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[jedimike]

TXB interview with Andre Vrignaud, Technical Guru for XBL

excerpts...

We've announced that we had a stretch goal of having 1 million subscribers by the end of our fiscal year (end of this month - June), and I'm pleased to say we're on track! It's pretty astounding to think about, really - while there are some who like to claim that online isn't "real" yet, what we have here is over 1 million people who not only believe it's real, but also believe having a consistent, safe, and quality online experience is worth paying for.

There are 2 numbers that get confused. Robbie Bach at E3 said there were over 1 million users at that time, which is different from 1 million subscribers XBL has now. For reference, XBL subscriber base was at 750,000 at the end of 2003. Growth has been relatively slow the last 6 months, but should boom again once Halo 2 hits the shelves.

On average people are playing three hours a day (which is up from the 2.5 hours we saw a year ago), and the average number of people on Friends lists continues to climb - it's a little over 13 right now. You can imagine that number will continue to grow as we improve the tools to allow people to find and manage their online relationships.

Anything MS can do to get my Friends list organized... My memory is crap and I hate not knowing who some of the people are on my friends list. I want to create folders or groups for friends. Like a group called GAF and one for Family, etc.

Downloadable content has been hugely popular - some titles have had content packages downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

Keep it coming.

Over the past year we went and talked with our partners on what features they wanted to see in Xbox Live for their games

And remember our building block philosophy for Xbox Live? Everything we do needs to be extensible by developers so they can create the next generation of game experiences we're all looking for. So anything we do around community-enabling needs to be leveragable (is that a word… it is now) by developers and publishers - which in turn can open up some pretty compelling new experiences.

One of the reasons I like MS in the gaming community is because they ask developers advice for nearly everything. They don't just create something and then tell everyone to utilize it.

LSP is nothing more than a new building block that can be used for Xbox Live games. In this case, it just happens to be a building block that allows publishers to extend their games in new ways by hosting services outside of the Xbox Live core data center. For example, what if a publisher wanted to have as a game feature the ability for hundreds of people to spectate a game match? They could use LSP to create a true spectator mode and have a server that broadcasts the needed data. Or what if a publisher wanted to take the next step in console first-person shooters and have something like a 1000-player map with titanic battles and persistent world damage that's tracked over the period of a year-long game? This isn't something we'd ever explicitly create as an Xbox Live feature since it's far too game-specific - but with LSP a publisher can invest in a server to host and manage this game feature.

MS should have developed LSP sooner, but at least they'll have all the learning curves out of the way for Xenoon.

 

[epmode]

Anything MS can do to get my Friends list organized... My memory is crap and I hate not knowing who some of the people are on my friends list. I want to create folders or groups for friends. Like a group called GAF and one for Family, etc.

good idea. i'd also like the max # of friends raised. 100 may seem like a lot, but if you're playing more than 1 or 2 online games, it fills up quickly.

and hooray for xbox live. it's the best thing to happen to console games in a long time.

 

[siamesedreamer]

My friends list is a little confusing. I have people on there that I haven't seen online in months. How does it work - when a person boots you off their friends list is that person still on your friends list?

 

[SKluck]

I think I'm bringing the average down. I played 30 minutes in the past 4 months.

 

[hgplayer1]

im pretty sure when you remove someone from your list, it also removes you from theirs. seems like I remember testing this with someone at some point and time.

I used to always have a full friends list but now Ive made a habit of deleting people that I havent noticed online in a while. its strange to me that I would have added someone to my list and then I never see them online after that. I dont think I actually log onto Live as much as I used to but I still get on at least 2-3 times a week.

I hope LSP means that all the FSPs coming in the future at least have a shot at some dedicated servers set up by the publisher.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

I got a e-mail from M$ today talking about my cc is about to expire. I was like 'Oh sh!t!' since I haven't gotten on Live since some time in '03. lol!

I'm letting it expire.

 

[BuddyC]

I think I'm bringing the average down. I played 30 minutes in the past 4 months.

Same here. I haven't played on Live since the weeks following the release of Pandora Tomorrow.

 

[DJ Demon J]

Don't worry, when Halo 2 comes out we'll all be glued to our Xboxen.

With that said, anytime you guys wanna do Capture The Gold City Bus style, let me know.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

^^^

One game? Monthly fee?

Meh...

 

[BuddyC]

With that said, anytime you guys wanna do Capture The Gold City Bus style, let me know.

Same here.

Oh Halo 2, how I yearn for thee to be in my grasp again.

 

[hgplayer1]

Don't worry, when Halo 2 comes out we'll all be glued to our Xboxen.

With that said, anytime you guys wanna do Capture The Gold City Bus style, let me know.

theres no reason i still shouldnt be playing MM3 on a daily basis. I had so much fun with that game. I think I started to take it a little too seriously. I still have it though so Im in for some CTG.

 

[FightyF]

One game? Monthly fee?

Meh...

Not playing Madden online? Interesting!

 

[Rhage]

Indeed, Halo 2 is going to spike subscriptions bigtime.

 

[LittleTokyo]

Yeah, a lot of people are waiting for Halo 2 to hit before they get on Live. The game is going to be a monster.

Personally I may play Live once a week. I only have a couple games for it, and I mostly play Crimson Skies. Like many others, that will change after Halo 2.

 

[Saint Cornelius]

Yo I am down with some Capture the Gold action anytime you guys wanna do it! Send me an invite: "SaintCornelius" is the gamertag.