Having progressed through the several trophy/achievement systems available, I have come to a conclusion and I was wondering if anyone else felt the same.

It seems to me as if the PS3's Trophy system seems to be the least competitive of the bunch. Whenever two of my friends talk about their Xbox Live achievements they are constantly arguing over who is better because of their gamerscore. This is similar when it comes to Steam and WoW achievements. These can also quite competitive at times, but not known to cause as much of an uproar. Then there is the PS3 Trophy system. While it does provide the same feel, and hopefully in the future a more rewarding outcome (Home), it definitely feels a little "less than" when it comes to competition. Most of the people I know personally tend to pass off the trophies as nothing more than small graphics (other than the one fanboy we all have on our friends list). I'm not saying this is a bad thing, I actually believe it to be quite the opposite. I enjoy the idea that trophies are of minor significance and don't make or break one's reasons for buying a game. I was just wondering what you guys thought of this trend in gaming?

Basically.
Xbox Live Achievements - Overly aggressive competition
Steam / WoW - Somewhat aggressive / More about the game
PS3 Trophies - Not very aggressive. More as a "eh that's cool" vibe.
Figured it would be something worth talking about. Maybe it has something to do with the target audiences?

I disagree, I've alot of friends with PS3's including myself, and non of us care, I think it's because they came later, and as such there's never been a drive and they've never really been noted, some when I unlock I'll be like ooh, but that's just because it was an odd one, I wasn't aiming for it or anything like that, I.e. in fifa scoring a volley gets you one, I done that against a friend and it made the goal that little bit sweeter.
Other than that I don't bother.

I think part of the reason Xbox's is more aggressive is like I say it's been there since the start hasn't it?
I also think it's part of the set up, you can't just go "I've got so many bronze, I've got so many silver etc" you have to go out of your way and load up your trophies to check, where as on the Xbox it's just a score for you to see.
Either way I don't care about either but I think that's part of the reason.

I enjoy trophies more than achievements, but they're all meaningless in the end.  I say fuck it. 

Well, trophies aren't as a front page feature for the PS3 like achievements are for the 360. Also, they aren't plastered everywhere you log in with your Playstation Network account.

Yeah since they appear less everywhere in your account people consider them less important, but they're still the same dumb thing.

I find it annoying that older games on the ps3 do not have trophies. But other than that they just offer you incentives to keep on playing the game once you beat the main story.

Edit : The other thing I hate is multilayer Achievements \ Trophies  it just always ends in people boosting to get the achievement and defeats the purpose of actually playing the game legitimately. 

I love trophies. problem is no one else I know that owns a PS3 plays many games. Some barely turn it on. a simple breakdown:

Me - 380 trophies
Friend 1 - 89 trophies
Friend 2 - 2 trophies
Friend 3 - hasn't turned his PS3 on in months
Friends 4-6 - don't have wireless internet

pretty sad because i feel like i'm a dying breed.

I guess I agree. I have 560 trophies and I don't really brag that much about it. I feel like the only trophies that would matter in a competitive setting would be the platinums because those are the only ones I feel like I should tell people about.

I don't really like discussing these kind of topics, because I usually care about the games more than the Consoles Wars and/or Achievement Systems, but it's still interesting I guess. 

I want to say that PS3 Trophies actually show more skill in single games, than the 360. 

On 360, rich people and/or those with mad GameFly action, can just pump tons of easy points off of many many games. 

On PS3, you have an overall Gamer Level where you hardly get any "EXP" for Bronze and Silver Trophies, but them Gold and Platinum really boost you up fast... so it really shows-off your skill in a particular game, rather than a bunch of random games. 

Barring all that, I still prefer the 360's Achievement System.

Personally I take the 'meh thats cool' attitude to all achievements.  Its a nice bit of extra fun to be had from a game and nothing more.  The whole 'E-Peen' aspect of it all is just dumb.

How do people really compare Steam achievements?

The thing that people don't understand about trophies is they actually tell you more about what type of gamer people are than any of the other services. Example (using rough made-up figures but you get the idea):

Person A - has 800 trophies; 750 bronze, 40 silver, 9 gold and 1 platinum. Level 8.
Person B - has 300 trophies; 200 bronze, 70 silver, 20 gold and 10 platinum. Level 8.

Now taken on the face value of Gamerscore - Person A would be the "better" gamer because he has a higher "score" (a.k.a. trophy count) -- but with trophies -- you'll note they are the same level because Person B is much more of a "completionist". It's likely, based on those stats, that Person A has around 25 games and doesn't play them all to completion, whereas Person B probably only has 10 games and has completed them all 100%. Thus, because Person B has spent more time completing the game 100% he actually ends up around a similar level as Player A who plays more games but doesn't neccessarily spend as long with them.

The fact that trophies aren't plastered everywhere (and weren't there initially) means they're not quite as popular - but there are still a lot of people who are avid trophy whores (there are several complete websites dedicated to trophies much like achievements) so I think it's unfair to say they haven't been successful.

I myself have over 1000 trophies so naturally I'm a big fan of them. But I only have a PS3 anyway - so naturally that's the reason for my inflated trophy count. I understand why people who already have time invested into Gamerscore wouldn't want to "switch" to trophies -- naturally I couldn't imagine focusing on Gamerscore if I bought a 360 because I've spent so much time with trophies.

I think if Sony sort out the API sutff though and start making more of a "brand" out of the PSN (which they could really emphasise by bring trophies to the PSP) then more people will take a bigger interest -- because in my opinion trophies do a lot more to try and "even" the playing field.

Do you just buy lots of games or do you complete them fully? You can get that kind of information from trophies and it's less obvious with other services. That's one thing I think Sony did right.

I only have a ps3 so I cant compare but I can honestly say that i get trophies just for myself.

I almost never compare them with others, I just like them because they give more replay value to my games and give me something to do after beating a game.
I like the idea of leveling up myself as a gamer as well.
 Im a fan of trophies.