I did a search but couldn't find anything.  The 360 version of MK requires separate compatibility packs which not everyone has downloaded and so on and so forth.  It's becoming pretty frustrating to try and play online, but all my "gear" and fighting games are for 360.  Is the PS3 handling of patches and online play drastically better?

Worse. Much worse. 360 patching uses a DIFF system (which MS patented), where only binary changes are downloaded as opposed to whole files - making it a lot faster to grab said patches and to inject them into games - whole groups of patches are completed in one process. The PS3's patching system actually grabs whole files when it needs to update so it's slower both to download them and more importantly when inserting them into the games. Patches in the PS3 are done whatever order necessary so the process will be something like Boot up game, game looks on PSN for patches, download patch a, insert patch a, search for patches, download patch b, insert patch b and so on until the patching process is finished.

the lag in ps3 isn't as bad as before, but people still desync and get "this game is no longer available" quite often, or at least i do.

Glad to hear it's not drastically better, I was considering transitioning over to PS3 for all my fighting games since I've been digging MK more then I thought I would. I'll just stick with 360 in this case.

Thanks guys.