We still need a more friendly buddy list like XBL. My X360 hasnt been working for months and I've realised it something I've always taken for granted.
I was playing Unreal Tournament 3 (just imported it) and felt something was lacking when playing multiplayer. The game itself was perfect but it didnt have that "community" feel that X360 games have where I can chat to everyone (mainly because the X360 comes with a headset while the PS3 doesnt), look at people's gamertag, easily add people to my friends list, look up my previous opponents for rematches, get all my mates together for a multiplayer session with ease, etc.
I hope Playstation Home changes this but I still cant imagine it being better than Xbox Live.
I couldn't agree more - up until the XBL part at the end.
Trying to set up a match online with the PS3 feels like a huge effort - first you'd have to all meet up in the XMB chat to sort out what your playing. On XBL you'd do more or less the same but there you can continue your chat into the game. With the PS3 everyone has to leave the chat room - load up the game and search around for you until hopefully they find your game.
And then lets say with something like Fifa 08 - once the match ends you are all disconnected and then will have to quit the game and arrange a new match in the XMB chat!
It really does feel like the devs are looking at the 360 and thinking of ways to help gamers play --- and then on the ps3 they just throw in the most basic online coding - where at best they give us the options of ranked games or unranked games and that's your lot.
Warhawk has the great option of letting you have a buddies list and you can join their game with a press of the X button but not all games offer such ease at getting to play with your friends.
And i still can't believe we have region locked online games in this day and age!
Add to that my other problem with sony is the delay between game releases - on the 360 i was amazed with the almost simultaneous releases. If the USA got the game on a monday we'd get it the friday following.
I had always assumed that the stories about 'oh it takes time to translate the game' were true - But clearly if they could do it on the 360 it was without a doubt a load of shite.
The real truth is they just didn't want to hire more staff or spend more time doing the boring translating work.
I think Home will be great - i really cant see how they could balls it up - the idea is just sooo damn simple only a monkey could screw it up.
Let say they do get it right - i cant see then how XBL would be seen as a better option. You'd have a 3d world vs a menu based world.
BUT sony have already proved they have no idea about what gamers need in a console (give us more ram you cheap shits) and if its taken them say the 2 years the 360 has been on sale (to copy it from them) and the development time before then... so 2-3 years of development time and they still cant get in game XMB to work?
Something isn't quite right about that!
so i can see home launching and then sony coming out and saying "we never expected such a high volume of traffic on the home servers and that's why its glitchy, crashes, games are failing to load for party plays.
Or they announce home as free... but then we'll all find out only the very basic version is free and that it will be region locked