Online gaming

Both the 360 and PS3 have online stores that provide a mixture of free downloadable content, such as game demos, videos and movie trailers, alongside paid-for material. This ranges from add-ons for games, such as new tracks for Guitar Hero 3, to full games. Some are new, and others are ports of old games. The 360's store (Xbox Live Marketplace) has far more on offer than the PS3's (PlayStation Store), particularly when it comes to retro titles, with games such as Streets of Rage 2, Speedball 2 and Sensible World of Soccer available, most with online play added. Xbox Live Marketplace was recently updated to include movie rentals, some of which are in HD. The big annoyance is that it insists on charging you in Microsoft Points, a bizarre non-currency that you have to buy in 500-point blocks (costing £4.25), whereas downloadable games cost between 200 and 400 points. The PlayStation Store isn't much better - although prices are shown in actual money, you can't simply buy them if they're below £5, as there's a £5 minimum purchase.

The Wii also has an online store, the Wii Shop Channel, which allows you to buy old console games to play on the system. Again, you need to pay for items using points. Both the Wii and the PS3 have web browsers available, although both offer a very limited experience compared with a PC.

Steam is the PC's most high-profile downloadable content store, although there are lots of alternatives, including game rental services such as Metaboli. Most annoying for PC gamers is how tricky it can be to get hold of newly released demos quickly. The best bet is a service such as Fileplanet, although at $3.33 a month for a year ($39.96) it seems a pricey way to experience what are supposed to be free game demos. Overall, we feel that no one has got it right just yet. The PS3 is clearly a work in progress, and the Wii's online mode is a little too simple. The PC is a patchwork that can be a pain to maintain, and while the 360 is top, its online mode tends towards the overly engineered and complex.

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