Support NeoGAF

[TheDuce22]

It seems some of you dont remember how HORRIBLE online gaming on consoles was before Xbox Live came along. Microsoft changed the whole game, Sony has been forced play catchup and they still arent there.

 

[Vilix]

That doesn't really make all that much sense. I'm more so specifically asking what makes the Xbox Live platform such a step up from other online platforms that it's worth paying for. But I'll just leave this thread now, because I'm derailing it (well one of the people). If you are interested in continuing this discussion, please PM me.

Your question is a fair question that I don't believe takes away from the OP. IMO XBL is an all encompassing network. Several different online features and options under one roof. While PSN has made significant strides in the past few years, XBL is bit better. Of course, that's my opinion. Others tend to enjoy PSN more.

 

[bj00rn_]

I pay $0 a year for STEAM.

And I paid $30 for 100g of silver needle tea yesterday. $30 for tea, $30 for XBL, I enjoy both, who the fuck cares.

 

[szaromir]

Most things that you pay for in media subscriptions don't have any advertisements popping up in front of you. TV is an exceptions solely because it shows primarily make revenue off of advertising due to their huge cost. Otherwise they'd have to charge extra. It's the reason why channels like HBO and Showtime are commercial free while everything else isn't.

And for a service that not only charges for something that should be in the first place, but also has advertisements is literally rubbing salt into the wound.

Online magazins I subscribed to did have ads in them and they were more intrusive than ads on XBL - I had to scroll through them, while ads on Xbox are just there, taking some space on the dashboard but notforcing you to watch them for x seconds/scroll through them, so they're really not intrusive at all.

 

[Neuromancer]

It seems some of you dont remember how HORRIBLE online gaming on consoles was before Xbox Live came along. Microsoft changed the whole game, Sony has been forced play catchup and they still arent there.

...

 

[Beer Monkey]

That doesn't really make all that much sense. I'm more so specifically asking what makes the Xbox Live platform such a step up from other online platforms that it's worth paying for.

I jump on Live, I start party voice chatting with my friends. Some might be playing some game together and some playing different games. Throughout the evening some of us might decide to play a couple of different games together, we send each other invites and when we accept the invites we are automatically transported into the game and into the right lobby, no matter what kind of game it is, who published, how it was coded, or how old it is (even old launch titles). If it is a disc-based game we are prompted to swap discs, but if it's a digital delivered title this of course does not happen. Because the voice chat is implemented in the OS, we are never disconnected from each other so we do not have to do any messaging or anything special to communicate our plans. Because the invite system is built into the OS it is universally supported.

Every time MS does maintenance on Live my friends and I get together on PSN. Because the voice chat is implemented inside of the games themselves, if any of my friends are gaming we have to have already managed to get into the same room of the same game just to talk. We can't easily discuss what to play next if some of us are gaming and some of us are not, or if we are playing different games. If we switch games throughout the evening we are constantly disconnected from voice chat and then reconnected once we are in the same game/room together, and depending on the game we may have to jump through some hoops to get into the same room and into the same voice chat together. If somebody is playing an old game it may not have chat at all. If we receive an invite to play a different game, it will only automatically switch games when accepting the invite if the game is newer and only if the developer of the specific games has used some relatively new coding from 2009 that allows the automatic switching of the game to occur when the invite is accepted. Basically we end up feeling less connected to each other and the quality of our experience is largely dependent on how well the games are coded. Every single time we end up feeling frustrated. It is worth it, to my friends and I, to pay a dime a day to avoid this frustration. People who don't have real gaming friends, that they have a real social relationship with, may feel much less frustrated. As with anything, your mileage may vary.

What my friends and I want is very simple. We want to be able to talk to each other, even when we aren't playing the same game and no matter how old the game is and how it was coded. We want the conversation to be able to continue even when popping in and out of different games, as this is part of our socializing and it makes it much easier to coordinate/plan our gaming activities. And we want to be able to pop from any given game/room to the next by simply clicking on an invite, and to have the game switch automatically when we do so, no matter how the developer coded the game. In the console space, only Live provides this, so we pay a dime a day and honestly find the fee to be so small as to be meaningless given the enjoyment we get from the experience.

 

[JaggedSac]

Online magazins I subscribed to did have ads in them and they were more intrusive than ads on XBL - I had to scroll through them, while ads on Xbox are just there, taking some space on the dashboard but notforcing you to watch them for x seconds/scroll through them, so they're really not intrusive at all.

Yeah, not sure what the bitching is about. The ads on Live are probably not even a good deal for companies since they are so easy not to see.

 

[Prine]

Arguments against XBL are weak. Especially when there is no service that can challenge it at the moment.

Until there is, and is free MS are justified to charge. Its a slick service and has led the way for others while being reasonably priced. Most level headed gamers and critics will agree with this.

Single gamertag was one of the best things to happen to online gaming in recent memory.

 

[Malio]

I jump on Live, I start party voice chatting with my friends. Some might be playing some game together and some playing different games. Throughout the evening some of us might decide to play a couple of different games together, we send each other invites and when we accept the invites we are automatically transported into the game and into the right lobby, no matter what kind of game it is, who published, how it was coded, or how old it is (even old launch titles). If it is a disc-based game we are prompted to swap discs, but if it's a digital delivered title this of course does not happen. Because the voice chat is implemented in the OS, we are never disconnected from each other so we do not have to do any messaging or anything special to communicate our plans. Because the invite system is built into the OS it is universally supported.

Every time MS does maintenance on Live my friends and I get together on PSN. Because the voice chat is implemented inside of the games themselves, if any of my friends are gaming we have to have already managed to get into the same room of the same game just to talk. We can't easily discuss what to play next if some of us are gaming and some of us are not, or if we are playing different games. If we switch games throughout the evening we are constantly disconnected from voice chat and then reconnected once we are in the same game/room together, and depending on the game we may have to jump through some hoops to get into the same room and into the same voice chat together. If somebody is playing an old game it may not have chat at all. If we receive an invite to play a different game, it will only automatically switch games when accepting the invite if the game is newer and only if the developer of the specific games has used some relatively new coding from 2009 that allows the automatic switching of the game to occur when the invite is accepted. Basically we end up feeling less connected to each other and the quality of our experience is largely dependent on how well the games are coded. Every single time we end up feeling frustrated. It is worth it, to my friends and I, to pay a dime a day to avoid this frustration. People who don't have real gaming friends, that they have a real social relationship with, may feel much less frustrated. As with anything, your mileage may vary.

What my friends and I want is very simple. We want to be able to talk to each other, even when we aren't playing the same game and no matter how old the game is and how it was coded. We want the conversation to be able to continue even when popping in and out of different games, as this is part of our socializing and it makes it much easier to coordinate/plan our gaming activities. And we want to be able to pop from any given game/room to the next by simply clicking on an invite, and to have the game switch automatically when we do so, no matter how the developer coded the game. In the console space, only Live provides this, so we pay a dime a day and honestly find the fee to be so small as to be meaningless given the enjoyment we get from the experience.

Teamspeak + PC.

PC wins again.

 

[JaggedSac]

Teamspeak + PC.

PC wins again.

It would be more like

A running Teamspeak Server + All friends connect to same Teamspeak server using Teamspeak Client + Use service with universal game invite system + PC

 

[Foxix Von]

I don't know how the fuck they did it but they managed to turn a profit and convince everyone that paying for this was a good idea.

It's like bottled water except nowhere near as refreshing.

 

[Beer Monkey]

It would be more like

A running Teamspeak Server + All friends connect to same Teamspeak server using Teamspeak Client + Use service with universal game invite system + PC

Not to mention that PC and console do not deliver all the same experiences and many people specifically want those console experiences.

I have a PC with a good processor and a 4870, when I want to play PC I play PC. Telling people who are playing consoles that they should be playing PC, and vice versa, is damned silly.

 

[RiskyChris]

Teamspeak + PC.

PC wins again.

Listen, the PC is a really strong platform.

So is XBL.

 

[shintoki]

It seems some of you dont remember how HORRIBLE online gaming on consoles was before Xbox Live came along. Microsoft changed the whole game, Sony has been forced play catchup and they still arent there.

That was 8 years ago, not now. Times change. XBL was great when it first launch. Cube had Pay to Play PSO, PS2 was a complete wreck where half the titles weren't even playable, and PC was an unified mess.

And this is now. PS3 has a competent unified service and a bit more open to let 3rd parties do their own thing(Portal 2 good, MGO bad). But PC pretty much fixed a large major of the problems/difference between the two and far exceeded what XBL offered.

 

[Diablohead]

I am willing to bet that in the next version of microsoft windows they build in the xbox live framework more then it is now, currently we have windows live games which use the same cross platform chat and messaging system the 360 has but it's on a per-game basis. Integrate live into windows so cross platform chat and messages can work without having to be in a game and you have a very powerful user base.

Only thing which might get in the way is the whole fair business rules, are they allowed to make it that over whelming for other windows users who prefer to use other methods?

It seems some of you dont remember how HORRIBLE online gaming on consoles was before Xbox Live came along. Microsoft changed the whole game, Sony has been forced play catchup and they still arent there.

Dream Arena on the Dreamcast was xbox live 0.5, in fact I would say it did some things better then the xbox did, it might have not fully been built into the console but the Dreamcast had DLC in some form, it has messaging boards and your own email adress and client, it bought internet browsing to any tv it was connected too and it had a 33k/56k modem packed in out of the box, very good for it's time!

Also near the end of it's life the euro version of Dream Arena allowed you to upload your saves from games for others to download, after I lost most of my SA2 save I just grabbed a fully complete save from Dream Arena, woo!

Also F355 challenge had matchmaking but without the whole rank thing, it would pair you up into a room with others and then launch the race without having to browse a server list of any kind, it was great.

 

[Durante]

I pay $30-$35 a year, cross game voice chat included.

*shudder*

Whenever people say "cross game voice chat" like it is some completely out there amazing feature worth paying a monthly fee for I think back on nearly a decade of using Teamspeak. That sounds awfully master race-y so I'll just go and scream at the kids on my lawn now.

 

[YoungHav]

I jump on Live, I start party voice chatting with my friends. Some might be playing some game together and some playing different games. Throughout the evening some of us might decide to play a couple of different games together, we send each other invites and when we accept the invites we are automatically transported into the game and into the right lobby, no matter what kind of game it is, who published, how it was coded, or how old it is (even old launch titles). If it is a disc-based game we are prompted to swap discs, but if it's a digital delivered title this of course does not happen. Because the voice chat is implemented in the OS, we are never disconnected from each other so we do not have to do any messaging or anything special to communicate our plans. Because the invite system is built into the OS it is universally supported.

Every time MS does maintenance on Live my friends and I get together on PSN. Because the voice chat is implemented inside of the games themselves, if any of my friends are gaming we have to have already managed to get into the same room of the same game just to talk. We can't easily discuss what to play next if some of us are gaming and some of us are not, or if we are playing different games. If we switch games throughout the evening we are constantly disconnected from voice chat and then reconnected once we are in the same game/room together, and depending on the game we may have to jump through some hoops to get into the same room and into the same voice chat together. If somebody is playing an old game it may not have chat at all. If we receive an invite to play a different game, it will only automatically switch games when accepting the invite if the game is newer and only if the developer of the specific games has used some relatively new coding from 2009 that allows the automatic switching of the game to occur when the invite is accepted. Basically we end up feeling less connected to each other and the quality of our experience is largely dependent on how well the games are coded. Every single time we end up feeling frustrated. It is worth it, to my friends and I, to pay a dime a day to avoid this frustration. People who don't have real gaming friends, that they have a real social relationship with, may feel much less frustrated. As with anything, your mileage may vary.

What my friends and I want is very simple. We want to be able to talk to each other, even when we aren't playing the same game and no matter how old the game is and how it was coded. We want the conversation to be able to continue even when popping in and out of different games, as this is part of our socializing and it makes it much easier to coordinate/plan our gaming activities. And we want to be able to pop from any given game/room to the next by simply clicking on an invite, and to have the game switch automatically when we do so, no matter how the developer coded the game. In the console space, only Live provides this, so we pay a dime a day and honestly find the fee to be so small as to be meaningless given the enjoyment we get from the experience.

Why is PSN like that? Is it b/c Sony is less competent or is there any truth that MS specifically has a patent for this, so Sony can't do the exact same?

 

[Foxix Von]

*shudder*

Whenever people say "cross game voice chat" like it is some completely out there amazing feature worth paying a monthly fee for I think back on nearly a decade of using Teamspeak. That sounds awfully master race-y so I'll just go and scream at the kids on my lawn now.

Honestly it's killed playing XBL for me now. I loved being able to just hop in a random game and make new friends, chat with people, and try and coordinate or warn people. But 90% of people just stay in party chat now so it's nearly pointless to even use a mic while playing anymore.

 

[RiskyChris]

*shudder*

Whenever people say "cross game voice chat" like it is some completely out there amazing feature worth paying a monthly fee for I think back on nearly a decade of using Teamspeak. That sounds awfully master race-y so I'll just go and scream at the kids on my lawn now.

Oh no people like a thing and pay for it.

 

[Beer Monkey]

Why is PSN like that? Is it b/c Sony is less competent or is there any truth that MS specifically has a patent for this, so Sony can't do the exact same?

I'd say part of it is that MS started doing this in 2002 and has grown and learned much. When the original PS3 OS was designed Sony didn't have the foresight to put the functionality in the OS instead of coded inside of specific games, they have moved in the right direction but would have been better off designing it that way from Day One. They were also having memory bloat issues with the XMB initially and that may have been a factor. Sony also shows a reluctance to use TCRs to force developers to incorporate new functionality that is available, that would go a ways to delivering a more consistent experience, at least with newer titles.

I'll be very surprised if the current Live features are not coded into the OS and completely universal on the PS4.

 

[poppabk]

Teamspeak + PC.

PC wins again.

Its not about winning or losing or who has the better platform. The reason that the Live fee is so intriguing and threatening to people on PS3 or PC is that they are currently getting similar services for free. With the bucketloads of cash that MS are making for not really doing a whole lot, it is hard to believe that this is going to continue, the PC market already resisted one (weak ass) attempt by MS to charge for online, but if Valve for example started charging $20 a year for their service, many people might not see it as a big deal.
Basically Live users, by paying for online, are screwing the rest of us in the long run so we want to know why. Same for people who buy $15 map packs, and who buy stuff from spam emails.

 

[Son of Godzilla]

Whenever people say "cross game voice chat" like it is some completely out there amazing feature worth paying a monthly fee for I think back on nearly a decade of using Teamspeak.

...

:lol

 

[Beer Monkey]

Basically Live users, by paying for online, are screwing the rest of us

:lol

 

[Lonely1]

From what i have read here, the arguments are:
- Is what my friends are using
- Is needed to play 360 exclusives

Which i read as, "I pay because I dont have much choice". Sorry If find the pro arguments to be a little weak...

 

[RiskyChris]

From what i have read here, the arguments are:
- Is what my friends are using
- Is needed to play 360 exclusives

Which i read as, "I pay because I dont have much choice". Sorry If find the pro arguments to be a little weak...

I didn't have much choice in paying for SMG2 but I don't use that flimsy argument to attack the game.

 

[pr0cs]

Basically Live users, by paying for online, are screwing the rest of us in the long run so we want to know why.

Maybe if you got a job you could afford the wonders of XBL. I know unemployment is fun but really, try earning money and buying things you like, it's awesome.

 

[Classic24]

if you buy an xbox 360 and you want to play multiplayer, sorry but you dont have a choice but to pay up, thats a fact. SMG2 is an opinion:lol

 

[afternoon delight]

I didn't have much choice in paying for SMG2 but I don't use that flimsy argument to attack the game.

Pretty much. Everyone who complains about XBL and the horrendous price tag obviously doesn't use it.

Very convenient consolidation of features and all my friends playing effortlessly in games that are fully supported - cannot complain whatsoever.

 

[JaggedSac]

*shudder*

Whenever people say "cross game voice chat" like it is some completely out there amazing feature worth paying a monthly fee for I think back on nearly a decade of using Teamspeak. That sounds awfully master race-y so I'll just go and scream at the kids on my lawn now.

Do you host your own server or pay to rent a server?

 

[poppabk]

Maybe if you got a job you could afford the wonders of XBL. I know unemployment is fun but really, try earning money and buying things you like, it's awesome.

So I hear. I'm not clear what I would be buying for my $50 ($35) though.

 

[Archie]

Maybe if you got a job you could afford the wonders of XBL. I know unemployment is fun but really, try earning money and buying things you like, it's awesome.

I love this argument. Obviously anybody who objects to the notion of Live is a dirty poor. I got three years of gold for free and I still think that the service isn't worth paying money for what you get.

 

[Lonely1]

I didn't have much choice in paying for SMG2 but I don't use that flimsy argument to attack the game.

So, you are telling me than you wouldnt prefeer a cheaper or free (legal) alternative to play SMG?

For obvious reasons, we have always needed to pay for games. For Online? Not quite...

Edit: I forgot one pro argument:
- I dont mind spending (wasting?) money.

 

[MinnesotaFatz]

I tell ya, hell hath no fury like gamers invested in MS failure :lol

 

[jagowar]

I am willing to bet that in the next version of microsoft windows they build in the xbox live framework more then it is now, currently we have windows live games which use the same cross platform chat and messaging system the 360 has but it's on a per-game basis. Integrate live into windows so cross platform chat and messages can work without having to be in a game and you have a very powerful user base.

Ill go one step further..... In windows 8 gaming will be a virtualized xbox 360/720 (if the next xbox is out by then) with full access to the live service and once loaded will look & function just like you were on an xbox. Any 360/720 game will play with the pc using a controller or kinect.

I jump on Live, I start party voice chatting with my friends. Some might be playing some game together and some playing different games. Throughout the evening some of us might decide to play a couple of different games together, we send each other invites and when we accept the invites we are automatically transported into the game and into the right lobby, no matter what kind of game it is, who published, how it was coded, or how old it is (even old launch titles). If it is a disc-based game we are prompted to swap discs, but if it's a digital delivered title this of course does not happen. Because the voice chat is implemented in the OS, we are never disconnected from each other so we do not have to do any messaging or anything special to communicate our plans. Because the invite system is built into the OS it is universally supported.

Every time MS does maintenance on Live my friends and I get together on PSN. Because the voice chat is implemented inside of the games themselves, if any of my friends are gaming we have to have already managed to get into the same room of the same game just to talk. We can't easily discuss what to play next if some of us are gaming and some of us are not, or if we are playing different games. If we switch games throughout the evening we are constantly disconnected from voice chat and then reconnected once we are in the same game/room together, and depending on the game we may have to jump through some hoops to get into the same room and into the same voice chat together. If somebody is playing an old game it may not have chat at all. If we receive an invite to play a different game, it will only automatically switch games when accepting the invite if the game is newer and only if the developer of the specific games has used some relatively new coding from 2009 that allows the automatic switching of the game to occur when the invite is accepted. Basically we end up feeling less connected to each other and the quality of our experience is largely dependent on how well the games are coded. Every single time we end up feeling frustrated. It is worth it, to my friends and I, to pay a dime a day to avoid this frustration. People who don't have real gaming friends, that they have a real social relationship with, may feel much less frustrated. As with anything, your mileage may vary.

What my friends and I want is very simple. We want to be able to talk to each other, even when we aren't playing the same game and no matter how old the game is and how it was coded. We want the conversation to be able to continue even when popping in and out of different games, as this is part of our socializing and it makes it much easier to coordinate/plan our gaming activities. And we want to be able to pop from any given game/room to the next by simply clicking on an invite, and to have the game switch automatically when we do so, no matter how the developer coded the game. In the console space, only Live provides this, so we pay a dime a day and honestly find the fee to be so small as to be meaningless given the enjoyment we get from the experience.

I agree with your points but you can boil all of those examples into a single argument..... the level of integration between the console and xbox live is unmatched. You can argue that pc/psn services can do some/most of the same things but nobody does it all in one neat simple package.

It even goes down to the console dashboard where browsing the market has the same UI as everything else (games library, friends channel, netflix, zune video). Even something like hulu I can see them not wanting to let hulu just throw something out there and instead launch it when they were sure it had the same UI experience as the rest of xbox (and kinect). Every aspect of the console and live work together.

 

[Prine]

Its not about winning or losing or who has the better platform. The reason that the Live fee is so intriguing and threatening to people on PS3 or PC is that they are currently getting similar services for free. With the bucketloads of cash that MS are making for not really doing a whole lot, it is hard to believe that this is going to continue, the PC market already resisted one (weak ass) attempt by MS to charge for online, but if Valve for example started charging $20 a year for their service, many people might not see it as a big deal.
Basically Live users, by paying for online, are screwing the rest of us in the long run so we want to know why. Same for people who buy $15 map packs, and who buy stuff from spam emails.

Simply step out of your own shoes, think of the thrill of gaming you feel with your setup, others are feeling the same with XBL. Everyone here has the option to switch the PC. No one has been forced to pay for XBL, its a choice and choice that is preferred over other options.

 

[SYNTAX182]

LOL at consumers. GO MICROSOFT!

 

[Beer Monkey]

Everyone here has the option to switch the PC. No one has been forced to pay for XBL, its a choice and choice that is preferred over other options.

Hell, every single friend I have that plays Live has a PS3 and/or a gaming rig and they still pay 3 bucks a month to MS. To be fair, they are all professionals in their 30s and 40s and have disposable income. Then again, anybody with a gaming console has disposable income.

 

[FrankT]

I like the people who are genuinely upset by this news. :lol

It's pretty funny at this point. IIRC they hit a billion overall what 2-3 years into this gen. If it is pulling in a billion plus annually now there really is no telling what the service will be pulling in by the start of the next generation. As long as they keep improving and adding to the service I'll be a happy camper. 12.5 million or so paying for the service certainly shows real growth over the years as well. It will be interesting to see how these numbers improve overall going forward.

 

[Vinci]

Why would anyone dismiss Live? Hell, I hate Microsoft and think Live is pretty fantastic. I'm a long-term PC gamer on top of that, and I think how it unites all of its features is really well done and worth paying for.

Live is a really great platform. We'd all be lucky if PSN and the Wii's online were the same.

 

[Mrbob]

I do agree the only game changer in the console space is if Sony can match or exceed Live Gold while keeping it free.

It would be more like

A running Teamspeak Server + All friends connect to same Teamspeak server using Teamspeak Client + Use service with universal game invite system + PC

This is all getting a bit silly. :lol

 

[SYNTAX182]

Yeah seriously. Live is pretty well done and should be the pedestal Nintendo and Sony should try to reach as far as online goes. It would be nice if it was free, but in this case the value justifies the cost, especially if you are savvy enough to look for the cheap deals on the 12-month cards.

 

[Vinci]

Yeah seriously. Live is pretty well done and should be the pedestal Nintendo and Sony should try to reach as far as online goes. It would be nice if it was free, but in this case the value justifies the cost, especially if you are savvy enough to look for the cheap deals on the 12-month cards.

Nintendo and Sony will always be playing catch-up. Live is how MS distinguishes itself compared to the competition. Even if the other two caught up, MS would apply some new feature or something that would take the other two years to match. Rinse, repeat.

 

[FLEABttn]

Even if the other two caught up, MS would apply some new feature or something that would take the other two years to match. Rinse, repeat.

Unless the others exceeded Live and MS's new features misjudged the market.

Kind of like how any industry works.

 

[Foxix Von]

Why would anyone dismiss Live? Hell, I hate Microsoft and think Live is pretty fantastic. I'm a long-term PC gamer on top of that, and I think how it unites all of its features is really well done and worth paying for.

Live is a really great platform. We'd all be lucky if PSN and the Wii's online were the same.

I wouldn't say I'm dismissing the service so much as I'm voicing that it's a rip off. Not only are you paying for it, it's also an ad supported user interface that's overburdened by it's own necessity to shove corporate slogans down your gullet.

It is the best online service on consoles right now but to me that's not saying all that much, and it's not without it's flaws. I find no actual value in paying the fee considering that it's essentially all person to person.

 

[chixdiggit]

Not to mention that PC and console do not deliver all the same experiences and many people specifically want those console experiences.

Such as?? What kind of experience is being offered on the console that you just can't get on the PC? I have all three consoles and the only thing I can think of is motion control.

 

[Odrion]

This was a long term investment for Microsoft that paid off well. They created a sustainable online environment where there was none, and set the standard for online gaming. Their actions made a huge impact on the online infrastructure for console games and they were smart to charge for it in the very beginning.

Still, it's going to suck when Sony does this as well (Playstation Plus will be required for online play on the PS4, no doubt) and then gamers will really have to make a choice between consoles. I'm not going to spend $100 a year to play online and it's pretty ridiculous to think many others would.

and the whole "I like paying money! You don't like paying money? Fuck you!" viewpoint I'm seeing here is pretty disgusting, grow up

 

[Dabanton]

Nintendo and Sony will always be playing catch-up. Live is how MS distinguishes itself compared to the competition. Even if the other two caught up, MS would apply some new feature or something that would take the other two years to match. Rinse, repeat.

Nintendo isn't even off the starting line in terms of it's online service. Sony is slowly getting their they still need to tidy up the Playstation store a bit more and liven it up it always feels so sterile whenever i log on to PSN.

But i think this gen has already been settled in terms of online services for consoles. Though you can already see Sony already maneuvering it's users for a full pay service for it's next console no way will they miss out again.

 

[axiomnightmare]

subscription fees and microtransactions for things which have been free for decades on other platforms.

Congrats for screwing us over, MS

Well people are paying for it. What would you want MS to do, throw away free money?

 

[see5harp]

and the whole "I like paying money! You don't like paying money? Fuck you!" viewpoint I'm seeing here is pretty disgusting, grow up

That's a fair statement, but honestly it irritates me just as much when I see someone say "you pay for p2p gaming lol." If you actually took the time to experience a few days of gaming online with friends on the 360 platform, you'd understand that it isn't just a sum of features. If it were, I wouldn't mind sending IM's via AIM and chatting through Ventrillo, while comparing achievements through a web portal. Steam has come a long way to bridging features on the PC platform, I agree.

 

[Vinci]

Nintendo isn't even off the starting line in terms of it's online service. Sony is slowly getting their they still need to tidy up the Playstation store a bit more and liven it up it always feels so sterile whenever i log on to PSN.

But i think this gen has already been settled in terms of online services for consoles. Though you can already see Sony already maneuvering it's users for a full pay service for it's next console no way will they miss out again.

My point isn't that Sony and Nintendo are incapable of competing with MS in the online space. My point is that MS is only really strong in three ways - tools, relations, and online. These three things are what makes them distinctive from their competitors in this space. They cannot and will not allow anyone to move beyond them in these areas, as that would cut down their influence and there's no reason - given the size of the company and its funding - to ever fall behind either of those companies in those areas.

As for how the two combat this: Sony will likely continue trying to feature-match MS, which is insane given they can never outspend MS or focus too heavily on that one area compared to the number of other things they have to concern themselves with. So unless they get off the feature-match route and try to bring something distinctive to the space, they're not a threat.

Nintendo might very well come up with some distinctive online service next time around, but they will never try to feature-match MS because they cannot afford it from a manpower perspective.

So again, MS will always be leader when it comes to online in consoles. It's something they are willing to invest a ton of money and manpower into evolving and maintaining, and if they're doing this well with it there's no reason for them to falter.