Why is PS3 online free and xboxlive not?

Those are some good points Deaco but you seem to be overlooking one key thing that makes a big dent in 360 and particularly PC sales revenue that the PS3 has so far managed to avoid; piracy. I would be willing to wager the money lost through piracy on either of those platforms far outstrips that of the cost of bandwidth Sony are asking. I'm certain developers will not overlook the fact that no one will be pirating their games on the PS3.

Maybe if (when?) piracy becomes possible on the PS3 Sony will have to do more to make their platform appealing to developers, but until then they've got a pretty damn good selling point.
 
That is a very good comment and I had completely overlooked it, I assumed (guessing wrongly) that the PS3 had been pretty much hacked? Only recently bought a PS3 and I'm glad the MP is free I have to say I don't fancy paying for both, just a shame there seems to be a lot less demos on the PS3.

But yeah will have to have a quick read of piracy and the PS3 because yeah that is a big selling point/
 
So far afaik it's impossible to pirate disk games on the PS3, i have heard rumours of it being possible to somehow copy PSN games onto your harddrive however i am yet to see any proof of this.
 
Deaco said:
You are talking abot a PS3 exclusive game going the effort of setting up it's own content delivery system, not many developers will goto the trouble of that especially when content on the 360 doesn't cost the publisher a thing (bar their console liscence fees) and the PC doesn't cost publishers a thing either due to places like fileplanet and other delivery system (which you usually have to subscribe for to get the best download speed due to bandwidth costs).
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If cost was an issue then I'm sure more of them would set up their own systems, and as I said I don't think there's any evidence to suggest developers are rethinking their digital distribution plans as a result of these PSN bandwidth costs so clearly it isn't an issue.

I'd personally like to see some evidence that it is provided absolutely free to the developers on Xbox but there doesn't seem to be much information available on the subject.

Again PC isn't entirely free, most developers provide match making or master server list servers at cost to themselves, but they may get community support for patch distribution etc. On Games for Windows Live no one is paying monthly subs there, so who is paying the bandwidth costs. Microsoft out of the goodness of their hearts? :)
 
I hate live. Before any1 jumps me, hear me out. IMO mltiplayer should always be free. If you have to pay it should be for a dedicated server that you control, pc gamer roots cominng out. They have turned the xbox and consoles into coin ops. Short games at full price with promised DLC which feels like it should have been in the game to start with. I hate it for what it represents not for the service it provides, £40 is cheap for a year but that is not the issue.
 
NO i payed for a deicated server when i was into mohaa and bf2 or cod. Total control of what happened there. And didn't have to pay to play multi, thats is my gripe, you don't have an option, with live you have to pay.
 
andshrew said:
I think in reality though it makes very little difference as developers have always paid their bandwidth costs on other platforms, so this isn't causing them to reconsider releasing demo's or DLC on PSN. Their also not forced to distribute over Sony's network if they don't want to pay these costs, and are seemingly free to do it entirely theirselves hence why we've seen some games which use their own patching systems based on bittorrent to distribute large content updates (Metal Gear Online for example).

I can't see Microsoft dropping the fee anytime soon as long as the "it's only £25 per year" attitude remains. People are happy to pay for very little, so it's easy money for them. Who can blame them. :)
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MS also charge for things going on the marketplace AFAIK.

IIRC that was why some Gears (?) Content had to be paid for, as Epic said they wanted it released as free content, and MS said, fine, but you need to pay per download or sommit.
 
Sony would love to be able to charge a similar fee but for this generation they're locked into providing it for free because they've used it as a selling point for people who've already bought their system.

MS have only been making a modest profit this last year or so and Sony are hemorrhaging money so a monthly fee makes a lot of sense as you add more and more to your service.

With the next console Sony will have the Software infrastructure in place to rival MS (which they didn't when the PS3 was launched) and I've no doubt they'll introduce a subscription charge. In the mean time I've also no doubt they'll push Qore and start getting the dedicated to pay something.
 
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Sony is exploring methods of payment for services on the PSN.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/hirai-psn-subscription-a-possibility

As the PSN evolves it is becoming increasingly costly to maintain and run. The only reason Live costed money from the beginning is because it is a service that has a tremendous amount of content and features from the first day, as opposed to PSN on release which barely contained anything, and had a lot of features missing. This isn't the case anymore, and the PSN is slowly but surely catching up.

Guess who's going to foot the bill :) Personally I wouldn't mind paying for the PSN if it was priced roughly the same as Xbox Live. It just needs party and voice chat, amongst a couple of other features left to go.
 
elmuzzy66. said:
you taking about live on the 360 or old xbox? As the original live only had multplayer side to it.
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Well, seeing as the original Xbox Live is completely and totally irrelevant, and that the 360 and the PS3's services are directly competing with each other for the same target demographics, what do you think? :p
 
KNiVES said:
Sony is exploring methods of payment for services on the PSN.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/hirai-psn-subscription-a-possibility

Guess who's going to foot the bill :) Personally I wouldn't mind paying for the PSN if it was priced roughly the same as Xbox Live. It just needs party and voice chat, amongst a couple of other features left to go.
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I dont see it as a problem as already has been said a few times in this thread they arent removing features from the free service, this is going to quite nicely sit on top of that...

If its includes movie/game rentals then I might even be interested...

ps3ud0 :cool:
 
KNiVES said:
Well, seeing as the original Xbox Live is completely and totally irrelevant, and that the 360 and the PS3's services are directly competing with each other for the same target demographics, what do you think? :p
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Well you did say from the start of live:p, but you are right
 
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