Why Sony really wants you to buy an Xbox

One of these is a lot friendlier to own.

Forget the Move/Kinect debate, free vs. paid multiplayer, and system exclusives-- a recent Ars Technica article highlights the single biggest difference in the ownership experience of the two HD consoles: mandatory downtime.

Ben Kuchera describes an experience I've had a lot: "The last time I tried to play a game on the console, I was forced to download a mandatory update, which added a feature I didn't care about. (The update gave Sony the ability to suggest things to me. Gee, thanks.) The process took 30 minutes."

There are three egregious forms the PS3 delays take:

I don't know enough of the technical details behind both consoles to know whether this is purely a network speed difference (which I'm inclined to say it is) or also the difference in the code bases of the 360 and PS3 (the PowerPC structure of the latter being harder to program for).

Having little more than a terribly rudimentary knowledge of game coding, some of you may be able to educate me on this issue, but I can't imagine that such a huge discrepancy is caused by hardware issues. To my knowledge, Sony just desperately needs to upgrade its network speeds.

Pre-emptive response to criticism

Yes, I know one of the selling points of the Playstation Plus is that it automatically pushes updates in the background to minimize downtime when you actually want to play--but the free Xbox Live service is just as fast when it comes to updates as the paid Gold level. I shouldn't have to pay extra for functionality that should already be built in.

Also, many of you could point out that the 360 also offers installs onto the HDD--which was a huge upgrade that came with the NXE OS. There's several key differences, though, the biggest being that the Xbox installs are totally optional. Moreover, whereas some PS3 games require installs, others only run off disc (unless there's an option I'm not aware of)--Xbox titles can all either be installed or run off disc. The games I'm playing most at the time, I install--which makes everything run a bit faster but also (especially with the first-gen 360's) much quieter. Those that I only play somewhat, I save the HDD space. And even though the installs copy the entire disc onto the HDD, they're much faster than most game installs on the PS3.

That said, I'm still a proud owner of both consoles--but Sony makes sure I give most of my time to the 360.

Have your own rant to share? Go to the comments!

For more random observations and sharing, follow on Twitter @MKEGameDesign.