The Showdown continues. In the Showdown, we pick a topic, argue both sides, and then present the results to you. Today, Ben and Frank discuss whether or not Sony should force publishers to implement certain features like trophies and voice chat across all PS3 games.

Ben: I was a big fan of Hot Shots Golf on the PS3, but didn't play much online. What's the point of playing golf with other people if you can't speak to them? Part of the fun of any online game is talking smack, giving props at a particularly good move, or just chatting at this or that. I thought it was amazing that any modern game would ship without voice chat, and while there is now a patch that adds it to the game, it's a shame it took this long.

Microsoft has the right idea: give strict rules about the online play of games published on their system. They have to support voice chat. Games have to have 1,000 achievement points. The beauty of Xbox Live is how universal it is; I feel like I'm playing on a platform, not a collection of games where the publishers had to knock out a new way to do online play for every release. Every online PS3 game feels different, because Sony offers no rules, no requirements. I'm all for freedom in gaming, but making Xbox Live a closed system and giving publishers a list of things they had to do was a great move for gamers.

Frank: Sony clearly went a different route than Microsoft. Sony offered gamers a free online experience and left it up to the developers to decide what to do. They have little governance over the kinds of bonus content or even the online functionality of games that developers implement. Rather the company opted for a bit of a free market mentality: let developers do what they want and it'll all work itself out.

But what shouldn't be misconstrued from this is to think that Sony has done nothing similar to Microsoft. Sony has been very good about implementing support for trophies, YouTube, and other various functionality into its SDK. All of these tools are there for developers to use them, but no one is forced to implement features that would sap valuable resources away from making the core game better. If developers want to add trophies, they are free to do so but it's up to them. It would be risky at this point to force impositions on the developers when they are are really beginning to know the PS3 and exploit its power. Who knows how these restrictions could affect existing development cycles. There would also be the issue of old games not being compatible.

While the standards result in a common experience across all games, the requirements that define the Xbox 360 online experience could very well wind up being constricting down the road. Look at the Tru-Skill system: Tru-Skill has been and still is garbage and yet most developers implement this because it's there and it saves them the work of making a functional, sensible system. Developers on the PS3 are free to expand and far exceed any sort of standard: look at Resistance 2, which has a better party interface than any game on either console. It's just a matter of time before developers catch up on the PS3; forcing them to do so is unnecessary and could inhibit creativity.

Ben: What I'd like is if Sony took the system for Resistance 2 and make it work for all games. And we can take Xbox Live out of it to make sure this isn't an Xbox vs. PS3 argument; Steam does a wonderful job of tying games together online as well. Playing Left 4 Dead and being able to jump in and out of games has been great, and Team Fortress 2 is a joy because of the built-in voice chat and the friend system.

The ability to send and accept invitations across games, to talk to players on every game, and to have an interface to keep it all together is a great thing. My PC can do it; my 360 can do it; I wish the PS3 could do it. You can make sure that online games have a basic level of functionality and still allow for creativity, and it's annoying to buy a game on the PS3 and not know exactly what you're getting with online play.

Some games have chat, others don't. Some games have trophies, others don't. It's inconsistent and way more trouble than necessary. Even if Sony made a rule that every game had to support voice chat I'd be happier, and let's hope the company is moving in that direction.

Frank: To be fair, a lot of this functionality is coming to the PS3 in the form of the "love to hate it" service Home. As much as some have protested and whined about having to boot up a separate interface, Home could very well surpass these standard systems in a way that is largely more intuitive and interactive. Unfortunately, Home faces an upward battle because of the prejudices that some bring to the table. People are unrealistically negative about Home in spite of the fact that jumping into the service is simple, inviting friends to your room is fundamentally no different than a standard text-and-icon interface (you just use the in-service interface as you would the XMB), and jumping into a game from there is easy.

It's unfortunate for Sony that this is the case, and I don't think that's going to change unless the company has some big surprises lying in wait towards the end of the year. As it stands, the superior online service is on the Xbox 360. But Sony has always carved its own path, and jumping on the bandwagon with services like Steam and Xbox Live isn't necessarily the only solution or even the best one. They're different platforms that offer different types of online services. Is there functionality on the Xbox 360/Steam that PS3 gamers could benefit from? Absolutely. Could standards across all games help to raise the bar? Possibly. But I'm excited to see how Home takes what we think is the standard for online community-based play and mixes it up.

What say you, readers? Should Sony move forward with requirements for publishers? Does every game need voice chat and trophies?