PS3 Online: How It Works Comments by Rob Fahey

Yeah, so let's go to the pub.

and then go to a checkout page where you proceed to make a sad face and empty the whole cart again, just like we do on Amazon about four times a week.

So, the only thing different about that wallet system is that it shows currency instead of MSpoints?

I'm a bit confused now, how does the whole Xfire thing fit into this? 0_o

Nice article. Actually something to get excited about. If it really can be as good as iTunes Store, with perhaps music and video in the future - All the more for my PSP, I'll be a happy customer.

Xerx3s: Xfire is just for Untold Legends, it's just for chatting to other Xfire users in that game. SOE stated it is because their customers play PC-games a lot and want to talk to their friends.

@LeDilettante

Hopefully the paid for content aspect of online gaming will help with that (and its not unique to Sony obviously).

In other words, to get people buying your content you need to keep them interested in playing your game. One way to do that is to ensure that your servers are up to the task. If people stop playing your game due to poor server performance, you will have a hard time convincing them to buy additional maps (or whatever).

Same with subscriber games. If your support blows, people stop subscribing.

Thats one thought on the subject anyway, but certainly not the limit. The core concept is that quality sells and disappointment does not.

If most games are free to play online, then that's a huge advantage and system seller over XBL. Big enough to make the PS3 the online platform of choice, though performance will have to be good too.

Not when you have to buy all the tracks, cars and other components separately.

The word free seems to have the same effect on gamers as a flame on mosquito's. There is no such thing as free. Someone has to pay and neither sony nor the dev's are going to pick up the bill for hosting great servers long after the game sales have slumped.

Nice article, and an oddly interesting comments section(for the most part) to go with it for a change.

I still can't see myself bothering with online gaming in the near future though.

thats a hell of a big article for such a small bit of news

o_O

Where did this come from?

Finally ... Sony's Wallet was one of the things I hoped for so I don't have to give my credit card details to every company I'd buy stuff from.

thats a hell of a big article for such a small bit of news

Sounds like EG on the jazz again...

Finally ... Sony's Wallet was one of the things I hoped for so I don't have to give my credit card details to every company I'd buy stuff from.

But how is money going to get into that "Wallet"? In the end it's exactly the same as with Nintendo- or Microsoft-Points, or is there some difference I'm missing?

After hearing nothing for a long time it's nice to finally get some solid info and good stuff too. Roll on March 07 :)

@MadMirko

It just adds a little more transparency to the pricing, as opposed to euphamising the money away as being already spent (altough it still is already spent) and converted to points that you may as well spend. At least you have an instant knowledge how much you have spent rather than converting some arbitrary points system.

Having a one-click option whoever you're buying DLC from is a plus, too, even though I'm still a bit dark on the idea of DLC. Seeing real-money prices may lead to a more sensible spending attitude, as it does when I see the prices of ringtones/games I might want for my phone, and think again when I see the amount that will be on my next bill.

thanks for that unbiast view on sony's service rob, unlike some of your counter parts at eg :P

Very happy that things are looking up for the online service. There's been alot of speculation, and I hope that any unanswered questions will be answered soon.

Glad about the local currency prices aswell.

I don't know about rest of you (except the Xbox fanbois), but I don't see any reason why Sony would fail with the system. It sounds like a really simple and good online scheme with some proven formulas (yeah, they're borrowed from some others, so what) and some new stuff.

Now we'll just have to wait and see how people will react to it when they use it.

I especially liked the fact that it has a web browser and that the console supports ANY USB keyboard. MS should take note and add these to Xbox 360 asap.

I know it's less than ideal that a Gold subscription on XBox Live cost$, but I do like the fact that there's at least a penalty to griefers (loss of their paid for account) when they're an ass on the service. With free online gameplay, shouldn't we expect online gaming on the PS netowrk to be even worse as far as decorum? If it's free, there's no punishment if you're a dick.

@Hughes

I see. I wonder if this is going to affect sales. As you said, it may (psychologically) be easier to spend 100 points on something than 1€. It will be interesting to see how prices compare across the globe. Will everything cost a different amount of local currency, or is 1 $ = 1€ = 100 Yen = 85 Rand, and so on?

I don't know yet, I haven't played around Live too much, but I think I prefer the point system.

DLC makes me a little nervous. If it's going to take off like ringtones you'll get a full price game with half the content it would have if DLC didn't exist. I'm also a little afraid of DRM issues. Will I get to keep my content across consoles, so when the first PS3 breaks, or when I have to delete something when the hard drive is full, will I be able to download my stuff again? Can I take my content to a friend, can I loan it to someone while I'm playing with something else? Can I sell it again?

The current attitude of the content and media makes me think the answer is a NO, and that's a major argument against DLC in the virtual vs. physical debate.

"The core concept is that quality sells and disappointment does not. "

And a very noble concept it is too, however you have to wonder how this fits in with Sony's "apparent" ideology that it's "Playstation" as a brand that sells. They really need to make sure that the DLC comes thick and fast and is of a high quality, if this is to work.

Now, as some people on here are probably aware I'm a Sony "sceptic" through and through and a recent convert to Xbox360, and if the Sony offering proves to be better than Microsofts offering, I'd be happy to switch. I just can't see it happening.

And I don't doubt for one second that there will be a 360 web browser added to the dashboard if Sony and Nintendo's ones prove popular, you can't deny that Microsoft has had some limited experience with web browsers in the past ;)

The pedant in me wishes to point out that Web 2.0 is a design concept/set of principles, and that it cannot be "supported" in the same way as web standards and technology. Though it's obvious what you mean.

@MadMirko

Sony keeping the money in the actual currency throughout the service is better, i know what you mean that psychological barrier to spend 100 points rather than knowingly spend £2 for example, but with people actually knowing what's what without having to translate it could help the overall DLC prices could go down rather than increase without us the consumers being totally oblivious.

I certainly wouldn't like it if I had to bid on Ebay using Ebay points.

And a very noble concept it is too, however you have to wonder how this fits in with Sony's "apparent" ideology that it's "Playstation" as a brand that sells. They really need to make sure that the DLC comes thick and fast and is of a high quality, if this is to work.

Sony would be comlpete idiots not to converge their movie and music business into the PS3 online service, particuarly the music industry where the retail music is getting raped from the likes of Itunes.

I have to agree that using real money is far superior to any company-specific currency. I'm really surprised that Microsoft went down this route. I'm not happy with it at all.

Steroyd, maybe you are right, but both systems do not have transparent prices and allow for much regional shafting.

If something costs 1000 points in a point based system, it might be you paid 10€ in Europe or only 5$CDN in Canada for those points.

If something costs 10 Yen in a currency based system, you might pay 3€ for it in Europe.

It's all up to the vendor and the local branch.

So in the end it might be of little consequence. Lower prices only come from competition, so whoever has the most companies offering DLC will likely have the lowest prices. The problem is, many if not all companies will have a monopoly on DLC for their games, so if the game proves popular they can can charge more and don't fear someone else undercutting them.

Somehow I have the feeling that us Europeans will pay more for evertyhing. Just out of principle.

PS3 fucking suuuucks!!!!
I joke of course,it all sounds surprisingly swell at the moment,and if the online multiplayer games come thick and fast next year,for free,that could be a mighty kick to the balls of Microsoft,who in my opinion would have no choice but to slash the price of Gold membership pretty darned rapidly.
I'd also much prefer to be using real money to purchase things rather than those darned MS points,so that's another plus to the PS3 service.
But let's not all get too excited too quickly and start acting like the 360's online service is a thing of the past,there are probably like 50 people testing the PS3's online service right now,and if it ran anything but bloody smoothly for these journo demos it would be rather worrying,let's all see how well it runs when there are thousands of users logged on buying things,net browsing,and playing games before declaring the service an amazing success.

You can buy MS point cards in most gaming shops.

If i've got a kid who plays resistance online and wants to download content, I'm gonna feel a lot better about giving him a £5 and telling him to pick some gamerpoints up from GAME, rather giving him my credit card details to add to his online wallet.

you didn't read that article did you?

Equally, you can set it up so that if you have associated accounts, for children for example, you can put a certain amount into their Wallets each month, giving them an allowance for how much can be spent on new content.

You don't have to give little timmy you're credit card details, you could just transfer the money into his account, the equivalent of giving him a fiver without letting him access to where you got the fiver from.

I can sort of see where Wonga is coming from. But why can't I just go into a store, and 'top up' my Xbox Live account like I do with a mobile phone? Why all this points malarky? I can see the value of being able to avoid credit card payments altogether, by utilising retail and cash payments, sure. I think it's a great idea. But why can't everything just be monetised? If Vodafone can do it.....

One thing that the Live subcription ensures though, is relatively good and level server performance. Even then, some games suffer from lag due to shoddy netcode.

I think you're critically misunderstanding the Live service. The incredibly vast majority of Xbox 360 games use peer to peer networking - there are no game "servers" as such. You set up a game, and it's hosted on your machine. For games where this isn't the case, Microsoft does have hosting centres for the games (just as I believe Sony does). In Sony's case, publishers have the option of just using another provider for their hosting. There's no gigantic central server farm where all Xbox games are hosted or any such thing.

If i've got a kid who plays resistance online and wants to download content, I'm gonna feel a lot better about giving him a £5 and telling him to pick some gamerpoints up from GAME, rather than giving him my credit card details to add to his online wallet.

So instead, you just add a fiver to his online wallet from yours, using the Master account system. I don't really see the difference, except that one isn't a physical transaction. Of course if you're a parent whose kid has a PS3 and you don't know shit about how it works, that's a bigger issue. I'd guess that Sony will do prepay cards for that situation, just like every other service provider does.

The Master account thing sounds the equivalent of being an administrator on a computer.

Plus it sounds like you can transfer money down from the master account, it depends how much control you're bothered to have really.

Best article ever. Infromative and unbiased (which is shocking when it comes to PS3 news nowadays).
Thanks a lot EG!

This shows me why Sony has been so arrogant lately. They simply have an amazing product here and once this is out with all these amazing fetures and games, no one will care about the delays, the price etc. Not to mention Sony has a good name in movies AND music so their store should be 'buzzing'.

I am simply at awe at how well Sony is running their PS brand. Don't worry about Sony going broke, their software sales alone make them the richest company in the gaming. Not to mention over 100 Million PS consoles sold and over 400 Million controllers sold.

This all sounds very exciting but one thing I do agree on is- Will the online games run well? And I am sure greedy companies such as EA will charge us for online play as they did with Fight Night Round on PSP (although all the other PSP games are free to play online).

And we are losing some features (as for my understanding) such as inviting friends to join your server, sending messages in game etc...I think that's why Sony made a deal with Xfire so they can implement these features into games.

If everything runs as planned.....I think the word "Perfect" won't be far off to describe Sony's online plan.
As a consumer, I am very pleased.

Thank you Sony.

Bloody hell eurogamer, when will you ever notice the difference between "sports" and "supports". You make this error everytime and it pisses me off. Sort it out please

THANK YOU SONY! GOD BLESS YOU!!!

Slow your roll, God can only bless America.

Bloody hell eurogamer, when will you ever notice the difference between "sports" and "supports". You make this error everytime and it pisses me off. Sort it out please

Sorry to disappoint, but I didn't actually make an error there. It's perfectly acceptable to use "sports" in that context, and it's not a synonym for support or intended as such - the closest synonym would be "boasts".

gosh-darned grammar Nazis...

Hmmm

Nicely written though Rob.

Im not surprised by this, many ppl on the net has been negative about Sony's online service and their NDA, but Sony remains silent until they are ready as always.
The magic word "free" will get loads of people to use it IF the service runs smoothly and without major problems.

Good article EG!

And thanks to all in here for keeping this thread cool:)

Shinji not got any complaints about your article, only your comment here on Live server fees... it's not quite as simple as MS has just set up live as a peer to peer network and charged for it(its a tightly closed and secure network for gaming, on MS consoles only... although this will change when Live Anywhere rolls out, Im not sure how well that will work out but we will see what Vista and the first games to use it such as Shadowrun bring us), to cash in while there is no competition. No there are plenty of server fees to be paid and MS are the ones who spent billions(apparently) setting the infrastructure up, before the service even rolled out. Now if Sony can match the Live service for free then fair enough(but like you say many are skeptical), but I feel if that is indeed what they are aiming for then they must have done something differently(because we know Sony dont like to take losses at all) and maybe people may notice that(... unless they havent played live, perhaps it will fall short for some gamers, I'm not buying the idea of them taking a risk of hoping to make just enough back on the content sold).

great article positivly written and helps convince me not to rule the console out entirely

whoever said ' who wants to browse the web from their tv '



oh dear me... honestly at the moment im considering cancelling sky and just using the htpc. tv card in there for uk freeview and recording, american tv guide linked and a torrent client. ip tv is the future. even my lass is now convinced after i've shown her how to use it all.

the article also stresses that the online war has ended and most people don't want to play online... honestly i can't play single games anymore

just cant play em. playing the cpu is like playing tennis against one of those ball gun things, just f-ing pointless. first thing i did when i switched this pc on (my lass is downstairs watching bones or summik downloaded, its not legal but what ever) first thing i did was connect to vent so i could talk to people i know.

the social aspect of gaming is the main draw for me, however all the consoles seem determined to isolate gamers to their service. why on earth can they not just share a common platform? if content really is king then it shouldnt bloody matter anyway.

Question for EG staff (Shinji?) - When you are playing a game, can you communicate with other players in the game through voice/vid/text chat? Is this up to the devs of the game (as I assumed)? Is the lack of text communication only related to people on different servers in games?

@Psi

360, Wii, PS3 and PC owners all being able to play against each other would be truly fantastic. I doubt we'll see it this generation, but maybe the next, eh?

The pedant in me wishes to point out that Web 2.0 is a design concept/set of principles, and that it cannot be "supported" in the same way as web standards and technology. Though it's obvious what you mean.

Hush. Sony almost managed not to bs us, such a small thing should be forgiven. ;)

You can buy MS point cards in most gaming shops.

But the question is: Do YOU want to? eh? EH?! DO YOU REALLY?!!

/gives gremmi the evil eye

Whatever sony do, microsoft will better it.

Argh, MN mentioned this on his blog!
Let the invasion begin... :\

Whatever sony do, microsoft will better it.

Really, do enlighten me on what they do so much better than Sony other than online?

This whole article is about how online is where it's at, and you just admited that M$ do "online" beter than $ony LOL

Aren't you supposed to be a sony fanboy?

"as the operating system doesn't take resources away from games in order to do that"
Conjecture or confirmed? Seems like the former.

That's what I call an informative article. Nice job.

Free Multiplayer sounds cool. But Sony still has to proove they can put all their tech to good use. PSP had some of these things (browser, direct download of content, a shop to buy content from) for some time now but Sony isn't doing much with it. The latest demo in the PSP Store is from mid August. You can't buy a thing there, it's all free demos, wallpapers, promo-clips... So please get some cool content up there. Xbox Live did a pretty good job releasing demos, video coverage from events and Live Arcade Games over the sommer slump.

Surely security is going to be a bit of a worry here. Live is a closed system, by adding a browser and exposing themselves to the web are Sony not asking themselves for a world of hurt here, who's going to supply the antivirus, anti spyware etc. and how many systems will be borked before they react to the inevitable first big infection? Ohter than that it sounds good (and very familiar). I don't like the no access to messages ingame but i'm sure that will be patched pretty quickly and would also be concerned at the quality of the shop on a SD TV.

One more thing for those complaing about the transparency of MS points. If i remember correctly the MS points system was done because credit cards have a minimum transaction value and they felt this would limit the pricing structure available to publishers (that said looking at the prices for the content so far that sounds more like "an excuse to" than a "reason for"). They should display a realtime conversion to your local currency when making a purchase.