Sunday 13 October 2013
Since Xbox 360 has been out longer and the Xbox Live being even longer than that I'll start with:
When Xbox Live launched November 15, 2002 it was the first of its kind to gain any real success. Microsoft stated at the time the reason for charging for the service was, they did not have any backing or advertising money coming in. It was their investment into Xbox Live which is why it became a paid model. When the Xbox 360 was released Xbox Live had a good following and was given an update with the launch of the 360.
Still needing the £40 to play online you had two models of Xbox Live.
- Silver - Which contained Gamerscore tracking and sending text messages free to friends. You can now actually Private Chat with friends on a one-on-one basis.
- Gold - Everything you can do in silver plus it let you play online as well as party chat. Even if your friends were in different games. Also download demos and trailers free and eventually it let you have access to netflix and lovefilm (you had to pay extra subscription for this). What gold also got you from time to time was a Free Game. Usually the type no one would usually play.
In the beginining Xbox Live Gold was worth the £40 you paid for it. As stated above you could play with friends or chat with them while playing different games. You got the occasional free game too.
BUT
These days in my opinion Microsoft have lost what they had on Xbox Live making it not worth the fee for the subscription. Microsoft announced "Games with Gold" in the run up to Christmas 2013 and the Xbox One launch. Now in General this was a good idea. They came out naming Assassins Creed II and Halo 3 as two of the games they would release under this as well as stating it would be full retail. Then they went back on their word and released Earth Defence Grid. An arcade game. Which to be fair was crap. I was bored playing it. See below for my comments as to what else has made a Gold subscription pointless.
PlayStation Network, officially abbreviated PSN, is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service provided by Sony for use with the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita video game consoles as well as the soon to be released PlayStation 4. Sony also stated that the service would always be connected, free, and include multiplayer support. The full list of features available at launch was announced at their TGS 2006 press conference.When the network launched, the registration interface could only be accessed through the PS3 or PSP system interfaces. This has been changed since to allow users to sign up from the PlayStation Network website.
When the platform eventually launched I can remember people complaining over and over how rubbish and useless the service was with connections dropping being the most complained thing. Over time obviously this was resolved but I can hardly comment on what the service was like back then has I was on Xbox Live. All I can go on is as of June 2013 and all I can say about it is that the service is fantastic. You get pretty much exactly the same as what any PC owner has and what Xbox Gamers pay for. Although I would say the biggest draw back with PSN at the moment is not many people actually chat and on top of that it doesn't have cross game chat or party chat. If you think about it though it is a free service that lets you play online, send messages between people, one on one chat as well as watch movies if you have a subscription to netflix or lovefilm. Even lets you play music if you have subscription to Sony Unlimited music I think it was called.
Launched alongside PS3 firmware 3.40 and PSP firmware 6.30 on June 29, 2010, the paid-for subscription service provides users with enhanced services on the PlayStation Network, on top of the current PSN service which is still available with all of its features. These enhancements include the ability to have demos, game and system software updates download automatically to the PlayStation 3. Subscribers also get early or exclusive access to some betas, game demos, premium downloadable content and other PlayStation Store items. Sony expanded the features list for its PlayStation Plus service with the addition of online game save storage. As part of the PlayStation Plus subscription, subscribers are given 150 MB of space in "the cloud" for up to 1,000 save files. Sony later expanded the online game storage to 1 GB.
Members of PlayStation Plus receive 12 games instantly as part of their membership in what is called Instant Game Collection, with a new game rotating in and out of the collection. Members would be able to keep the games in their collection as long as they are a member of PlayStation Plus. If their membership lapses, the games will become locked and unplayable. However, once the membership is renewed, the games will become unlocked again. The longer a user is a member, the larger their game collection will become.
Final Thoughts:
The inclusion of the Instant Game Collection is certainly a boost to PlayStation Network's Premium service for the same price it would cost for Xbox Live Gold. The inclusion of this is fantastic especially if you don't have the money to buy games every month. PS+ allows for you to have at least one free game a month. In regards to the differences between the two, you would have to look at what is value for money. Paying to play online (this generation) against not paying for something that is as stable as each other, to getting free games each month, even though Microsoft have Games with Gold which in my opinion is very very poor version at what PlayStation Plus is. Especially since the same month PS+ had Assassin's Creed III on the Instant Game Collection and Microsoft put Assassin's Creed II up. Both pretty good games but to me it looks like Microsoft are not putting the effort in to keep up with Sony.At the time of writing my preference of the two is PS+ has I feel it is more value for money than what Microsoft are offering. The only thing that I miss on PSN to XBL is the Chat system. If PSN had that on PS3 (like PS4 is to have) then would say I cannot fault it.
