have no idea the pricing scheme for Nintendo or Sony, but I'm guessing they're going to have a similar scheme (or see reduced functionality).

Your complaint sounds a lot like those who hate the idea of paying monthly for MMOs. Sorry, that's just the cost of doing business. If there weren't people willing to pay for it, then yes, you'd have a lot more things that were just "free" ... although the companies might be paid in other ways: more in-game advertising, higher per-box costs, higher console costs, forced to pay "micro-payments" for new weapons/armor, etc. Or just stuck with fewer features or even NO on-line functionality. (Arguably that's why Sony went with their original model in the first place. Many games don't appear to benefit much at all from online features, like single-player RPGs, so why have one in the first place?)

One final thing ... you mention that you'd prefer more P2P-style implementation, which I gather you mean peer-to-peer. That's actually one thing I'd pay NOT to see. You just can't trust the client anymore. Arguably, P2P-multiplayer is what's killing many PC games. There's just way too many cheated clients out there, making play experience miserable. Are closed systems perfect? No, but it's certainly a lot harder to crack and the companies have a genuine interest in closing the holes as fast as possible, lest they lose their precious subscription business. Otherwise, bad developers could just say, "Oh well, we shipped the game. It's done. Sorry users, the griefers have ruined the game and we can't do anything about it now." Things like Punkbuster are great and all, but I'd rather just trust the server to do all the calculations, have the client "be dumb", and pay for it.

mmhmm

[UU7]

In other news, DNF will be a PS3 launch title.

Re:HOW is this news?

[jchenx]

It actually is big news because for the longest time, Sony left it to all the game developers to develop all of the online features. The argument was that game developers WANTED to have finer control on all the implementation details. That was fine for large companies, like EA and Square-Enix, but obviously not so easy for smaller companies. (They want to make games, not re-invent the wheel with yet-another-implementation of authentication, leaderboards, in-game messaging, etc.) It also sucked for users, who now had to remember multiple usernames/passwords for multiple games, versus the nice single-login system with Live (and presumably Nintendo's system).

I'm guessing the fact that Nintendo revealed they were working on something similar (and you can already see some of the progress with wireless DS functionality in Mario Kart DS), really pushed Sony to do a complete 180 and claim they're going to have Live features, "AND MORE!!!!".

Personally, I'm doubtful they can really pull it off that quickly, if they truly intend on releasing this year. I'm guessing they'll just have some basic functionality, maybe an interesting feature or two that no one has yet (which I'm sure will be hyped plenty), but then miss a lot of the other stuff that Live does have. That will be "version 2", due out in 2007. Even if Sony is able to pull off the implementation (and yes, they DO have some online experience, thanks to Everquest and Star Wars: Galaxies), it's still a lot to expect from 3rd party companies to suddenly comply with whatever online API that they hack together in the next few months.

That said, it would be nice to have some online feature parity across all the consoles. It just drives more competition and (hopefully) good innovation.

No...

[ickeicke]

The great thing about this new network from Sony, is that it can install rootkits for you. And not even on-demand, but non-demand! Isn't that great?

Except in Soviet Russia of course, there the rootkits install Sony's new network...

Re:I love xbox but...

[Esteanil]

Why even in NORWAY they have this to say! Bill Gates och hans någotsånär stora företag Microsoft har som alla bör känna till släppt nu två konsoller på marknaden. Den första gick enligt Forbes back hela 4 miljarder dollar. Gates snackar om detta, och han berättar att Xbox'arna är en långtidsinvestering.

The language you're quoting would be swedish...
Generally, we norwegians do not write in swedish ;-)