Thoughts on Xbox Live and PSN

Recently I've been thinking about XBL and PSN. I had come to take them for granted over the last year in the case of PSN and five years (!) in the case of Live, but I helped my grandfather and father jump into the world of current generation gaming, and now it has kind of become a bigger issue. My grandfather wanted to buy a Blu-ray player, and while he won't play that many games, I encouraged him to buy a PlayStation3. My father on the other hand really likes the games that 360 has to offer (Halo 3 and COD 4 mostly, the PS3 shooters didn't trip his trigger) so he bought a 360. Both offer this ability to play and communicate on-line so it brought back memories of the debates over the merits of both.

Now don't get carried away, my dad and grandpa don't really care too much about these things, though my dad will get a kick out of getting owned on-line. Moreover I felt like when discussing these things with my dad I kind of felt like I was defending Live again over PSN. The list of benefits and deficiencies are great on both, but Live seems to get a bad wrap more for its cost. So I kind of outlined in my head how I felt on the whole 50 bucks a year.

I listen to a lot of podcasts and 1up yours seemed to have the most heated debate. Shane Bettenhausen and the other chairs disagreed on multiple occasions about which was better: Free PSN and 50 dollar Live. I used to get really angry when I would listen to this because the Live supporters don't argue the over the cost of Live, just what it offers in features. Something that gamers neglect is price, and I felt like schooling my dad on this very topic.

1) 50 bucks IS too much to spend for Live. I concur with all PSN and PC gaming fans that say $50 is too much for 13 months of Live. I like to start with this stance to kind of give the rest of my pointers a little credence. I also pont out that 13 months is my standard total for the service, which I'll explain.

2) Turn off auto-renewal for your subscription. Something that I seem to hear people complain about is that Live auto-renews, and it has made some of the blogosphere's headlines. Shutting it off is easy to do, and will prevent Microsoft from getting 50 bucks from you. It's actually more expensive to pay for a 12 month subscription on the service than a 13 months on the in-store cards.

3) In the same vein as above: Don't buy points ON the service. Buy them some other way. This leads in to the next recommendation...

4) Shop around. You may think what does this mean? I have yet to pay full price for ANY of my Live subs or points. From 5 years ago to today, I am always shopping around. I've discounted the sub cards at places like Target and Best Buy and the points cards at other places. It may take price matching, but it works. The last time I bought Microsoft points I got cards buy one, get one free. An awesome deal? Naw, some may say they're overpriced anyway, but now when someone says something costs too much on Arcade or Live, I think to myself "does it?". My points are worth twice as much now. It helps when I only end up paying 10-50% less for a year sub on the service as well.

5) Buy good content, leave the bad ones. Very little on XBLA has been free or reduced in price over time. Patience will pay off in the long run. Every purchase you make on the service is scrutinized and analyzed. Remember when you by a gamer pic or theme you make a statement. You also make one when you download all of the free stuff. I have heard in numerous places that Microsoft hates to post stuff for free on Live.

6) Lastly. Pass this kind of knowledge around. Gamers, as a group of consumers, are notorious for early adoption and spending too much. But I enjoy a game and Xbox Live as a service more when I pay less.

Now PSN has it's problems too, but you can make the best of them.

1) Another blog I frequent at UGO by Wombat seems to pick on Xbox Live for remainder points, but PSN has similar failings. PSN requires you to purchase "money" in 5 dollar blocks when adding to your wallet. No refunds. and while you're purchasing better priced material, you will inevitably end up with at least extra cents on your account. Maybe those pennies will add up?

2) The store on PSN sucks. It hasn't really improved that much either over the course of the year and a half. Where as you make statements with purchases, you also must make statements by providing feedback to Sony and MS. You can't just buy/not buy stuff on Sony Store, you'll actually have to make it known outside of rants on a message board.

3) Games are way bigger on PSN. Don't discount this. Xbox supports 16 players in most games, but the most popular games on PSN, Warhawk and Resistance, support way more. Keep this in mind.

4) It is free. No cost to use, so use it. Video conference, play the games and keep up with some friends.

I think what I'm really trying to get through is that Xbox Live and PSN are way closer in features when you can reduce the cost of Live. Maybe I've convinced my dad to not just go buy a sub on the service.