BombermanBoard

Soniti 254 · #3 Posted: Sat Dec 19, 2009 8:56 am

I cannot speak for the Live service, but here's what I know.

General - If you buy from the Wii Shop (or whatever its called now), Live, or PSN stores, it's all download base. That much I can tell you. Wii and Live also have a points system that they use for currency that's used in their shops while PSN uses real currency. Points can be earned either by buying points directly from the Wii/Live online stores or from buying "Point cards" that can be used to exchange that set amount of points onto your console (obviously, it can only be used once). You also cannot refund your purchases either, so if you didn't like a game or whatever you bought, you just wasted money for nothing. But you can delete it and then be able to download it on your console again as much as you want afterward!

PlayStation Network - There are three types of games available through this service; PS3 games (which aren't necessarily exclusive to that platform), PSP games (as of late, either exclusive to the shop or you can buy certain PSP games you could also get on hard copy through PSN store), and PS1 Classics which can be played on either PS3 or PSP. You can, technically speaking, exchange games and such. You can have up to 5 consoles download any item you have purchased. All you'd have to do is use you're log-in information on another PS3 (I haven't tested it on PSP, but I believe it works on that as well) to sign in and then just download it. This can only be done on 5 different consoles though. PSN may also offer add-ons, or additional features, for your hard games that can be downloaded to your console and have new things to experience in your games. My problem is, all of their "products" can vary in price (with the most expensive I've seen being 30 US dollars, which is ridiculous for getting just a game stuck in your console).

Wii Shop - Similar to PSN, there are as of now three types of games you can buy using their "Wii Points" (or whatever it's called now) system, similar to Live's point system. You can download games for Wii (again, not necessarily all exclusive), DSi games (can ONLY be played using the DSi, other DSs won't work), and then there's the large Virtual Console library (has a very large variety of consoles, and not just Nintendo's either, you can also play Sega Master System and Genesis/Mega Drive games, TurboGrafx/PC Engine games, arcade games, and others (Japan has MSX, but not over in the States) that can be played on your Wii system). I don't download from this shop much cuz I'm on my PS3 far more often nowadays, but I know you can send games as gifts (you have to buy it as a gift though, even if you already bought the game yourself). My main complaint about this service is the currency system. You can only buy Wii Points in certain increments (for example, if you wanted to buy exactly 1500 points, you would have to do either three purchases of 500 points or something like that). It's not bad though, offers some pretty cool games and really the main reason I go on is to check their Virtual Console library, I hardly ever bother with DLC based games.

Hopefully, this answers your questions.