Xbox Live boss Aaron Greenberg has attacked Sony’s Playstation Network service, criticising the company for failing to deliver users a "unified service."

Greenberg’s comments come following an interview on Gamestrailers.com, where the Microsoft executive was asked about the fact users must pay USD 50 for Xbox Live’s Gold subscription, whereas Sony’s PSN remains free for users.

"I don't think price is a big issue," said Greenberg. "Almost everything we offer on Live is available for free, your friends list, messaging, [marketplace content]... When you get a good 80 per cent of the Live experience for free... We feel our multiplayer offering is good value."

Greenberg observed that almost half of Xbox Live’s 3 million users have paid for a Gold subscription, noting, "I think you get what you pay for. With the managed service, there's no hacking, cheating, griefing.”

"The other thing is people want a consistent experience across all their games; you don't want the way you integrate friends lists to be different game to game, you want voice in every single game..."

Regarding PSN, he argued, "It's not a unified service." One example he cited included the fact users cannot invite friends directly via the dashboard when playing Resistance: Fall of Man.

"It's not that consistent experience - it's not built into the core platform, which for us is really important."

However, he did concede Sony’s decision to include Psone games via the Playstation Network as a definite commitment to online functionality, stating, "They're making an investment, they're showing a commitment to it and saying that it does matter.”

"We feel like if online matters to you, you're going to go with our console because we have the best offering, but I would say their commitment is probably the most important thing."

Lastly, Greenberg commented on the Playstation Store, noting its familiarity, observing, "It's more like being on a web page. To me it's a little slower and harder to navigate because of that, but visually it's familiar."