As one of the lucky thousands of people able to play Little Big Planet during the Beta period I must say I was impressed by the game. It has added a fresh experience to gaming that we were all greatly in need of, the ability to create content and share it with others. Thousands of gamers with huge imaginations ready for an outlet for their creativity. Or so we thought…
I got a call from Gamestop on Saturday October 25th telling me that the recently delayed ‘planet’ was available for pickup. Naturally I was excited and hopped in the car to pick the game up. After rushing home to pop the game in I got the message “Cannot Find Little Big Planet Game Server.” I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, in fact maybe we should come to expect this level of quality from Sony. Two of the biggest titles of the year were released this month and both of them flopped from day one from an online gaming prospective. Sony’s ‘Socom Confrontation’, a game I had been excited about for months was completely mired with lag and server drops for at least the first 4 days. In fact the game still has issues and bugs as I type this. Since I was not involved in the Socom Beta I will not comment, but from hearsay I have been told the beta had similar issues. If it wasn’t for my excitement for the included headset, I would have been FAR more upset about my purchase.
During the Little Big Planet Beta I had many online experiences where the game would lag to the point that the player you were playing CoOp with was running all over the screen popping in and out. I would just sit there unable to control my experience only to be dropped with a server connectivity error shortly after. Or even worse, my console would lock up and require a reset.
I took these issues lightly because of the fact that this was indeed a Beta period. There was no way Sony would release there most anticipated title with these issues out of the box. I was so wrong.
So here we are Monday October 27th. After owning the game for 2 days and spending my time unlocking materials and tutorials offline the game has finally come online. Media Molecule has officially turned on the servers. I couldn’t wait to get online and check out the custom gaming goodness that my fellow gamers have laid out for me. Guess what? The game experienced lag from the very moment I connected to an online world. Much of the same from the Beta except this time a much faster kick in the ass back to the main menu and my wallet $59.99 lighter.
Fanboys will be quick to defend Sony on this one. Facts are facts, two highly anticipated games and the day one online experience takes another huge shit. I love both Little Big Planet and Socom. Eventually both games will play the way they were intended. Many of my friends are having problems as well. I for one am tired of paying $59.99 to beta test games for these companies.  These problems should have been worked out before the official release. Why am I buying an unfinished product? Is the problem with the Playstation Network? It is not my connection so I know without a doubt, it’s “Not my problem”.
I hate to use Xbox Live as an example here but fact is, I am playing the Call of Duty 5 Beta without any issues or lag what so ever. I played Call Of Duty 4 online day 1 on my Xbox without any issues, Halo 3 No Issues. Crackdown, and GTA4 No Issues on launch. People flooded Xbox Live servers from day one with these titles and I never had the types of issues I am having with the past 2 Sony launches.
So I guess for now on when I buy a multiplatform game I will have to take into consideration the fact that if I buy it on PS3 I wont enjoy it much online for at least a month. If $39.00 gives me a whole year with a wonderful online experience I will have no problem continuing to pay Microsoft for Xbox Live. If I want to enjoy a crappy day 1 online exclusives from Sony, I guess I will continue to pay them $59.99 per game and beta test their product until they release an update.
So Sony Fanboy spin machine its time to get to work. Can’t wait to see the comments.
Keep Gaming,
CA
u r paying 50 bucks a year to play online come on dude psn is free of course its not going to be as good as xbox live
If your paying 50.00 you need to learn to shop because you can buy Year Gold cards for 35.00.
I would pay that in an instant for PSN if they promised me quality online.
I think this is ridiculous. After trying the socom beta I still havn’t gotten the game. I’m afraid to get it because I heard how it has a lot of issues. Keep in mind I was going to get socom day one. The fact that Little Big Planet is having issues is horrible. I think sony really needs to learn their lesson. I’m not buying either of these games until these issues are fixed. There’s just no defending the fact that they’re inconveniencing their customers with bad online experiences.
ok yeah im not a big fan on paying 60 bucks for a game then turn around pay another 38.00 bucks to play online xbox live is great but i just dont think its worth it and i own both consoles
They have millions of active subscribers so they must be doing something right.
yeah but what i am saying is that i have a ps3 for online y should i drop $38 for my xbox online lol and i dont let online be the reason for buying a game unless its an online only game but true sony really need to do something about those servers LBP is one of the best games i ever played
Just skimming through the article. Sorry but I don’t really have the time to read it all right now. Just wanted to note a few things I saw.
Isn’t Media Molecule the ones who developed the game? Why do you keep blaming Sony for issues on a game they didn’t even create? I’m pretty sure the online features as well as the servers they run on as also in the hands of the developer…. so you can see why I’m a little lost here.
Okay, so the console is harder to develop for… but again, Isn’t it the developers job to make sure their game works properly?
It seems to me you’re being a little unfair…
Yeah well since the game is not supposed to come out until Tuesday, I wasn’t expecting the online to be working until then. You all do realize everyone who has a copy, has an early copy. Stop being a fanboy and write something worthwhile.
right true true
First off the game comes out monday the 27th so what ever store you get your games from maybe you need to go back and have a talk with them.
Second the game is still a done product and should not have issues like this exp when its the selling point of your game.
I don’t give a fuck if it was free you provide a service you make sure it works period. Just because its free doesnt mean i shouldn’t complain about faulty product. If you got some pussy from a girl and it stink you going to be ohh its ok naw you going to tell that bitch ta step. And thats what sony or who ever is responsible for the online shit needs to do step it the fuck up.
even though you can get live for cheaper ill still pay 50 bucks a year for a service i know is going to work and if it doesnt i know its going to get fixed right away. Its time for people to quit being cheep ass broke muthafuckas how the fuck do you game in this generation if you broke? get a fucking job. Its 50 bucks one time till the same day next year if you cant muster up 50 bucks a year you don’t need to fucking game cause you cough up 60 bucks every month on games so give me a fucking break and quit acting like 50 bucks a year is a lot of money. broke ass bitches. I was living in my cousins van with my xbox 1 and linksys wirless adapter and i musterd up 50 bucks so quit whining about bullshit its sicking that thats what yall wine about. ohh ohh psn is free and psn is crap simple and plain.
If sony pays a company to make sure the product is exclusive to their console. Promotes it. Advertises it as the second coming, it should work day 1. Today is Day 1. Ill let the last couple days slide since it sounds like Gamestop released the game early, but fact is it is 8:30 pm PST and I cannot connect to play the game I paid 60$ 3 days ago. Argue all you want.
If this was a 360 title I would have said the exact same shit. If you dont agree to bad so sad, I got burned by Socom and LBP looks to have issues as well. I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE BOTHERED BY THIS.
P.S. The last time Microsoft had an Xbox Live problem I called 1-800-MY-XBOX and got a credit for the time I had lost. Who do I call now?
I really also want to say, I LOVE THE GAME. I have been waiting for this game for so long. That wont change. Just get it right from day 1. A little bit of lag I can accept, but servers down, unplayable lag. Not acceptable for ANY console.
Sony supporters have to realize that your “FREE” online experience will be based on a game to game basis. It’s not Live! it works on the type of server setup each company is supporting. That’s another reason why not all games support in and out from the XMB friends invite. I notice that the games have to be programed to use the XMB instead of it being part of the actual system it’s self. So I would rather pay less than 4 bucks a month for a solid and stable online service that works 99.9% of the time. Unlike the experience I get from the PSN service..I am not hating on PSN I’m just being real. LBP was a cool game but nothing that I want to spend money on. Unfortunately the game, even with all the marketing is not gonna be as big as SONY wants it to be.
Candid Anthony: Sony is still not directly responsible for the condition the game is in. They promote, the developers create it. You can’t sit there and say ‘Why didn’t Sony make this game better?’ when they had almost nothing to do with the games creation.
You have every right to be angry, man. It just seems like you’re putting blame on the wrong shoulders here. Microsoft handles all online services, so you can blame them for poor server management. However, Sony allows developers to maintain their own servers which means Sony has no ties to any problems you face while playing Little Bit Planet or Socom. Stop being angry with Sony and start being angry with the developers. You’re yelling at the child when the dog is the one who knocked over the 400 dollar lamp.
Update: Kotaku just reported that Media Molecule took their LBP servers down 8 hours after they went live. I guess that was a typo because it’s all Sony’s fault, right? >_>
yea in some of the games its based on developers but all developers have to use the infrastructure that is psn. Same with live difference is live you pay for so they pay people to get on it and when a game is not running right they call the developers and make them get on it and fix it. Just like Cod4 it has issues on psn and on live difference is psn doesnt make you fix it and live does thats why the issues stoped on live when they persisted on psn. Stop making excuses for sony and their shitty online package that they know they need to fix hell the xmb is fuckn slow when you sign in and try to view messages and send them. For a system that every one tries to claim is so superior and is future proof its running like shit now. Why the fuck would just trying to sign in, or just playing in a game cause my psn to fucking freeze up and shut down on its own that fucking retarded. Im forced to update every fucking game i buy, then im forced to install shit this is getting fucking stupid. i feel like im on my old computer with all this shit.
I see your point that the servers belong to Media Molecule. And yes they should take blame. But if your Sony and you paid big bucks to get this game exclusively then you should be meeting Sony standards. And I would hope those standards are higher than what I have experienced lately.
Socom for example is a game you can buy of of the Playstation Store directly and is online only. That game for the first 4 days was unplayable, seriously. So you spend 39.00 download a game and you cant use it. I agree with more of the blame neededing to go to the developers but where the fuck is Sony’s quality control? If they are going to put a game on their store they should damn make sure its ready first. And if you have played Socom with all its bugs and freezes / crashes you would know it was not close to being ready.
As I said before, Im sorry that I brought xbox live into this, but I was trying to make the point if Sony decided to make a central server farm somewhere and wanted to charge me for it I would gladly pay it if it meant better quality. I have worked in data centers for companies with internet products, I understand how this works, and it is a very difficult business. The internet can be unpredictable.
It is obvious to me that these companies dont have the infrastructure to handle the massive hype from day 1. It should be Sonys job to QC products before they ship.
When Xbox Live has a problem like this I will be happy to clown on them for it too. And they have had them, but I venture to say that there are far far less issues.
yeah i understand where you are coming from they should not launch the game if its not ready refering to socom i was so pissed when i got that game and the servers didnt work i wanted to go back gamestop and get my money back lol but the headset is nice
Unfortunately, when you let the developers do their own thing for online play… you run into issues much more than with a single company doing maintenance. Microsoft has proven their online service structure to be superior in a lot of places and I won’t dispute that.
As for why Sony doesn’t hold their developers games to a higher standard… I guess I’m more forgiving than you.
Essentially, you’re acting like the customer who sends back his steak dinner because it was medium instead of well done. Only, instead of blaming the cook…. you’re yelling at the owner, manager, and waiter for not watching over the cooks shoulder and inspecting everything little thing they do. Me, I wouldn’t say a thing….
Then again, I’m kind of paranoid about cooks putting crap in my food that shouldn’t be there…. Oh no, I lost my train of thought…. Oh well. If it plays better later then it’s not that big of a deal, eh? You still get your entertainment. And look at it this way: If they delayed it to fix the issue… you’d still be waiting that long to play the parts you wanted fixed… so….
It’s not really that big of a deal if you think about it…
You can say that for LBP, yes it provided entertainment value because there is a single player mode to keep you company. But Socom is online only, its essentially worthless until the problems get fixed.
But I see and respect your points.
i got to say im playing socom right now and i have no lag or nothing its working lol psn id bucnasty231
You say you’re not a fanboy Anthony, but I have a hard time believing it.
For one thing, you keep calling out Sony and their network (PSN) for Media Molecule’s problems. This is not a first party game, and Sony doesn’t host it. For another thing, you can draw comparisons on the same console instead of going for the whole “I love paying for XBL” fanboy argument. Example: Warhawk, day one, perfect.
And finally, you could also use the same argument in the opposite manner. For example: Castle Crashers, Gears of Lag, etc. So, it’s really not a console war issue at all… despite you trying to make it into one.
Also, as a side note: Socom is one of the biggest games of the year? LOLWUT? When did this happen? Promo vids for that game looked TERRIBLE. There’s been absolutely no hype for it too. You’re a silly man.
@lareden
On Media Molecule’s website there is an area discussing the online world of LBP. Inside that area when it discusses reporting users that make inappropriate worlds it gives you a method for reporting these levels to “SONY”.
Defend them all you want. The game is unplayable online right now as the servers have been down almost constantly the last few days. And when they are up the lag is so bad you cannot possibly finish a level. Why dont you try a search in google, “little big planet lag” and see how many results you get.
You sir are the fanboy.
Calling ‘Gears of War’ gears of lag? The PSN has problems, IM MY OPINION the problem is because although free is nice, it limits the level of quality. If I could pay them and have them build a better infrastructure I would personally be willing to do that.
Funny part about the rash of people calling me a fanboy, you conveniently left out or ignored all the praise I have given these games despite the issues online. Anyone that knows me personally knows Im not a fanboy, I express my opinions as I feel. When Gears of War 2 comes out and if it fails online the first few days you will see me bitch about that too. So go back to N4g.com.
haha good comment lol n4g is full with fanboys lol