Sony: PSN No Longer Playing “Catch up” With Xbox Live
Sony Computer Entertainment America’s director of PSN Operations, Eric Lempel, recently stated that the PlayStation Network is no longer playing “catch up” to Xbox Live, and currently offers items and services that do not exist on XBL.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of ‘catch up’ [with XBL] any more. In some cases, I think we’ve got more, and we’ve got some other things they don’t have,” Lempel said, speaking to Industry Gamers.
“In terms of strengths, of course we’re still free, and we’re giving you a lot for free. It’s not just free online gaming, but we’ve got PlayStation Home, which is a massive community and application that’s totally free to use.
“I think there’s a lot we’re doing that in some cases they’re not doing, and I don’t see a lot of things they’re doing that we’re not,” adding.
Lempel then went on to clarify that Sony does not want future PSP software and games to be transformed into something like the App Store, which is used for the iTouch and iPhone.
“Right now our free catalogue consists of demos, wallpapers, themes and videos about games. I don’t think we want to degrade the experience you get from a PSP. Because [iPhone] is not a gaming-centric device, I think a user picks it up and says, ‘This is kind of dumb, but I don’t care because I know this device wasn’t intended for games.’
“I want to make sure we uphold the quality of games on PSN; that doesn’t mean they can’t be shorter or quirky but we don’t want to see a bunch of little things that don’t quite make sense or provide a good experience because I think that takes away from what the device is intended for.”
Finally, Lempel added that Sony currently has no plans to offer a PS3 Games-on-Demand service, similar to the one that Microsoft announced at this year’s E3. This is due in large part to the enormous amount of space PS3 games typically require.
[Source]
14 Responses to “Sony: PSN No Longer Playing “Catch up” With Xbox Live”
Just give us more avatars and you’ll be the best . This is getting silly , seriously , they are just pics from 20 to 40 KB what the heck .
There it is “Official” PSN has more for free than XBL has for $50!!!!
Short of cross game voice chat, (being worked on) and built in cross game invite system standard on all games… there just isn’t much that Xbox Live Gold offers.
I mean in resident evil I can invite someone by selecting their username and clicking “Invite”
In BlazBlue all i have to do is press R2
Killzone 2 has options to let you jump into their game.
Resistance 2 has the ability to form a party with them that let’s you stay connected
The text chat option is a great addition (especially since I lost my voice right now)
So… is the Party system really THAT much better than the PSN system? I mean of course if you have 8 people that you plan on jumping from game to game with… ya it might be beneficial. Home launching is almost up to snub with that though. Meet in a Clubhouse (5 dollars versus 30-50 a huge difference) then gamelaunch. When someone quits they’ll go back to the clubhouse even if no on else is online.
So…at this stage the PS3 is pretty much about equal. Yes there are some games that would be nice to support a few more features. Game Launching would be great for RocK band 2, and it would be awesome to unlock a trophy in it and get an in Home reward.
Next year though it’s likely that the PS3 free service will be BETTER than Xbox Live Gold except in a situation where you have 7 other friends you want to play with in any game you pop in without dealing with slight variations in game joining options….
Of course some people won’t be happy having to go into Home for Game Launching but if Sony gives us the ability to watch videos on our PS3 through the t.v. service, including a content streaming capability from a PC, then there’s very little to want to do OUTSIDE of Home anyway. We just need those games to be game launching compatible.
Yes the party system is much more robust, but the fact that you have to pay for live and ms has ads all over the nxe is terrible. The nxe is a mess to find what you want on live and annoying seeing all these stupid profiles on xbl players I don’t give a rats a$$ about, oh the gamer chix have cod cheats, yay!
The only other thing live has going for it is that it has more people playing games online (due to a larger console install base) but half of those people are kids playing. Ill stick with the psn where more adults play online, I hate hearing stupid kids on xbl blabbing on about how cool they are.
i think they should change the dashboard and the psn store a little bit
I’m a big PS fan, but I can’t agree with these statments at all. I really don’t see anything PSN has over XBL other than being free and Home. Everything else is not even close.
@ smokey_vols: Yeah, I agree completely.
all I have to say is IT’S FREE!! I can play online and get demos and DLC…what else is there? I could not care less about all those other stupid little features that XBLA has, especially cross game chat because no one has anything important to say ever anyway. If they do have something important to say it can wait until we’re done playing games and they can call me, and if they don’t have my phone number then I probably don’t want to hear what they have to say anyway. So in other words, PSN has everything I want and I would NEVER never EVER pay for XBLA or PSN if they created an extended service.
@SPD55 l agree, $50 my butt l can use that to buy a game
Cross voice chat is overated..
how many people will actually use that? Everyone i know with a 360 don’t use it. Especially if your trying to concentrate on a game say a FPS.
glad to see they are getting cocky again
When PSN get Cross invite and Cross party chat then it will be on Xbl level..If they added this this year what a price drop its a wrap for Xbox…
@giese095 – agree
I could never imagine using cross-game chat. Are people’s attention spans really so short they can’t even stay interested in a game unless it’s accompanied by inane prattle? Good grief.