PS3 Has No Achievements, Replaceable Controllers

So, there is bad news and good news. The bad news is, despite the popularity of the Gamerscore and Achivements on Xbox Live, the PS3 won't offer that. Despite earlier rumours on the subject, developers will have to pick and choose if they want to have a system like that. Sony says first party titles will offer 'entitlements' ... but none of the launch titles will have it. There is good news for PS3 fans, though, as Sony says it will replace controllers if the batteries wear out. The lithium batteries the company is shipping the controllers with should last 'for many years'.

I think thats a good thing

[AuMatar]

Thats one of the 3 things that I found a huge turnoff of Xbox Live. THe big epeen war over who has achievments. The other two are the voice chat (I want to chat with my guild, and only with my guild, not with random 12 year olds. I leave that to members of Congress and Micheal Jackson. Luckily, there's always outside teamspeak servers, and my TV is by my computer) and the fact it was for pay (pay extra for something that should be a feature of the game? No. Just no. I'll pay for a dedicated server if I get to set the rules, but no way in hell I'll pay for the ability to play MP at all).

This will hurt at least a little.

[Fonce]

Some part of human nature demands that we know where we stand against, well, everyone else. We're built to be competitive; that's a part of our survival instinct. Not having a system-wide ranking system (or at least an achievement system, as the GamerScore could more accurately be called) I think will hurt the overall popularity of their Live counterpart and will leave the users with a segmented ranking system, just like the last generation, Live on the original Xbox, provided. That's not exactly a leg up on the competition. Also, 12-year-olds everywhere won't have a number (read: ePenis) to brag about.

Controller replacement isn't free

[jonnythan]

The spokesperson went on to confirm, "When and if this happens, then of course we will be providing a service to exchange these items."

Sure, they'll provide a service to replace your batteries or whatever.. but you'll probably be able to get a new controller on eBay for less than they're going to charge you for a replacement.

Achieve the zonked tag

[SuperKendall]

If you read the article, the PS3 will have achievements on a per-game basis - just not with launch games, and no overall gamerscore.

Although I as a gamer would like to see achievements in every game as I think that's a great feature of Live, I never did get the point of an overall gamerscore which as the article notes is a really meaningless number. You only care really about how you are doing in relation to other people in the same game.

So for this inaccurate and oddly worded title, I say award this story the coveted "zonked" tag.

Re:Sony must have something under their sleeve

[drinkypoo]

I'm not a teenage girl, and I killed the battery in my Motorola V300 after less than a year. Mind you, it's almost the same thing as a RAZR, except bigger. AFAIK the internals are highly similar. I almost got a razr, but I got a V555 instead when I found out the razr has shitty reception.

Good News

[DragonWriter]

There is good news for PS3 fans, though, as Sony says it will replace controllers if the batteries wear out.

Good news would be if batteries were replaceable, which is hardly an unusual feature.

Re:Achieve the zonked tag

[ivan256]

Personally, I consider it a feature. The integrated gamerscore system is one of the big turnoffs to me about Xbox Live. It attracts exactly the kind of gamers that I have no desire to play with. The culture on XBox live was borrowed from the AOL chat-rooms of the mid to late '90s, and it is one of the biggest turn-offs to online gaming for me, and why I didn't even care if PlayStation had an online service. It's probably why only 12% of the Xbox owners signed up for Live, and if the basic Live service wasn't free on the 360 I suspect those numbers would be about the same this generation.

If XBL attracts the immature 12-22 year old set away from the PS3, then maybe I'll actually shell out the $800 or whatever crazy price Sony is asking for it...

That's stupid. If you don't like it, ignore it!

[jchenx]

Youy're overgeneralizing. I refuse to play a lot of online serivces, including battle.net and Live, in large part due to the score. Not all of us are competitive, and not all of us are competitive all the time. And if I'm going to be competitive, it will be in game beating you, not having to tweal my playstyle to maximize some number (nothing pisses me off more in DDO that hear someone talk about how much higher their kill score is when I'm playing a CC wizard or priest. Yeah, you're the man, I suck for my 2 kills. Lets do it again without me webbing half the dungeon). I'm far more likely to use Sony's system than MSes due to the fact there is no score. Which makes it more likely I'll buy the PS version rather than the xbox for non-exclusives. And I'm far from alone. I think this is a great move.

No, it's a stupid move for several reasons.

First of all, you have to admit that your preferred playstyle, is rather rare. The reason why there are rankings in almost every online game is because many gamers are competitive by nature. So it's a silly business decision to ignore the competitive majority. Sony has already acknowledged that they want to have some sort of achievement system, although tweaked so its a bit different (at least per game instead of system-wide). I imagine the main reason why the PS3 launch games don't have Entitlements (Sony's name for achievements), though, is because there just wasn't enough time to add them in.

Secondly, achievements are something that's easily just ignored. I equate it to the rumble feature. Some people don't like it, so they can just turn them off. With the 360 achievements, you can either ignore them, or just never get a gamertag, or don't sign into Xbox Live. The gamerscore is nothing more than just points to "show off". It has no impact on affecting game play (which is something that some people actually want to see). So you can safely play your same game and not give the achievements any consideration. But you should consider the fact that there are a lot of those who DO like said feature (perhaps a bit too passionately).

Personally, I can relate a bit to your situation. I often don't like playing online games, simply because I'm not as good as a lot the kids online, who have far more time than I do to practice any given game. Even though I don't play multiplayer, I still have to acknowledge that it's a play mode that a lot of people do enjoy, so it'd be silly for me to declare, "I don't like multiplayer, so it's a stupid idea for X company to put it in their game", especially since it's something I can just ignore. Yet, I like the gamer score system since that gives me a way to fuel my competitive nature just a little bit, merely by playing a game the same way I mostly would have played it. I don't compare my gamer score to the kids online, who again, have far more time than I do. Instead, I compare it with my friends and co-workers, who are primarily in the same situation I am, so our scores are actually competitive.