Why the PlayStation Network is still flawed
Let me first say that I have been a fan of the Sony PlayStation since it first came out and I’ve given Sony a lot of slack seeing as they are playing major catch up here. The PlayStation 2 came out before everyone realized that this online thing was important, so the XBox had a huge advantage getting late into the game. XBox Live is indeed the bar right now in online gaming on the console. Sony has come a long way towards catching up, but still has a long way to go. The ingame XMB is a big start, but here is what I see as the big drawbacks still
- Very few games support the 2.41 features (trophies and custom soundtracks).
- Downloads don’t continue during much of the activities (Watching DVDs, BDs, while turned off)
- The PSN PID is a start, but no XML status feeds exposed to the public internet, so no real time badges, or web2.0 mashup services (like mygamercard.net)
- Better than XBox 360 media support, but still very incomplete. (MKV, various DiVX profiles, various h.264 profiles unsupported)
- The video store is a good start but the selection is weak, and there is no point when I have a NetFlix subscription. A monthly subscription model would go a long way here.
- Content, while the XBLA gets games like Geometry Wars, and Braid, and to date there are no really notable 3rd party PSN titles. Sony truly needs to fix this. Home is not going to satiate us, we want content.
- Japan gets a ton of PS1 titles on the PSN, we have what, 7? The only one we have that I care about would be Castlevania SOTN, the rest are lame. We want more.
- Better “what you are doing” support. It only shows what game you are playing. I spend most of the time watching movies. It would be nice for my friends to know what I was watching or listening to.
- The web browser is pretty sucky, the flash player is total crap. Having YouTube and maybe even Hulu support right from the XMB would be excellent.
I love the PlayStaton 3, I use it for hours a day… to watch videos… There have been a few really amazing titles for the platform, and a few more are coming out but for the most part I spend much more time using the PlayStation 3 as a media platform than a game platform. There have been very few PSN titles worth mentioning, versus the number of times that I am sad that I don’t have XBLA.
Come on Sony, please. This isn’t a huge laundry list, you can do even if you have to beg borrow and steal from XBL.
That is the bar you have to reach.
Tags: PlayStation 3