25 replies to this topic

[Reaperman]

I don't really mean for this to be some kind of huge flame (as it would ordinarily be taken as on a healthier system's forum).  A lot of us dislike what's been going on for a variety of reasons, and I'm kind of wondering if the system has any real fans here at the moment.  And yes, you can only pick one response, which may make this a tough poll.

I tried to come up with a fair selection of responses, that I believe probably covers us all.
This is also (I think) my first poll--here or anywhere, so let me know if I'm wrong with how I've done this.

Edited by Reaperman, Fri Apr 29, 2011 8:54 AM.

[cimerians]

There's a difference for me. Offline games and the PS3 in and of itself is cool and I enjoy gaming on it.

DLC, downloadable games and PSN is a whole different story.

I voted: No my info is stolen and PSN is offline.

I'm pissed at the hackers still but I do know how bad Sony has been with their strange and ever changing online policies.

Lets see, here's a short list of happenings over the past few years:

- Allowing un-announced DRM and other DRM practices in there downloadable games. See the DRM thread here at Atari Age.
- The great Calender bug that rendered some PS3 systems almost entirely useless.
- Removing features. Not just the OtherOS, I can remember how the PS2 chip removal pissed many people off.

So No, I am NOT happy. All I ask for is a set of rules and for them to stick by them. Not change them or allow questionable practices by publishers.

[kroogur]

Not happy at all. I have very little DLC and rarely am online but the whole personal info angle has me pissed thats just sloppy. Thanks Sony  

[moycon]

I vote for other
No I've never been REALLY happy with the PS3 but not just for this situation, the system has been underwhelming from day 1.
Every few months something happens to make it even more so. From it's inflated cost due to Sony trying to force Blu on the masses, to 20-30 minute updates every couple months, to the lame online support (where's all the co-op titles on this state of the art machine?). The PS3 was a disappointment even before the grubby hackers got their hands in it. I really couldn't care less about otherOS or modding or homebrews on the PS3. I would be perfectly happy buying and using a video game console for what it was intended for.

The stolen data? Yeah that sucks. It's what happens when people are allowed to do whatever they want with your product.
I don't hate the PS3. The games I've played on it I've really enjoyed. Too much other goofy, unnecessary stuff going on with it.
Find a way to get rid of all that and you'd have a solid product.

[SpiceWare]

I voted yesish.  

The "yes" because my primary use for my PS3 is as a blu-ray player.  When I bought it, it was the least expensive player, plus Sony's been updating the firmware to support the newer blu-ray specs as they've evolved (the player profiles). Other players available at the time of my purchase don't support the latest profile.  That's been shown most recently with the addition of 3D support (though I don't need that at the moment as my current HDTV doesn't support 3D).

The ish is because of course I'm not happy with the PSN situation.  Normally a PSN outage wouldn't affect me, but this outage occurred just as my copy of Portal 2 arrived and I really wanted to play it on my Mac.

[cimerians]

SpiceWare, on Fri Apr 29, 2011 10:13 AM, said:

I voted yesish.  

The "yes" because my primary use for my PS3 is as a blu-ray player.  When I bought it, it was the least expensive player, plus Sony's been updating the firmware to support the newer blu-ray specs as they've evolved (the player profiles). Other players available at the time of my purchase don't support the latest profile.  That's been shown most recently with the addition of 3D support (though I don't need that at the moment as my current HDTV doesn't support 3D).

The ish is because of course I'm not happy with the PSN situation.  Normally a PSN outage wouldn't affect me, but this outage occurred just as my copy of Portal 2 arrived and I really wanted to play it on my Mac.

I'm one of those that loves blu-rays and I also have a huge hard-drive in my PS3 and I've been ripping my movies to MP4's and playing them off the drive. Very cool.

Also, offline gaming, game collections. Very cool.

PSN, online games, DLC, etc etc. Not cool at all.

Maybe the poll should have a middle ground of some type. Yes I'm happy with certain things and hate other things....

[VW]

I wanted to pick several of your no answers at once.  My beefs with the PS3 are as follows:

1.  I bought a launch model PS3 60GB.  It stopped reading discs 3 months after the warranty expired.  Sony wanted $150 to fix it, so I bought a replacement drive off of Ebay and did it myself but I thought that was an outrageous price.

2. Removing OtherOS.  I didn't care about OtherOS as I have a perfectly good linux computer but it is not cool to remove features from a device after you have bought it.  I don't have an issue with them removing the PS2 backwards compatibility from later PS3 models because at least people were aware of it when they bought them.

3. Disabling a lot of USB devices.  One of their firmware upgrades disabled my PS2->PS3 controller converter and a lot of other devices were disabled as well.  It's not like I got an illegal Hong Kong import, this was a converter I bought at CompUSA.

4.  No Cross game chat.  I don't know why they have such a problem implementing this.

5.  Constant firmware updates - After the PS3 encryption keys were published, I wish Sony would admit that ship has sailed.  But they persist with constant and annoying firmware updates that greatly inconvenience legal customers.  Sony's general attitude seems to be that annoying their paying customers is perfectly OK as long as they look like they are trying to stop hacking, which they aren't even doing.  You can make a strong case that removing OtherOS led to the PS3 being hacked wide open as it ticked everyone off.

I guess what I am trying to say is I am going to go back to PC/old games after this generation has run its course.

[Reaperman]

I suppose the #1 thing that bugs me is not actually the changing of firmware features, but the way modders have been hunted down with silly lawsuits, and had their equipment taken (surely to be returned after their bankruptcy-inducing trials in a million tiny baggies).  

Just keep the odd consoles from gaming on PSN (cheater prevention)--is that so hard?  Let folks play new games on their outdated (or modded) firmware, hell even let them into the store to buy things, but don't hunt down folks for just passing around information about the inner workings of the ps3.  It's kind of obvious now, but it looks like the whole problem with that idea was simply the 'keep illigitimate people off of psn' part.  Who'd have thought?

It's scary that so many legal systems allow these tactics to happen.  It's not about justice, it's about taking people's equipment away, shutting them up, and running them into the poor house.  Pure bullying.

Edited by Reaperman, Fri Apr 29, 2011 12:09 PM.

[SpiceWare]

cimerians, on Fri Apr 29, 2011 11:18 AM, said:

I also have a huge hard-drive in my PS3 and I've been ripping my movies to MP4's and playing them off the drive. Very cool.

When I was running out of room on my MacBook Pro, Fry's was having a sale on hard drives so I bought two 500 GB drives, one for it and one for the PS3.  Even with all that space, I tend to stream MP4s off my MacBook Pro via MediaLink.  I'd posted about that back in 2009.

[ATARI7800fan]

Nope, PSN is broken, has very few exclusive games, plus the blue ray player is only helpful if you have a big enough tv, did I forget to mention overpriced.

[retrogamesuk]

I'm sort of not happy but at the same time I don't really care, as it's given me time to catch up on some single player gaming, and on loads of retro gaming, also I only use them top up cards on PSN and XBLA, so the hackers can get anything from that, I know they have my name address etc, but the whole internet does if they time my name in.

*EDIT* Not through facebook

Edited by retrogamesuk, Fri Apr 29, 2011 1:13 PM.

[VW]

SpiceWare, on Fri Apr 29, 2011 12:33 PM, said:

When I was running out of room on my MacBook Pro, Fry's was having a sale on hard drives so I bought two 500 GB drives, one for it and one for the PS3.  Even with all that space, I tend to stream MP4s off my MacBook Pro via MediaLink.  I'd posted about that back in 2009.

To be fair and list something good, I love the fact that the PS3 can stream things from a media server, I have used a linux computer for my media server for a couple of years now and it works great.

[wood_jl]

I was a huge fan of PS1 and PS2, but the only reason I can think to own one, would be if they pulled the 360 from the market.  Broken Gran Turismo that had its ass handed to it by Forza.  That's about it, the only exclusive I was interested in SUCKS by comparison, the online has always been broken.  SUCK IT, Sony.

[Underball]

Love it. Great 2nd blu-ray player, great games, don't really give a shit about PSN, and never bought anything there anyway.Sucks that people's credit info might have been compromised, but that's really a likely possibility with any online service that allows you to save credit card info. I never save CC info wiht online vendors/in my browser cache. Now that I'm running custom firmware and working on coding for it, it has replaced my aging PS2/old Windows XP Athlon box as my primary means of media usage.

[Taskmaster99]

All in all i like it. So it is having a few blips right now....but things will straighten out. I like my 360 better.....but still have a place in my heart for the PS3.

[Chuplayer]

With the recent PSN break-in, I'm livid. I don't want to buy anything Sony ever again.

[Numan]

It's OK.  I like the free online service, so am not put off that it is down.  But, it looks like it was down due to some sloppiness on Sony's part.

[Tr3vor]

I'm in the other because i'm in the middle of "things will get better" and "online is filled with cheating assholes"

There is so many ways that this hacking went wrong for general consumers. When xbox360 was hacked, they didn't have any problems with people trying to get credit card information, or cheating. There is 10x more cheating going on on psn now than xbl. There wasn't really a difference untill this year.

screw you hackers. Period.  
screw you sony for not better safekeeping of personal info, otherwise your ok.

[liveinabin]

I'm fine with it. Companies are always going to get hacked (it could just as easily have been Xbox Live). This is the risk you take when you step on to the Internet. At least Sony are taking the time to make their service more robust.
Sure, I'd rather it hadn't happened but I'm sure hitting such a big target will land whatever idiots did it in major trouble. With any luck this'll send a message out to all the other losers in the world who will attack a service just because they're pissy at it.

[hex65000]

A little late to the party on this, but I have been watching this with a lot of interest...

Reaperman said:

I tried to come up with a fair selection of responses, that I believe probably covers us all.
[ . . .]
It's scary that so many legal systems allow these tactics to happen. It's not about justice, it's about taking people's equipment away, shutting them up, and running them into the poor house. Pure bullying.

I think you did a good job trying to keep the poll as even handed as possible. We all have our biases and opinions, but your questions didn't feel skewed to me.

I agree, and Sony is good at bullying folks. The makers of Bleem? --sued out of business. Lik-Sang? Ditto. The fact that 'GeoHot' at least left them stalemated to opt to settle makes me think that someone knew continuing to apply legal pressure wasn't going to end well. If that was a legal or public relations front, who knows.

I didn't trust the quality control of the PS2 for a loooong time due to getting burned by it, and the only reason I own a PS3 is because Crazy Climber sold me his. I was considering keeping it offline, but the barrage of firmware updates was the clincher. It still forces updates if you buy a new enough game though. Just like the PSP. I have two 'code frozen' PSPs that are just waiting to be broken open. I look forward to that day.

The 360 -- as unreliable as that unit is... <sigh> is my modern platform of choice. I think I'm pushing a good 70 titles for it now. The PS3... maybe 15 in my collection -- At least two or three exclusives on my want list, but I'm in no rush to support Sony at all.

I'd like to think that Sony and their supporters will learn from all of this, but who am I kidding.

moycon said:

The stolen data? Yeah that sucks. It's what happens when people are allowed to do whatever they want with your product.

This is just a bucket of failure.

I agree that cheating is inappropriate, and that's where my agreement with you ends. I buy hardware and I should be allowed to do what I please with it. Period. That's not the 'entitlement' bull that I hear a lot of proponents claiming. I'm not renting the hardware from Sony, so as far as I'm concerned they can take a walk. If so, then I want the $300 bucks I shelled out for the machine and they can come and get it. When I spoof or abuse their network, then they have a right to ban me and/or my console. This isn't rocket science here. A drunken monkey with a nail gun can implement these solutions.

Now, while I have your attention, do a little light reading on Wired...

Wired: PS Network Hack Whodunnit
Wired: Sony Says Credit cards Were Encrypted
Wired: Security Whistleblower In PS Hacker Hunt

The whodunnit article rings pretty true to me. Insane accusations by trolls along the lines of 'GeoHot' helping these people hack Sony just proves that some folks are just plain crazy. The man is clearly rather smart, and knows he's under the microscope. It's a no brainer really. While I don't know a ton about Anonymous, if their mission is to shame corps who abuse folks because they have money and we don't it doesn't jive well. The general cyber theft is the most logical. Especially since I think we are even seeing suspect charges pop up for members here. The last article linked also provides some insight, because this guy realized that their front end servers were out of date. If a white hat hacker can figure out that much, then it's pretty obvious that a black hat can capitalize on the situation -- and did.

liveinabin said:

With any luck this'll send a message out to all the other losers in the world who will attack a service just because they're pissy at it.

See above. I do not think that the two events are as related as Sony would like us to believe. Do I hope that the person or person(s) responsible for jacking all that data are caught? You betcha -- they deserve it. Sony is gonna be ok, and the Internet will conveniently forgive and forget everything once the next "Call of Duty" iteration comes out and they can shoot their friends in the face via PSN.

Yay. I guess...

Hex.
[ Considered doing at least one '$ony' in the actual post body, but decided that it took credibility away from my argument, so this is the last of that bit you'll see from me. ]

[Algus]

I don't know if I'm mad or just completely uncaring.  I've always felt that the PS3 was overpriced and that every step of the way Sony has made some horrifc missteps.  They completely stripped the machine of features in order to market it and I can't help but feel that its principle goal was to beat HD-DVD as the high definition media format.  

Still, the machine itself can put out some impressive visuals and the fact that they've rounded up some developers to make some pretty great exclusives means that I do grudgingly support the system.  After all, it should be about the games and not the hardware...at least that is how I feel about it.  

What happened to Sony was bad.  Really bad.  Whether it came as a result of corporate arrogance or because they were just an unfortunate victim, I cannot say.  I do think some of the steps they are taking from the fiasco are good ones.  I've already cancelled my credit card and I'll probably be looking into the year of identity protection when that begins to circulate.  I'm not the customer that Sony has to appease though.  I'm a big enough game junkie that I round up all the systems.  Sony really needs to worry about the people who just like to have one system and like to play online with it.  

What are those people doing right now? Are they going to come back when Sony finally gets the PSN restored? Sony also is going to have a trust issue with consumers from now on.  Given that allegedly, the PSN wasn't secured very well, what can Sony possibly do to restore consumer confidence?

[godslabrat]

I'm happy with the PS3 if Sony is happy with the fact that I didn't buy it for use as a game console.

[Reaperman]

Algus, on Thu May 12, 2011 5:56 AM, said:

Sony really needs to worry about the people who just like to have one system and like to play online with it.  

What are those people doing right now? Are they going to come back when Sony finally gets the PSN restored? Sony also is going to have a trust issue with consumers from now on.  Given that allegedly, the PSN wasn't secured very well, what can Sony possibly do to restore consumer confidence?

I was planning on sneaking by with just PS3 for a while.  Waiting until later to get the rest of the consoles when they turn obsolete.  The extended outage has pushed me to grab a Wii for a bit of a distraction, though.

Personally I'm going back to PS3 as a primary box after this outage blows over.  I have too much invested in games and accessories--I'm stuck.  Unless there are some real surprises, Wii isn't going to be delivering the gaming experience that I'm used to.  Good luck selling me new PS3 games, and next generation will be an interesting one, if Sony thinks I'm just going to forget about all of this and buy a PS4 for my 'main box of the generation.'

I used to recommend PS3 over 360 by a mile.  Then only 1/4 mile.  Now for the rest of this generation I only recommend it for firewood, and really wish that I could just magic it into an equivalent 360 setup.  None of this is the ps3 system's fault either--it's a well designed box.

[HatefulGravey]

There are a few reaons why the PS3 never got a lot of love from me, but in the end I have to vote for the one that started it all. I can't stand the hackers that cheat at online play. I know it doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough that I can't really be ok with it. Why can't people just play fair and get better or not? I never have understood people that have fun ruining everyone else's fun.

Right when I decided to get back into the PS3 a little the network goes down. I got MK9 for the PS3 to play with a friend on PSN and that failed. I had already ordered Duke Nukem for the PS3 to play with that friend and had to move the order to the 360 because I imagine online with that might be fun and I can't imagine PSN being usable any time soon. Sucks, and all this leaves out the big fail on Sony's part, giving my personal information away.

So I voted for the reason that has been there for a while for me, and I'll give a dishonorable mention to the recent PSN personal information give away.

On the upside this might just be the thing that stops all this DRM and Cloud gaming crap from taking hold in the next console generation.

[otaku]

Reaperman, on Fri Apr 29, 2011 8:51 AM, said:

I don't really mean for this to be some kind of huge flame (as it would ordinarily be taken as on a healthier system's forum).  A lot of us dislike what's been going on for a variety of reasons, and I'm kind of wondering if the system has any real fans here at the moment.  And yes, you can only pick one response, which may make this a tough poll.

I tried to come up with a fair selection of responses, that I believe probably covers us all.
This is also (I think) my first poll--here or anywhere, so let me know if I'm wrong with how I've done this.

they've mishandled this system from the get go in just about every way. I had a fat and a slim both are gone (I was a PS+ member to) no longer (was once a regular PSP buyer to have owned all revisions except go) not planning on buying any sony gaming gear any time soon

they need to get with it on security at least so this doesn't happen again (or at least not so much) and now I hear they're scaling back on ps4...

Edited by otaku, Sun Jun 5, 2011 2:36 PM.