PlayStation 2 Celebrates One Year Online

Thanks to Yahoo! for hosting the Sony press release celebrating the first anniversary of the PlayStation 2 online adaptor, as well as new figures showing "more than 780,000 gamers with online connectivity." By comparison, a recent Taipei Times article says that Microsoft has 500,000 Xbox Live subscribers worldwide. The release stresses the differences between the PS2's 'open' philosophy and Xbox Live's more managed attitude, pointing out: "...the results of the open model approach include more than 20 publishers developing more than 50 titles for the PlayStation 2 platform by the year-end." Sony also trails the PS2 hard drive with regard to Final Fantasy XI, but hint at other uses, saying it "...further demonstrates the company's focus on extending the functionalities and capabilities of the PlayStation 2 for a total living room experience including games, movies and music."

Re:xbox live

[akudoi]

You're only half right. Sony doesn't charge you for every game individually. Many PS2 games dont require any monthly fee. Socom, Midnight Club 2, ATV Offroad Furry 2. The only games I know of that charge you for online play are the MMORPG's, which makes sence. Its exactly like the PC model for online play. You dont pay a monthly fee to play Half-Life online, do you? But you do for say, Everquest.

Unlike the Xbox where you have to pay a monthly fee to play ANY game online. Wether or not it is only 1 flat rate. You have to have live to play online.

Re:xbox live

[Yaztromo]

I own an Xbox and I used to own a ps2. I broke it and took it back to best buy under my service plan and got an xbox. It is sooooo much better as a gaming platform and the online gaming is superb. On the ps2 you get to pay a monthly fee for each game you play unless the publisher is nice enough to give you a flat rate for all the games from that publisher/cartel(sony).

Feel glad I just used up the rest of my modpoints. Otherwise, I would have rated this -1: Troll.

It's blatently false. Out of the (quoted) 50 PS2 titles that will support online gaming by the end of the year, only TWO will charge any sort of fee: FFXI, and Everquest Online Adventures. This is as opposed to the Xbox, where you can't play _any_ games without paying a monthly fee to Microsoft.

Oh and just to add...the ps2 only supports 5.1 in cutscenes whereas the xbox supports it ingame

This is also false. A number of PS2 titles support 5.1 surround via DTS encoding, wheras the Xbox only supports Dolby Digital encoding. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, SSX: Tricky, and NHL 2003 are three titles that support in-game DTS surround.

For someone who "used to own a PS2", you certainly don't know much about it, do you?

Yaz.

No true 5.1 DTS?

[Inoshiro]

The Xbox will let you use DTS DVDs and DTS cut scenes just like the PS2 will.

The PS2 DTS encoded games are only 4-point surround. Any 5.1 surround on the PS2 is done via Prologic 2 encoding, since those are the only 2 real-time surround formats available on the PS2 (barring some new algorithm for encoding audio).

Socom does PL2, as do most Sony 1st party releases from the past 8 months.

As for the online experience, well... you're getting more than just access to online servers with Live!. You're getting basic service guarantees and all that implies. Until Sony makes a real online service for their consoles, you can't really compare it to Live! since there is nothing else like Live! in the world. No one has complete, end-to-end control of hardware and software like this particular Microsoft service has.

It's like comparing the surround sound on the PS2 to the Xbox. There are 350 some Xbox titles, all of which support Dobly Digital. There are 500 or 600 PS2 titles, of which maybe 50 do surround sound at all (let alone real-time). You can't really compare that, since every single Xbox game guarantees surround sound support.

But all this talk of features ignores a major thing that people who don't own all the consoles (not just PS2/Xbox/GCN -- I mean all of them) ignore: you can't play features!

The PS2 is a great console because of its various exclusives, but the Xbox is also a great console because of its various exclusives. That the GameCube is a great console because of its exclusives goes without saying.

Games are what sell systems, not paper specs, not features. And comparing features that aren't comparable is the same as buying a PS3 because it pushes a bunch of polygons, even though there are no fucking games for it.

Re:"Online Connectivity"

[unclethursday]

And I do like Xbox's online system better, where you pay $50 yearly for all games (except one - PSO). With PS2 you pay per game, though some games are free, some are not.

There are only 3 games on the PS2, total worldwide, that charge per month, and only one of those is in North America right now. ALL the rest are free to play online.

Only EverQuest Online Adventures, Final Fantasy XI, and a golf game (I think it may be the Japanese version of Hot Shots Golf 4) charge to play online.

So three out of all of the online titles on the PS2 isn't quite the same as saying 'some charge and some don't.' It's more like most don't and a few do.

Besides, until the Live Now part of XBL launches, the 'services' you get with XBL hardly justify the cost. But the free long distance and conference call abilities of Live Now will definitly outweigh the cost of XBL, once it gets released.

Thursdae