Early on, Sony said the PlayStation 3 (PS3) "entitlements" will be something like the Xbox Live achievement system. However, it turns out this has been dropped on the design floor.
The lack of talk about this new achievement based system has left many game press saying "huh?" New announcements on the network-side of the PS3 said nothing about gamerscore like features and Wired Magazine, Gamespot and others are asking Sony what's up.
Jack Tretton, executive vice president of SCEA, told wired.com:
"We didn't mention that, but it is our intention that we would have it--although I think it would be game-centric. It's very difficult to draw analogies [between] your success on SOCOM and your success on Madden. Madden players care about people's success on Madden."
Not true Mr. Tretton. This has been proven on the Xbox Live service - if one took the time to see how Microsoft did it you would see that people do indeed care. Not only do they care, but it is, indeed, possible compare "apples to oranges." Is it sensible? Well, one must ask themselves "is it sensible to spend hours upon hours in front of the TV playing video games?"
He goes on to say:
"So the publisher [of each game] will have the flexibility to have a robust ranking system, on a game-by-game basis. The intention right now is not to have something that is pan-platform. We do intend to do that with our [first-party] stuff."
That might be read as saying "We don't have control over what our third-party companies will do because we made an open-ended network system. So everyone will do whatever they want."
Although, in theory, that sounds great, is that what we want in an all-in-one console gaming experience? It seems the working system is closed-box service model where a gaming experience is tightly integrated into the online service.
People like consistency and XBL is a fairly consistent model. For XBL the question is "is the game multi-player or single player?" while the rest of the XBL enabled features are predictable.
Every Xbox 360 game will contain achievement points and all games will be "live" on the network. However, not all games may be multiplayer. That's an easy concept to understand. But, to have each company do their own network model? For those that have played Fight Night Round 3 or any EA-centric game that uses the EA match-making system - you know what your in for with the PS3.
So, which system is better? A tight integration or an open-ended system that allows developers the creativity to design their own sub-systems and network services?
source: gamespot
