Let’s be friends? Ok.. Maybe not..

I don’t know if I’m the only one that thinks this way but hell, I’m saying it anyway. Imagine a virtual world in an online game lobby with say, six of your pals. Nothing exciting or interesting about that though is there, well how about we say that three of these friends are playing on their Xbox 360 and the other three, on their Playstation 3. Somehow Sony and Microsoft came to an agreement that owners of either console could connect online with one another and game as if they were gaming with fellow owners of their particular console.

Unfortunately that was quite clearly, a fantasy world. When anyone I know is looking to buy a console, they like to know people that are already using it so they can be sure that they’ll have someone to game with and such. It actually tips the scales a good bit and is usually one of the main deciding factors in the purchase of one of the next-gen consoles for a gamer that takes it more seriously. I would personally say I know a lot more people at school that own a 360 rather than a PS3 – so that has already turned a few opinions on which new console they’ll be buying. I’m not in any way saying this is the only reason though, loads of other things contribute to the buying of a certain console, especially the exclusive games.

Yet with the likes of COD4 in my Xbox 360 disk-drive, I’ll be on the phone to my friend who is also on COD4. One problem though, they’re on a PS3 and don’t own a 360. So unless we go over to one another’s house and play a little split-screen, we can’t game against one another. Also with me not being such a big fan of split-screen, that’s not usually my favourite option. But anyway the whole point is, if PSN and Xbox Live conjoined into one massive game networking system, the possibilities would be endless! Clan matches could take place between both 360 clans and PS3 clans for example. Console-exclusive games clearly wouldn’t be playable by both but on games such as COD4 the idea would work well. But then we have loads of problems with this whole idea. Firstly and most recognizably being the fact that the chances of Microsoft and Sony agreeing to such a thing would be extremely unlikely and also the price differences of playing online. They’d probably have to just go free for both consoles or put a price on PSN.


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11 responses to “Let’s be friends? Ok.. Maybe not..”

  1. Vice Destroyer avatar
    Vice Destroyer

    Xbox Live and PSN joingin together to allow people to play, regardless of console? It’s a nice thought. But can you imagine what conversations would be like? At the moment, a conversation with a stranger consists of insults over a range of subjects like race, sexuality and ability. Join them together and we’ll be able to have another place to have fanboy arguments.

    Careful what you wish for?

  2. Paige avatar
    Paige

    Yeah, there’s plenty of problems as I said but thought I may as well put the thought out there really..

  3. John avatar

    It’s a nice thought.. it should even be (reasonably) technically feasible after all data-flow is just data-flow and shouldn’t be dependent upon source system. The only people we have to convince are the nice Marketing people in Sony’s and Microsoft’s console divisions. Tell you what, you get them in a room and I’ll do the shouting! 🙂

  4. theBlackHalo avatar
    theBlackHalo

    The concept certainly is delightful one Paige, who knows, maybe, just maybe, one day, soon, i hope.

    I never thought i’d see Mario and Sonic together in a game… so with that in mind…

  5. Laura avatar
    Laura

    It would be fantastic! I’ve thought about this a good few times. You never know we could have a clash of the fanboys/girls coming soon to a console near you lol.
    Microsoft and Sony may have to develop some kind of relationship soon over the Blu-Ray player and I always considered that having one in a 360 would sort of make Microsoft Sony’s bitch, but if they were to chuck a bit of online compatibility in to the deal Microsoft could make out like they’re using their years of experience with online gaming as a sort of trade maybe???

  6. NorfolkNChance avatar
    NorfolkNChance

    I was going to go on about the technical ins & outs and other factors, but my girlfriend put it more simply: Why don’t you put the other console you don’t have on your Christmas list?

  7. Paige avatar
    Paige

    Fact is, I do have the other console but if I have 3 friends online and one’s on the PS3 and one’s on the 360, it doesn’t work now does it xD

  8. NorfolkNChance avatar
    NorfolkNChance

    Well what my friends and I do is we all canvas each others opinion on the “next big thing” for which platform we’re going to get it on so we can all play together. When COD4 came out, we decided to go with the the 360 version so that we all could play together.

  9. Colonel Finn avatar
    Colonel Finn

    I have the same problem, my brother is a staunch 360 man, whereas I have both Nu Gen systems and he gets very irked when I get a PS3 game that he wants to play me at online.
    If they all worked together it’d be fantastic, sadly this would never happen, the technical logistics of it are probably too complicated to make the xboxes and Playstations talk to each other.
    I mean Microsoft currently can barely even get PCs and Xboxes to play a game together, can you imagine throwing Sony into that mix? It’s be utter chaos.

  10. TM Brock avatar
    TM Brock

    Sounds pretty awsome and i am sure that many people would agree. Howeveri have to agree with ‘vice destroyer’ because people seem to love having rants about their consolses being better than others. Then again it would be pretty cool
    🙂

  11. mca45 avatar
    mca45

    Awesome thought, but i think that all consoles should be combined, the wii’s fun, the xbox’s online play and the ps3’s……graphics

    It would mean only buying one games console, it would be compatible with all previous games and like a pc, you could buy upgrades from a shop and DIY.

    Never gonna happen….but a nice thought…

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