Sony and Microsoft go head to head this week with launches of rival online gaming packages. We examine the offerings open to you in our Australian guide.

Microsoft XBox Live

Starter Kit RRP: AU$99.95
Starter Kit contents: Headset, XBox Live Starter Disc, Two game demos, 12 month subscription to XBox Live.

Pros: XBox Live provides a managed and centralised service with a single logon and username that applies to every game. This allows a number of supplemental features, including friend lists and score rankings across every game, as well as the ability to check what your friends are currently playing. Users can switch games and remain logged in, which gives the service a fair amount of flexibility. The inbuilt hard drive of the XBox allows Microsoft and other games companies to offer additional downloaded content. Bundled headset can have a variety of somewhat amusing vocal effects applied to it. XBox Live capable games have been selling in Australia for some time, which gives the XBox a reasonable inbuilt library of games at launch.

Cons: As a fully managed service, XBox Live requires a credit card subscription, although local subscription pricing is yet to be announced. As a rough guide, pricing in the American market, where XBox Live launched last November, currently sits at US$49.99(~AU$72.50) for twelve months or US$5.99(~AU$8.70) per month. The single username sits with users through every game, so it's not possible to customise your username to suit specific games. The 128kbps minimum is very slow, which could lead to unnaceptable lag in some games against some players. As a central service, if the XBox Live server goes down, no gaming would be possible at all.

Sony PlayStation 2 Network Entertainment

Starter Kit RRP:AU$69.95
Starter Kit contents: PS2 Network Adaptor, Network Access Disk, Hardware Online Arena game

Pros: Sony's approach to online gaming works off each game vendor offering individual servers for each game, which should allow gamers to have individual usernames for each game. As yet, there's no subscription required for PS2 online gaming. With individual game servers, if one goes down it's possible to continue playing with other games. Bundling a full game with the starter pack is more appealing than the two demos offered with the XBox Live pack. The 512kbps minimum speed should ensure lag-free gaming most of the time. While many game vendors have signed up to offer games across both MS and Sony services, Electronic Arts (publishers of popular sports and simulation games) is, at the time of writing, only offering online capabilities within their games for the PS2.

Cons: While there's no subscription games as yet, there's nothing stopping individual game vendors from offering subscription games down the track. The Network Adaptor must be installed onto the PS2, although this isn't a terribly difficult procedure. At launch there are only two first-party titles that are online capable -- SOCOM: US Navy Seals and the bundled Hardware Arena, although some other third-party PS2 games, such as Tony Hawk and FIFA 2004, are also online capable. Changing games on the PS2 requires a full reboot and re-login.

Bandwidth usage:
The amount of bandwidth used by each service will vary a fair amount depending on the game being played, and most notably, on whether voice communication is enabled. Microsoft estimates that 500MB of data is equivalent to around 30 hours of gameplay, although it's not clear if that figure includes voice data. In our tests with the PS2 Network adaptor, we averaged around 10MB/hour on SOCOM with only light voice traffic. It's worth noting that gameplay involves both downloading and uploading, so it's worth checking with your ISP as to their exact policy and requirements; some ISPs charge for uploads while other's don't. Microsoft announced recently that it's 'partnering' with Telstra and Optus for specific XBox Live offers, although at this stage no annoucements have been made as to what that exactly entails. Telstra's current information states that both downloads and uploads will count against a user's data tariff.

The verdict: Aside from hardcore gaming afficionados, it's unlikely that many users will have access to both consoles and thus both services. Of the two, XBox Live is more feature rich, but subscription pricing may deter some users. The PS2's scattered approach where each game vendor is responsible for their game servers gives flexibility, but at the same time involves a more convoluted login process.

If you are pondering both services, we'd recommend looking at the types of games and number that you play. If you only buy a games intermittently, there's very little difference between the two services; the scattered login process of the PS2 won't matter, and the advantages of the XBox live service are lessened if you're not likely to be switching games. If you buy and play a lot of games and don't care about a single username, the XBox Live service beats out the PS2 for flexibility by a fairly long shot, but if you want different usernames for each game, the PS2 would be the option to choose.