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PS3 Has No Achievements, Replaceable Controllers 98

Posted by Zonk from the quite-friendly-of-them dept.
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'.
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PS3 Has No Achievements, Replaceable Controllers More

PS3 Has No Achievements, Replaceable Controllers

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  • Changing bateries in controllers (Score:5, Funny)

    by jackharrer ( 972403 ) on Friday October 20, 2006 @05:53PM (#16522291)
    There's no vibration in pads. Because of new batteries. They're better - when you get hit - they explode!

  • Be Cautious People (Score:5, Funny)

    by matt74441 ( 1000572 ) on Friday October 20, 2006 @05:54PM (#16522299)
    If we're lucky, Sony will put some of those non-exploding batteries into the controllers. Who knows, it could be a selling point for them.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      1. Recall explosive batteries 2. Sell controllers with non-exlosive batteries 3. Replace controllers' worn bout batteries with recalled explosive batteries 4. ??? 5. profit!!!

  • I think thats a good thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by AuMatar ( 183847 ) on Friday October 20, 2006 @05:54PM (#16522303)
    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).

    • Re:I think thats a good thing (Score:4, Funny)

      by Ryan Amos ( 16972 ) on Friday October 20, 2006 @05:57PM (#16522363)
      It's like playing WoW or any other game: most of us gave up on being the "top" as soon as we realized how many 25 year old jobless basement dwellers there were out there.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AuMatar ( 183847 )
        Or redefined top- I considered myself on top when hearing my guild was in zone X sent the alliance running to xp in other areas, because they knew it would take 3-4 times our numbers to kick us out. When polls on the forums of most feared guilds had mine as the one nearly everyone mentioned. I never considered grand master being on top (and in fact, I stopped playing not long after honor came out, it totally ruined world PvP).

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fimbulvetr ( 598306 )
      XBL has something worth it, if the game supports it. It's called ranking. It's by far one of the best things about Halo2, and it certainly makes the game a lot more fun. For an example, spend an afternoon playing ranked halo2 and ranked cod2. You'll find with cod2, despite it being super fun, people join with absolutely no clue what they are doing. Half the time, 30% or more players quit the game, and 5% of the time, the game is laggy.

      With Halo2, OTOH, I can jump on and since I have a fairly high rank, I kn

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ivan256 ( 17499 )
        The flipside to that is that you know you'll probably never get to play against the best players unless you yourself become one of the best. I don't play Halo because I can't do the whole FPS with a control pad thing, but I know I got good at Quake and UT by playing with people who were signifigantly better than me. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that over time the rankings on XBL don't typically change signifigantly...
      • I'm not sure I agree with this...

        I play COD2 ranked games. The people I play against are usually pretty good, and nobody ever jumps on not knowing what they are doing. The number of people who drop is very low.

        My friends on the other hand have the same experience you do- in COD2 ranked games they run into a bunch of morons, bad players, people who drop, etc. etc.

        But- I have played a LOT more ranked COD2 matches than they have. So, theoretically, I have 'moved up in the rankings' while they are still play
        • I play ranked usually 10 or so hours a week, and 90% of the time I have the highest score (21-30 kills, occasionally 35-40, but rarely below 15) in TDM. I've been playing like this for at least 6 months. I win consistently, whether my team is 3 vs 5 or 2 vs 6. People consistently drop at the start of games, or sometimes in the middle. Usually if they make it past the halfway point, they're there for the whole game though. Believe me, I'm high skilled enough and have enough playing time in to have climbed qu
  • 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 u

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by AuMatar ( 183847 )
      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
      • Okay ignore your score.

        When they call you a noob for having a low gamer score, laugh. Then kick their asses.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Clever7Devil ( 985356 )
        Not that I disagree with you, but...

        When I read the post all I could see was, "Hey man, it's not the size of your e-peen that matters, it's how you use it."
      • 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.

        That's pretty odd you know! You certainly seem to be worried about what other anonymous people on the internet think (people who by all accounts, are jerks).

        Anyone who knows the first thing about the score knows it doesn't mean that much (especially when you have people buying titles like King Kong or Fight Night just because

      • 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

  • What? (Score:2, Redundant)

    by voice_of_all_reason ( 926702 )
    Batteries in controllers? Do we have to crank the system before it'll turn on, too?
    • If they offered a $100 PS3 that simply ran on a crank rather than a power brick, I'd buy that thing so fast...

      I can make it crank by itself, I wouldn't mind for saving something like half a grand...
  • No explanation of what achievements in this context even means in the description, and the title makes even less sense. So it doesn't have achievements or replacable controllers? Wait, now they will replace them if the batteries die? Odd.

  • Controller replacement isn't free (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jonnythan ( 79727 ) on Friday October 20, 2006 @05:56PM (#16522347)
    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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Guppy06 ( 410832 )
      "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."

      And, with eBay being eBay, the batteries in your "new" controller will be worse off than the ones you're trying to replace.
  • So, when they say they're going to offer a replacement service for the controllers, is it going to be something like: Send us your old controller and $50 and we'll send you a new one?

    It's my experience that Li-Po batteries don't suffer from a memory effect, but they do wear out after a number of charge and discharge cycles. In particular, the "battery conditioning" that most laptops do (slightly draining and recharging the battery constantly) seems to wear them out pretty fast. We'll have to see how th

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by safiel ( 1016237 )
      Yea... I'm sure they're replacement plan will be very fair... Just like it was fair to make people spend $100+ to fix broken lazers on their PS2s. Before I buy another sony console they're going to have to prove to me that they can make products that will last. I own over 10 consoles and the only one that has ever totally broken was my poor little playstation2 (the other was a nes but that just needed some new pins). $600 for a console that might break, no thanks.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Renraku ( 518261 )
      My thoughts exactly. You'll be responsible for shipping, and probably for part costs as well.

      Sony will gladly replace anything of theirs that you have bought in the past few years..you just have to pay them for it!

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by RockRampantly ( 976282 )
      Li-Po batteries
      I don't know about you, but I don't want my controller going nuclear when the batteries explode. Granted, I don't want them to explode at all...

  • Oh good! (Score:5, Funny)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday October 20, 2006 @05:57PM (#16522357) Homepage Journal
    There is good news for PS3 fans, though, as Sony says it will replace controllers if the batteries wear out.

    That's great! I always wanted to wait four to six weeks to be able to play with my game console.

    • Re:Oh good! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 20, 2006 @07:05PM (#16523239)
      It's worse than that. In order to get a new controller, you first have to get an RMA (Return Material Authorization) from Sony. The only way of doing that is by phoning Sony and dealing with their automated call-handling system, which does EVERYTHING by voice recognition, no touch-tone allowed. Of course, there is just one problem with this -- the voice recognition DOES NOT WORK!!! After about a dozen tries, each of which results in "Im sorry, I do not recognize your ", you then hang up and BUY a new controller. But hey... they did provide you with a system for exchanging your controller!


      (Actually, I dealt with this system when trying to get warranty work done on my Sony DVD player. Giving up on the automated call handling system was followed by taking the unit to a repair shop, which then shipped the unit back to Sony for me. Sony then held on to the unit for a couple months (just long enough for the warranty to expire -- what a coincidence!) and shipped the unit back to the repair shop -- still not working, but now it's cheaper to buy a new one than have the old one repaired...

  • 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

    • Re:Achieve the zonked tag (Score:5, Informative)

      by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Friday October 20, 2006 @07:21PM (#16523435) Homepage Journal

      If you had actually read the article, you'd see that publishers could have acheivments/entitlements - but there are none planned. At all.

      The title of the article is "No 'Achievements' System for PS3 Games" - that's straight from the article. As a subtitle, it has "But some games will sort of have it. Kind of."

      There's no centralized online service, so there's no way to tie your achievements into a central service to prove you've actually achieved things. This will be just like the final rankings that various games grant people in the PS2: totally meaningless.

      When you complete Okami, you get ranked in several fields. Devil May Cry has a ranking system too. So does Metal Gear Solid. They don't mean anything and there's no way to prove you've actually received a rank online. You can't link to a profile page listing your achievements.

      So, yes, companies can build their own online achievement system, but I'd be amazed if any game actually does. It looks like, just like last generation, if you want to play online games, go for the XBox 360.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by JonnyCalcutta ( 524825 )
        It would seem better to say 'if you care about rankings or the meta-game of achievements, then go for the XBox 360'. I would hazarad the opinion that most people don't. Only a small, vocal hardcore do. To get anecdotal about it, I don't know anyone who does, but then I don't hang out in online game crowds - just with people who like a casual game. Personally I've been playing online games since Doom and I would find it hard to care less about rankings or even what score I get during an individual game. I pl

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ivan256 ( 17499 )
        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'
        • Personally, I love the achievement system on the 360. I think it is one of the best things to happen to gaming for quite a while. And I am NOT in the 12-22 year old group. (38 if you want to know.)

          If you have friends that play, then the achievement system is a great way to compare how you are doing. Every Monday morning, my co-workers and I can get on Xboxlive.com to see how we are doing. During the week, we can talk about how difficult different achievements were, etc. etc. It also encourages us to p
          • Remember, these are games. Most games are about competition. Adding in some 'official' way to track your progress is a good idea.
            I thought games were about fun and competition is just there to make things more fun?
            • It depends on your way of thinking...

              In my mind, 'games' are something we always take part in for an ulterior purpose. If you learn about what we consider to be primative cultures, their games for boys are always the same: "Let's play, 'fishing' or 'hunting' or 'fighting'"

              The games are always there to simulate, and thus teach, what needs to be done in adulthood. And the better you do (score more points, beat the other guy, etc. etc.) is indicative of how well you would do later on in life.

              If you are only
          • Not being an older gamer like yourself, I only ever got into the old school arcades at the end of their lives. From what I hear, the only real reason to play classic asteroids or galaga was to get your initials on the high score table. I love the idea of the gamer score and the acheivements because they are a throw back to the high score tables.
            I agree with you totally on it, its best to use it between friends, not though some bloke you just played a random match with. On top of that, if you join the "recr

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Endo13 ( 1000782 )
          I couldn't agree more. And let's compare 'gamer score' with WoW for a bit. In both, your actual 'rank' numbers reflect little more than how much time you've spent playing the game. That's it. It has absolutely nothing to do with your actual gaming skill - and what's worse, it doesn't even necessarily reflect how much you know about the games you have all the points in. So you think 'R3aV3rX11' knows something about Halo because he's got everything unlocked? Guess again. R3aV3rX11 paid someone to 'power leve
    • Hmm... giving publishers the "flexibility" to create their own achievements systems, which none of the launch titles will feature.

      In other words, it's all up to the developers what they want to do, because Sony isn't going to provide any help. The nice thing about 360 achievements is that you can figure out your trigger conditions, call an API once, and be done. Anyone can add achievements to their game with relatively little effort (a huge improvement from Xbox 1).

      On the other end, you have the completel

  • Zonk Singlehandedly Scarry Gamers Away (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Anyone notice how few people bother to read or comment in Slashdot gaming stories anymore? Not that Slashdot ever was anyone's first choice for console gaming news, but it still used to have large and good gaming discussions.

    Zonk has pretty much put an end to that. Slashdot needs something better than the gaming equivalent of Ted Kaczynski.

    • Yep, all the pro Wii anti Sony crap Zonk posts is getting annoying. I don't even want a PS3, I'll buy a Wii if I decide to have the cash. Sure sony keep digging a hole, but how many anti sony stories have been posted in the past day/week? Too many.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ykant ( 318168 )
      Comparing Zonk to Ted Kaczynski isn't fair. Considering that more and more people post under his articles complaining about *him* than the actual content of the article, I'd say he's more of a JonKatz.
  • $10 says a 35d party market appears around this much like it has for iPod batteries.

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      35 dimensions is a lot for one party. Let's stick to the standard 3-4.

  • Ka-BOOM! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They'll replace the batteries if they wear out? Given Sony's recent reputation with batteries (Apple recall, Dell recall, et al), I'll wait to hear what their replacement policy is on exploding batteries...
  • Considering how much those controllers are going to cost, $50 [next-gen.biz], they better replace it at no cost.
    • Reminder to all the Sony haters complaining that the basic Wiimote costs $39.99.... On another topic, I wonder how long the controlers will need to charge before you can play?

  • Good News (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DragonWriter ( 970822 ) on Friday October 20, 2006 @08:08PM (#16523945)
    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.
  • Linux has no Outlook, Microsoft Windows has no AIGLX, and Mac OSX has no Rhythmbox!

  • English, motherfucker - DO YOU SPEAK IT? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Zonk - seriously - is English your first language? Hopefully not, because your article titles are almost always poorly worded. I always get this mental image of some guy juggling chainsaws while also reviewing /. submissions, writing headlines, etc. There's just no way you could be devoting 100% of your attention to what you contribute here..
  • Some games just plain aren't suited to the achievements. Developers then go out of their way to use up their allotment. This results either in inane achievements, or in-game tasks that don't fit the game genre. It also encourages and rewards unhealthy gaming habits. For example, one of the achievements in Dead Rising requires you to play for at least 14 hours in a single session. That's if you do it perfectly the first time...

    Console manufacturers should impose as few requirements as practical on game maker

    • Some games just plain aren't suited to the achievements. Developers then go out of their way to use up their allotment. This results either in inane achievements, or in-game tasks that don't fit the game genre. It also encourages and rewards unhealthy gaming habits. For example, one of the achievements in Dead Rising requires you to play for at least 14 hours in a single session. That's if you do it perfectly the first time...

      I don't think it's that the games aren't suited to achievements, it's just that th

    • Some games just plain aren't suited to the achievements. Developers then go out of their way to use up their allotment. This results either in inane achievements, or in-game tasks that don't fit the game genre. It also encourages and rewards unhealthy gaming habits.

      Oh, please. Similar things have been happening on a game-by-game basis for years. How about trying to unlock everything in Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Gamecube? Or trying to get every materia in Final Fantasy VII? Hours upon hours of mo

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ivan256 ( 17499 )
        Are you just trying to be an ass for some reason?

        Why else would you post an adversarially worded argument about why achievements aren't bad in response to a comment that suggests not that achievements are bad, but that requiring game developers to include achievements is bad. Any editorial influence that a game platform manufacturer tries to assert over third party developers is bad. You shouldn't have to make the argument that developers have 'quite a lot of freedom'. That should be a given, right along wi

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Saige ( 53303 )
          If you don't require devs to add achievements, then a bunch of them don't include them cause it's something new. So because a majority of games don't have them, it doesn't really catch on, and goes nowhere.

          Instead, they required that there be at least 5 in every game. Some developers, realizing they had to do it, went and took the time to try and do it well. Others, like the first 2K sports games, threw in 5 crappy ones just to meet the certification requirements. But all the games had them, and it caug

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ivan256 ( 17499 )
            The Xbox team isn't stupid - they knew when they made the decision that any additional requirement for certification that meant additional work for game developers made it that much more likely that some would decide not to develop for the system.

            How are you managing to completely miss the point over and over?

            Of course the developers went along instead of deciding not to develop for the system. Who cares that the developers had to do extra work. The point is that design details of what could have been an in
  • The lithium batteries the company is shipping the controllers with should last 'for many years'.

    ...Or will explode trying.
  • Achievements are just a cleverly disguised way to make people play through mediocre games. While some achievements actually acknowledge videogame prowess, most of them are just awarded by playing through the game. When it comes to Xbox achievements, people need to stop and think if they are playing the game for fun, or just playing to get the achievements.
    • Why do people have to do a quest to get the longsword +1? Will that blue armor you spent an hour trying to get actually be better than the pink you start out with? Achievements are just another way for people to enjoy gaming, and something to play for. Games themselves are entirely entertainment, you play them for fun, be it to find all the special items, armor, do all the hidden quests, or even, yes, finish the achievements.

      I would argue that Achievements are one of the best things to happen to gaming sinc

  • Provided they don't EXPLODE.

    First exploding controller story I see on /., I'll be all like "hmm. My Wiimote hasn't exploded yet. Huh.

    Let's make batteries that Just Work (TM) shall we? And by Work I mean "not explode" and "not kill people".

    Here's to the rabid Sony fanboys.
  • To be honest, I really don't like the sound of holding a Sony controller with a Sony battery in it...It would bring a new dimension to GTA if the controllers suddenly burst into flames as I am hit by a flamethrower though...

    Karem

  • 360 got the battery thing right here. You can use batteries that you can replace or you can use the power-pack that charges within the controller. A third option is to use your own rechargable batteries.

    I don't consider achievements to be a matter of seeing who gets the highest score but a way to look at what you have done in each game and look at what other people have done and to use that as an object of discussion. I think I'll get my brothers xbox 360s for Xmas and this will be fun.

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