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Xbox Live - The Christmas Zombie
SEWilco writes "Xbox Live is not working, as mentioned 36 hours ago in an Xbox team blog. Even if you can get logged in, multiplayer matchmaking doesn't find enough players for games. For a while Zune Marketplace was also affected. At present Zune status claims 'Up and running' while Xbox Live status continues to say 'Users may experience intermittent issues logging onto Xbox Live. Our engineers are continuing to investigate and are working to resolve this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience.' This has been been going on for days." My assumption is that this is the result of lots of new XBLA users logging in with Christmas 360s.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I'm sort of at a crossroads between getting at 360 or a PS3. The main thing driving me to get the 360 is Xbox Live, and it's kind of surprising that they can't handle a surge of new purchases. (Are they not expecting people to buy?) Without Xbox Live, the PS3 looks superior, with a free Blu-Ray drive and Wi-fi attached.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I really, really love my PS3. (Yes, I'm thinking of marrying it.) The PSP/PS3 interaction is pretty damned cool. I play the hell out of Warhawk, and Ratchet and Clank is one of the best games out there. Unreal Tournament looks like it's going to kick some serious ass.
That said, I wish I had Bioshock for the PS3. I played Halo 3, and it was OK, but really nothing that great. Then again, I was never impressed with the Halo series, as a whole. They are good, solid games; I just never got into the story line. Bioshock, though, seems to be interesting.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is this: the PS3 is a damned solid piece of engineering, with some great *technical* advantages over the XBox. But the XBox has some great games. Now, you can't get R&C for the XBox, nor Haze (which also looks cool). But Haze is still a month off, it seems.
If you want a PSP, though, it's damned cool the way it works with the PS3. And it has internet radio now, too. I've been using it to remote my media from the PS3, and I can access my music and videos anywhere there's an internet connection. Now, *that's* cool.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Agreed. The PS3 could be marketed as a value, but it's marketed in too abstract a fashion. They try to tell you about all the things it can do, but fall on their face trying too look super cool.
That said, my 360 is on more often because it's got better games. I still like the PS3 more, band I have spent less on PS3 when you factor everything in.
The PS3 is very cool and full of neat little surprised you can play with. Themes, Ubuntu, remote play, streaming, it's all done very smoothly and I bet you're having a blast. I know few people who regret that PS3, and I hope you have fun with it. But I still think the 360 is the better system to purchase just because it's got better content. You pay more for the 360, a lot more probably, but it's got better games.
I don't know if that will be true after gt5, MGS4, and FF13 come out. But right now the 360 is better, and the market will always be close enough that every great third party game will probably be ported. Looking at the way Konami is talking, saying they must sell 1 million MGS4 discs on day one, sounds like they are inventing an excuse to port MGS4 in a year or so to the 360. IF MGS4 ports, then I really think that's an omen that all third party games will be ported in both directions. It's just too damn expensive to make these games (how long has the 300 person MGS4 team been working on this game? 3 years?).
Enjoy your slick system, man. A PS3 is a kick-ass christmas. I encourage you to get a PSP if you lack one, and definitely get the Eye. It's the little tech things that make this system cool, even in the absence of games I expected to be out by now.