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If online-required is true, how bad will system/game launches be?

I

IHaveCandy

Banned
We've all seen how it's been for Diablo and Sim City. Take that problem to the scale of a whole system. Realistically, what hope does MS have to constantly certify connections when the system releases? What about large software releases? I'm sure it is less work per user than Diablo or Sim City since servers don't need to sync all of your game data. But with the increase in users, what's gonna happen? How impactful would it be if a majority of new Durango owners couldn't play their games the first week?
 
G

GAMERG0D

Member
I think Durango's launch is going to be somewhat of a trainwreck. Console launches usually aren't very pretty. And if that $500 pricepoint holds to be true, I'm going to be holding out for one.
 
Y

Yagharek

Member
Every Christmas the servers will die, creating a torrent of tears.

The Consoles that Killed Christmas.

You dont like making children cry, do you?
 
R

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
I don't think it will have an effect launch too much because a lot of diehards will buy the console anyway and a lot of general consumers flat out won't know about it, especially if they're just gettin it for their kid for Christmas or something. It'll be after launch when the consoles are set up in people's homes and things start going awry that there will be awareness raised about it and returns/angry complaints will begin.
 
M

MrNyarlathotep

Banned
Man... if required persistent online connection and $500 price tag are true, a bunch of WiiU sales trolls are about to have a very bad time.
 
R

Roto13

Member
Remember when the Wii U came out and people were having problems downloading the update because of the server load?

Durango will be like that, except nobody will be able to do anything at all.
 
R

Ryaaan14

Banned
Microsoft is going to be dead on arrival. There are too many families out there with kids who play 360's that aren't connected. The parents are going to get them a 720 at launch or at Christmas, and the moment they realize it requires a connection to work, they're gonna take that shit back and buy the kids a WiiU or PS4. Simple as that.

Edit: And I know this is about the servers, so I'll just say the servers will be fine because no one is going to be slamming them :_P
 
S

Sorian

Banned
Roto13 said:
Remember when the Wii U came out and people were having problems downloading the update because of the server load?

Durango will be like that, except nobody will be able to do anything at all.
Click to expand...

Hahaha I see what you did there......because you need an internet connection to do anything......and like Sim City and Diablo 3......and hahahaha that's funny......I get it!

Seriously though, the durango is a trainwreck waiting to happen. I expect the whole Sim City thing except it'll be the price of a console not the price of a game.
 
S

Spongebob

Banned
Think about the PSN outage of 2011 and now think about what would happen if you couldn't play any games on your console for that period of time.
 
I

IHaveCandy

Banned
SpaceHobo said:
How does XBL handle all those connections just now ?


Has it ever went down during a Battlefield or COD launch ?
Click to expand...
Well the assumption is that always-online will be more taxing since it is supposedly leveraging that feature for demographics researching for ads. Plus they are going to have to deal with 100% of systems online.
 
I

Instro

Member
I have no idea how they are going to deal with this. Even Blizzard, a company who deals with the largest online game in existence, completely dropped the ball with the Diablo 3 launch when the servers got so badly hammered. There's no way Microsoft will be able to deal with the amount of people connecting through their servers to play games during major launch weeks if their always online system works the way that people fear it will.
 
W

Wynnebeck

Banned
Why? Why is Microsoft potentially going through with this? This has to be the worst idea ever in the history of video games. The potential for disaster is immense and I think MS may have their heads to far up their behinds to see why this wouldn't work.
 
stuminus3

stuminus3

Member
Ryaaan14 said:
Microsoft is going to be dead on arrival. There are too many families out there with kids who play 360's that aren't connected.
Click to expand...
Those are the people that are keeping 360 sales so high in 2013.... not the people buying brand new high end systems... I don't like the idea of having to always be online, just saying.
 
Nealand Liquor

Nealand Liquor

Member
I just played some NHL 13 - a seven month old game - however the EA server was unavailable so I just played my bagm instead. I assume next gen will be like that except I wouldn't be able play at all. Not one for doom and gloom but I'm not looking forward to a online-only future.
 
Q

qko

Member
Snapshot King said:
Twice is really underselling it. That was a single game. This is a whole order of magnitude. I can't imagine the disaster at the returns counter for retailers post Christmas, or the help lines for Microsoft and Amazon.
Click to expand...

Will Amazon stop selling Microsoft products and recommend the PS4 exclusively in 2014?
 
M

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
It's probably the biggest preoccupation I have for them since it seems they'll go with this only-online-console crap. We've seen Diablo III and SimCity's launches being severly damaged for the former and destroyed for the latter as reception from DRM-online problems.
I can't even imagine how much of a disaster (both for users and for MS) can be the fact that the console you just bought could NOT play the games you bought with it at all. Everygame is SimCity: CAOS. And a PR Hellish, Perverted Nightmare. Launches see always problems, it's because things can't be perfect since the beginning, doing the only-online-console is like saying to every kind of problem a launch can have that you not only opened the door for them, but you slashed it creating a giant hole that allows every problem to come. :lol
 
Acquiescence

Acquiescence

Member
Wynnebeck said:
Why? Why is Microsoft potentially going through with this? This has to be the worst idea ever in the history of video games. The potential for disaster is immense and I think MS may have their heads to far up their behinds to see why this wouldn't work.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much exactly what I'm pondering right now. Really makes you think how a company can go through with something so potentially catastrophic and think it's a good idea. They probably expected Sony to follow suit with the PS4 so they wouldn't take all the heat, but right now Microsoft are being singled out as the only one of the big three to implement this always-online strategy and it's making them look so bad.
 
W

Wynnebeck

Banned
Acquiescence said:
That's pretty much exactly what I'm pondering right now. Really makes you think how a company can go through with something so potentially catastrophic and think it's a good idea. They probably expected Sony to follow suit with the PS4 so they wouldn't take all the heat, but right now Microsoft are being singled out as the only one of the big three to implement this always-online strategy and it's making them look so bad.
Click to expand...

tumblr_kw0guxsxua1qz4yoao1_500.png
Click to expand...

Not like this. :(
 
I

Iced_Eagle

Member
I don't think the launch of the Nextbox is going to be bad like people think.

MS has run XBL very well over the years. They also run tons of other services that are used by millions of people (Outlook, Office365, Skype / Messenger, Xbox Music/Video, App store, etc etc). Halo 4 also uses Azure for its services in the backend (there's videos on Channel9 talking about this, it's highly scalable depending on load), and they didn't crash when Halo launched.

They know how to create a service that scales. Nothing is perfect, you can of course point to various outages XBL has had over the years. The Xmas of 07 was the worst by far. No company has a perfect track record. Even Google / Gmail have gone out over the course of years.

For third-party games though, it might be a different story. Most companies just don't have the expertise in launching large services. We can only hope the devs do their jobs right, and take the right measures to make sure we don't have Diablo3 or Sim City-esque catastrophes on launch day. I'm actually slightly worried about Destiny's launch for example. That's going to be a lot of people form tons of different platforms hitting their servers. We'll see though.
 
denshuu

denshuu

Member
I really hope it's catastrophic. To the point where people who bought them start returning them. If it actually works and people become accustomed to it, you can look forward to always on DRM being as ubiquitous as microtransactions in EA games.

Snapshot King said:
Don't forget Halo, and yeah, pretty much every time.
Click to expand...

By 'every time' do you mean 'one time in 2007'? Because it hasn't happened since then. And it's never happened with Call of Duty.
 
A

AngryMoth

Member
I have to figure whatever solution they've come up with will be able to handle large traffic spikes otherwise I just don't see how they could even dream of doing this, they would have to be out of their minds. Launch might be a bit patchy but I expect most of the time it will be fairly stable, maybe with the occasional outage lasting an hour or so. Or maybe they are just crazy and it will be a total trainreck, who knows
 
P

PairOfFilthySocks

Member
I sure as shit ain't buying an online-only console, and I dearly hope any online-only console suffers a catastrophic server failure at launch. That'll teach the fools who buy it.
 
Barakov

Barakov

Gold Member
If Diablo 3 and Sim City are any indication, pretty bad. It's possible it won't be that bad in the future but I have a feeling the new Xbox might have a pretty bumpy launch. Honestly, I don't like being forced to be online to play a single player game. Even though my internet is pretty reliable, I don't like having that restriction being forced onto me. I'm not writing the system off entirely, but I'm definitely taking a wait and see approach to the new Xbox.
 
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