What Do You Think of PSN/XBL/NSO?

[Moonface]

If there are other online services besides the three in the thread title, you can share your thoughts on those in this thread too. I just didn't want the title to get too long.


So I saw Sony announced their game lineup for PS+ Extra and Premium for August, and my initial gut reaction to it was it was rather shite but looking at it again, I realized it's a decent lineup but just not really anything that grabs me. Anyway, seeing that and the inevitable comparisons of it to Game Pass because social media likes its stupid console war soapboxing, it got me thinking about how each of the big three's online services are and what their respective strong and weak points are.

I've never used Xbox Live so I can't say much about that, although I have always heard it's generally hailed as the best of the online services. Game Pass again I've not used, but my impression of it is it is stupidly good value and I don't see why anyone with an Xbox wouldn't be signed up to that service.
PSN seems decent as an online service, although it feels like Sony rarely bothers to give any of their games dedicated servers which makes online matches really rough if the host has a shit connection or better yet, just leaves the game and causes the whole match to just be cancelled on the spot. I've also had issues connecting to @Mr EliteL a lot back in our Uncharted 3 days for no good reason. PS+ tends to be hit or miss for me with the extra offerings, since some months the PS+ games can be really bad but I expect any online service that provides free games is going to have good and bad offerings.
NSO is alright but definitely lacks in a lot of places. The worst one that comes to mind is the friends list because you can only have 100 friends, which isn't a terrible number but for streamers who want to play with chat that number is limiting. Now that wouldn't be so bad, but the way of adding and deleting friends on Switch is just so slow and badly done, and the fact you can't even join a private lobby without being on the hosts friend list is also just a pointless limitation when private lobbies have lobby codes anyway.

[Mr EliteL]

I never really used PSN/+ for anything other than playing games I onw, not even for the free games that would be offered in PS+. Those UC3 days, when it did connect was great but when it didn't was the most annoying shit, especially as we lived 5 minutes away from each other. I remember a day where we spent a good few hours or something just trying to connect, thinking soon it will because it's been this long before, but then time just dragged on with no connecting.

NSO same thing really, didn't bother with the offers, well I did get a retro type thing to play old games but that was time limited, and didn't play much in the end. Online play on SSBU felt OK most of the time, better than the Wii days. 100 friend limit is fine with me, I have zero on there at the moment. Sadge.

[Moonface]

NSO same thing really, didn't bother with the offers...

NSO is probably the worst when it comes to giving extra content to users. I think it's the only one of the big three services to not provide any form of discount in the online store on any products, and the only free games they add are in the retro libraries and those additions are really sporadic; however, you also can't access any of that content without NSO so I don't feel like calling it extra content like how PS+ and XBL give out free games every month. The only stuff Nintendo actually gives out as a true bonus for NSO is the DLC's of MK8, ACNH, and Splatoon 2, and that's it.