Most gamers have, in recent years, discovered the joys of PlayStation Plus. And if you like downloadable games at cheap prices, the service’s joys are numerous. Sony’s pitch is simple: for a mere $10 monthly, you can gain access certain games for free, other games for cheap, and nearly everything on PSN at some kind of discount or another, even if it’s a small one. As a PS3 owner I absolutely adore the service, with one of my most notable steals being Arkham Asylum and Arkham City for less than $10 combined. Of course, with membership costs it wasn’t actually $10, but it felt like it was. Ultimately, that’s what matters.
On PS4 things are unfolding differently, and in the wake of the Destiny beta’s semi-botched launch today on PSN, it’s critically important that Sony clarify just what those differences are going to mean for players. The assumption amongst gamers has been a reasonable one; since online play on PS4 is no longer free (a base PS+ subscription is now required, much like Xbox Live), the reliability, functionality, and general quality of PSN ought to be on the up-and-up. Right? Well, if today’s performance of Sony’s network under Destiny’s load is anything to go by, we may not be in for such a treat after all. Keep in mind, total player counts aren’t outrageous — this is just the beta.
All of this is all doubly important when you consider what Destiny stands for, and where it aims to take online gaming. If you look to the past, and toward which games defined the online landscape as it emerged on consoles, it’s hard not to immediately think of Halo. Yes, the CoDs and more recently GTAs of the world eventually outnumbered Bungie’s beloved FPS, but Halo: Combat Evolved is the game that cemented Xbox as the de facto platform for serious console gaming online. Team chat. Acceptable latency and dependable service. Advanced friend features and achievements. Brutally offensive trash talk. All for a price that, while not particularly modest, felt well worth paying at the end of the day. Though I’m fairly certain most players would gladly accept a refund for the trash talk.
Flash forward to Summer 2014, and not only has Sony nearly achieved feature parity with Xbox Live (at least, for the purposes of most gamers), but Bungie’s latest creation is on its way, and the beta is hitting PlayStation platforms first. This is an opportunity Sony has not even remotely sniffed in a decade, and how are they handling it so far? Well, this is how. So far, it’s not been pretty.
Everything from MMOs to MOBAs have their fair share of downtime, but you know what rarely cripples under pressure? Xbox Live. Yes, it’s true the service experienced a brief outage at the launch of Titanfall, but it was identified, addressed, and solved in a highly efficient manner. Mere hours later Xbox Ones were connecting effortlessly, requiring nothing more that a power cycle to flush any lingering issues. What’s happening with Destiny today would be just fine for free PSN. You can’t complain if it’s free, right? But when I’m required to pay for PSN, Sony’s old tricks start to feel a lot more dodgy.
Related: No 1080p on Xbox One for Destiny
Perhaps worse is that ever since Sony abandoned its post as flagbearer for free online play, Nintendo has swooped in and claimed the title instead. “Play online for free, with up to 12 players!” boasts Mario Kart 8′s launch trailer, and not only is that a true statement, but Nintendo’s network has performed pristinely since the game launched. When wifi signal is good I’ve not once experienced lag or frame dips (in a game that runs at 60fps online, mind you), and as the game continues to sell approximately 100k copies each week, this has continued to hold true. Sure, you get booted to the lobby between matches from time to time, but guess what? Access to Nintendo Network on Wii U is free. All things considered, I can live with an occasional mishap.
Despite its impressive uptime and reliability, Nintendo’s offering is weak in terms of features, and at the end of the day it’s still Xbox Live that Sony needs to focus on. I myself haven’t played Destiny yet due to PSN’s issues, but there’s one last entity we need to keep in mind throughout all of this: Bungie. They know better than anyone the level at which Microsoft is able to execute online, and though it was probably more Activision’s decision than Bungie’s when it came to Destiny’s beta debuting on PlayStation before Xbox, that doesn’t mean you want Bungie regretting the fact that such a decision was made. Sony should be aiming to impress Bungie, and get them excited for future collaborations or exclusive content now that they truly are their own company. Instead, it’s difficult not to envision Harold Ryan and Jason Jones shaking their heads from the metaphorical press box, watching Sony frantically mop up the chaos its quaking online network has inadvertently unleashed.
When I pay for a service, I don’t expect it to be perfect; I just expect good communication. I expect issues to be addressed swiftly, and I expect to feel as though my money is well spent. With the crutch of “free access” now falling by the wayside, Sony needs to look in the mirror figure out quickly just how serious it is about swiping the online crown from the competition once and for all. I’m not saying it has to, either. But if you’re going to talk a big game and get players excited to play a multiplatform blockbuster on your console, you’d best put your money where your mouth is. Otherwise, I’ll be asking for mine back.
