Valve is continuing its U-turn on the console situation, once again praising the PlayStation 3 and diminishing the Xbox 360. Referring to Xbox Live as a trainwreck, studio head Gabe Newell has stated that Microsoft is going to have to change its online policies in order to compete.
"We thought that there would be something that would emerge, because we figured it was a sort of untenable," says Newell when talking about Xbox Live's software update policies. "Oh yeah, we understand that these are the rules now, but it's such a train wreck that something will have to change.
"That's why we're really happy with the current situation with the PS3. We're solving it now in a way that is going to work for our customers, rather than assuming something is going to emerge later that will allow us to fix this."
Despite the backtracking nature of Valve's recent comments, I have to agree with Gabe. The needless restrictions and regulations that Microsoft demands with Xbox Live borders on the silly, especially on a service that has the nerve to ask for a subscription fee. It'd be nice to think MS changes the rules, but with so many people still willing to give Microsoft the money, one can't expect things to change soon.
Interview: Valve on 13 things they’ve failed at [PC Gamer via CVG]
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
1:20 PM on 09.09.2010
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Having no policies isn't better than having too many. People on PSN are essentially free to do whatever the hell they want to the game and system, until Sony realizes it and drops whatever feature they managed to exploit.
Yeah, that's so much better.
I'll take the free service with fewer racial-epithet-spouting 12-year-olds any day. On top of that, the only "removed" feature I can think of is the Other OS option, which I'll agree was a terrible decision. If you're going to accuse a system of bolstering game-manipulating hacks, it's going to be the long-since cracked 360 that you want to direct your anger at.
And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
So basically echoing what Gabe said when/if the trainwreck stops working MS will go back an fix it up and claim they "innovated" and they "revolutionized" and act like nothing had happened.
True, but at least you won't get banned from the PlayStation Network if Sony doesn't like the name of your town, right? :P
I haven't come across anything on 360 that wasn't immediately dealt with within a matter of days. The only common hack that people actually use is the ability to burn games to a disc, which doesn't affect me at all. PS3 also nerfed the USB support in addition to dropping OtherOS. There were some smaller things they removed, I honestly don't remember what they even are anymore.
And enough with that bullshit '12 year old' argument. The only reason anyone hears it on XBL is because the 360 comes with a mic. Those same dipshits inhabit PSN in equal numbers, they just don't have mics. And god forbid you learn where the 'mute' button is.
Here come the 360 Fanboys with their damage control.
/sirens
I've never played on live without plenty of them.
More mature community, more freedom for developers, more games with dedicated servers, allowing plenty of free updates, and to top it all off it's free!
I love my ps3 and it's brilliant psn.
*Looks at name*
*Looks at comment*
Troll.
If Sony gave everyone a mic in the box, I'd safely wager that PSN isn't very different from Live.
As a gamer, there is not arguing the free service by Sony is simply better value for money and the best option for developers.
It's unfortunate that Xbox Live works so much better on the user's end than PSN, since apparently PSN works so much better on the developer's end.
Exactly. You win.
Although I will say having RBN on Live kind of opened my eyes to what Live can be. There probably won't be many services like it but if MS really wanted to that's a prime example of a channel through which user created mods and such could really come efficiently to consoles. That would be a huge deal and a huge plus for developers.
And for whatever the reasons may be (it's still unclear whether Sony is to blame or HMX, we just know it's no fault of Microsoft) that's a service that seems to only work well on Live.
I find myself liking Live and conversely wanting to like PSN. Not that I don't like it or don't see the merits behind it it's just a personal preference. Especially for the types of games I play (music games, arcade games, American RPGs, etc.) which rely less so on online play and moreso on content stream I just like Live more. Not to discredit PSN, which can do all that fine, but the hokey stuff like online multiplayer I couldn't give a crap about.
The only thing that really, really, really gets to me about Live is the wait for demos if you're on Silver but rarely does a demo come along that I have to play day one. The whole paying for Gold business doesn't bother me either. Online multiplayer is not a standard. It's a service. Unless you're on PC. That's a whole 'nother playing field.
Are XBL gamers homophobic and foul mouthed? Regardless, i'm glad that the PSN community are not that way.
Jim, as someone that posts free App Store games frequently, I'm sure you are quite comfortable with a distribution system that has draconian regulations.
As a developer, I have come to appreciate certain levels of regulation. Standard APIs can be a godsend as long as they are feature rich. It saves development time and makes hooking into interfaces MUCH easier.
"And for whatever the reasons may be (it's still unclear whether Sony is to blame or HMX, we just know it's no fault of Microsoft) that's a service that seems to only work well on Live."
RBN's certification and submission process was built on the back of Microsoft's XNA system which was set up for the community indie games (which is why you need an XNA membership to work in RBN). They basically retooled the process to work for submitting/playtesting songs instead of games. Since Sony doesn't have anything like XNA at the moment, it makes RBN pretty much impossible over there for the time being.
That said, FFXI was good and had a great selection of people. I guess it's mainly gonna be the FPS and more kid-friendly games.
Really? Just look at how well the EVIL GAIJIN XBOX 360 is selling in Japan.
He's talking about the developer rules and regulations.
For example there are size limits, there's the cut MS gets out of hosting your stuff, there's a whole bunch of rules. I wish I could you them all but they're there.
PSN has rules too but they're not as strict and fairly obvious.
The consumer ToS is ridiculous but that's really only because people asked for it to be so ridiculous. When little kids started going around yelling "FAG!" in every Live match everyone got annoyed and bitched to MS who has henceforth been the overprotective stepfathers of all of Xbox Live.
Also, I'm still not sure why Xbox Live is $40 superior than PSN, despite reading that it is every day in Destructoid replies.
The argument that there are more racists on XBL than the PS3 is one of the lamest fanboy fueled diatribes I have ever heard.
I have never seen anyone use KKK as their clan tag on a XBL MW2 game but I have on the PSN multiple times. If the PSN had headsets and voicechat there would be just as much racist nonsense going on if not more seeing as sony doesn't really censor anything on their network.
As opposed to on XBL when you're relieved whenever someone DOESN'T have a mic.
But Sony could if they wanted to. It's not a terribly rigorous system save whatever differences in coding might be there.
That's what has me curious. Because to my understanding Harmonix has talked to Sony about instituting some kind of system and Sony has turned them down.
That's the most popular story anyway. There are others that say Harmonix just doesn't care since most of their audience is on Live anyway. I have a hard believing that but maybe I just don't want to.
Anyway, this back tracking and talking trash on xbox live is kind of making me lose interest in what he has to say. Kind of spineless.