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Uh-oh. Sony's still looking clueless about online.
- Thread starter sonycowboy
- Start date
"Broadband passed dial up around ~July 2004 for the US. It's actually almost 60% now. And it's expected to be ~90% by ~April 2007. In 2000, when the PS2 launched it was barely over 10%"
Good news for online gaming.
"Yes because that's what it is.. cheapness.. it's not that some people don't feel it's worth it... it's just that they are cheap...
g*ddamn you people...."
So you don't believe having MS make sure ALL online gamers are going to run at least well, all have voice chat, giving you the option to chat/videochat with your friends across ALL games, and making sure you won't have someone playing with a keyboard and mouse have a huge advantage over you playing with a controller, among others, is not worth less than 14 CENTS a day? Do you realize a can of coke costs 50 cents?
I have a feeling that if someone offered you to pay you $4 a month and support your Live play, you'd still turn it down, just so you can bitch about it.
Good news for online gaming.
"Yes because that's what it is.. cheapness.. it's not that some people don't feel it's worth it... it's just that they are cheap...
g*ddamn you people...."
So you don't believe having MS make sure ALL online gamers are going to run at least well, all have voice chat, giving you the option to chat/videochat with your friends across ALL games, and making sure you won't have someone playing with a keyboard and mouse have a huge advantage over you playing with a controller, among others, is not worth less than 14 CENTS a day? Do you realize a can of coke costs 50 cents?
I have a feeling that if someone offered you to pay you $4 a month and support your Live play, you'd still turn it down, just so you can bitch about it.
Please tell me what the HELL that has to do with what I said? At any point? I've made a few comments about broadband gaming in this thread and NONE of them have to do with the perceived value, they all have to do with the perception of broadband computer use in people's homes, specifically there living rooms, where we are NOT seeing that happen as muc yet.jimbo said:
I have a feeling you don't know what the fuck you are talking about. Because I've not recently BITCHED about XBL thank you very fuckin much. Some people don't find what they are getting in the pay service to be worth it.
Is that so very fuckin hard to understand?
None of this changes the fact that some of you love. Great for you. I loved it when I had it, however I don't see a reason to pay for it so I let my subscription expire, as I've explained previously in regards to my available gaming time vs. online gaming vs. liking to play games to completion.
My participation in this thread has been about Sony's coyness, about perceived value and about broadband penetration to homes and livings. NOT about whether XBL is a good or bad service... so please stop trying to turn it in to that.
"Dude, it's like paying 14 cents a day for using MSN Messenger."
Last time I checked MSN messenger didn't offer me all of that.
"You have a keyboard and mouse.
You're using them right now.
There is no unfair advantage."
On my PC yes. But I also remember the DC days where I used my controller for my Quake 3 online and kept getting smoked by people using a keyboard and mouse, which forced me to go out and buy both. Then I started smoking people that were not using it. As much fun as that was, I hated it when it was happening to me.
Voice Chat and universal controller for LIVE makes online gaming perfect in my book. I couldn't do without any of those two. I hate having to stop playing the game and type to communicate with someone, and if they can't pack the 360 in with both a controller and kebyboard/mouse, than I want one or the other.
Those two things, are what I believe makes Xbox Live worth it. Everything else, is just icing on the cake.
I don't care what anyone says, splitting an online userbase into controllers and keyboards/mouse makes for some very uneven, and frustrating experiences for those that don't have the keyboard/mouse. You could be an ace with a controller on Halo, but give even a mediocre player a keyboard and mouse, and he'll get smoked.
I can't say enough about this topic.
Last time I checked MSN messenger didn't offer me all of that.
"You have a keyboard and mouse.
You're using them right now.
There is no unfair advantage."
On my PC yes. But I also remember the DC days where I used my controller for my Quake 3 online and kept getting smoked by people using a keyboard and mouse, which forced me to go out and buy both. Then I started smoking people that were not using it. As much fun as that was, I hated it when it was happening to me.
Voice Chat and universal controller for LIVE makes online gaming perfect in my book. I couldn't do without any of those two. I hate having to stop playing the game and type to communicate with someone, and if they can't pack the 360 in with both a controller and kebyboard/mouse, than I want one or the other.
Those two things, are what I believe makes Xbox Live worth it. Everything else, is just icing on the cake.
I don't care what anyone says, splitting an online userbase into controllers and keyboards/mouse makes for some very uneven, and frustrating experiences for those that don't have the keyboard/mouse. You could be an ace with a controller on Halo, but give even a mediocre player a keyboard and mouse, and he'll get smoked.
I can't say enough about this topic.
jimbo said:
The DC didn't have USB ports, all the next gen consoles (as far as I know) do. Odds are that if you bought a new keyboard or mouse in the last five years that they're not using a PS/2 interface, just move that shit over.
Ok, lets say MS or whomever runs the system cuts off all KBM support because they want a 100% even experience.
Now take away all arcade sticks - it's unfair for fighting games.
And take away all steering wheel setups - it's unfair for racers.
Forget about 3rd party controllers - they might have rapidfire settings.
At worst there should be a seperate league for KBM users, but even that irks me.
Thats not a good comparison. The keyboard/mouse combo would give people such a large advantage to even compete at all you would need to buy one. Most people play fighters and racers better using a regular controller and I cant think of a single online game where you would benefit from rapid fire.
Why would that irk you? Most people would rather not set up a keyboard/mouse in their living room, if they could even find a place to sit comfortably and play using them.
Why would that irk you? Most people would rather not set up a keyboard/mouse in their living room, if they could even find a place to sit comfortably and play using them.
"Now take away all arcade sticks - it's unfair for fighting games.
And take away all steering wheel setups - it's unfair for racers.
Forget about 3rd party controllers - they might have rapidfire settings."
None of those offer anywhere near the same advantage over a controller as a kebyoard and mouse does over controllers in fps. It's night and day. It's also the same reason why you don't see many strategy games being ported to a console. Because without a mouse, you're dead.
And take away all steering wheel setups - it's unfair for racers.
Forget about 3rd party controllers - they might have rapidfire settings."
None of those offer anywhere near the same advantage over a controller as a kebyoard and mouse does over controllers in fps. It's night and day. It's also the same reason why you don't see many strategy games being ported to a console. Because without a mouse, you're dead.
MetalAlien
Banned
DarienA said:
That's why the PS3 will have built in wifi... Trying to make it easier to get it connected to your cable modem.
Voice chat capability is built into the game code, there's no extra infrastructure that MS maintains that somehow facilitates voice chat. You paid for the Xbox whose processing power is used to encode/decode the voice chat, you paid for the game that contains the code that describes the proper algorithms for voice chat and how its sent over the network and you paid for the bandwidth that transmits the voice data. In a similar fashion, just about all XBL games are peer-to-peer in the sense that there's no MS server facilitating the multiplayer game code running smoothly. Its all done with code, hardware and infrastructure you already paid for when you bought the box, the game and the net bandwidth.jimbo said:
About the only thing that MS is hosting on their own servers consistently is the basic matchmaking services like Gamertag ID and friends lists, both of which are the kind of thing most self-respecting IM service don't bother charging for. Like MSN, for example.
So really what you're paying for is some convenience - the convenience that MS offers in guaranteeing every game supports things like voice chat, your Gamertag and friends lists. Which would be fine in of itself if they didn't also lock basic peer-hosted online gameplay behind the same subscription fee. Its tacit acknowledgment by MS that they think that they wouldn't get many to subscribe on the merits of XBL as a community service alone if you weren't also forced to pay just to be able to play an online game. XBL Silver that's coming with X360 is a step in the right direction by offering some online play for free. I'm hoping that they quickly build on the premium services of XBL Gold to the point that those services start to justify themselves to many people without holding basic, peer-hosted online play behind lock and key just to ensure that a certain number of people pay a subscription fee.
I have a feeling some of you aren't listening, and MS loves you for it.
"Please tell me what the HELL that has to do with what I said? At any point? I've made a few comments about broadband gaming in this thread and NONE of them have to do with the perceived value, they all have to do with the perception of broadband computer use in people's homes, specifically there living rooms, where we are NOT seeing that happen as muc yet"
I'm sorry I thought this was you being sarcastic to someone mentioning people are being cheap over complaining about XBL price: "Yes because that's what it is.. cheapness.. it's not that some people don't feel it's worth it... it's just that they are cheap...
g*ddamn you people...."
If not I appologize.
I'm sorry I thought this was you being sarcastic to someone mentioning people are being cheap over complaining about XBL price: "Yes because that's what it is.. cheapness.. it's not that some people don't feel it's worth it... it's just that they are cheap...
g*ddamn you people...."
If not I appologize.
jimbo said:
There are many techniques that are difficult to pull off on a pad that become almost trivial on an arcade stick (drumming electricity in SF, wavedashing in MvC2, basically anything involving the left-trigger, Raging Storm motions in KOF). I think a strong argument could be made for the hardware advantage a stick has over a pad, the majority of the time.
However ... perhaps I will back off my original point somewhat. The mouse is absolutely a superior control mechanism, that much is obvious. The fact that MS and Sony could implement full support in a 20 minute hack is just frustrating - at least give us the fucking choice. Limited KBM online leagues would still be leaps and bounds better than wrestling with an analog stick.
I still feel like saying 'just unplug your goddamn PC mouse, lazy,' (and everyone with Live [ie., a broadband connection] is guaranteed to have a mouse of some kind) but it would seem that I'm in the minority with that viewpoint so I'll just drop it.
"So really what you're paying for is some convenience - the convenience that MS offers in guaranteeing every game supports things like voice chat, your Gamertag and friends lists.
That makes it more than worth it in my book. And it's not as simple as the other things you said. The fact that Xbox Live has a set of guidelines, makes online game developing easier for developers, which in turn you're going to get a lot more online games, games which otherwise would probably not have online components.
"Which would be fine in of itself if they didn't also lock basic peer-hosted online gameplay behind the same subscription fee. "
Yes it does suck I agree, but that still doesn't take anything away from what Xbox Live's offering. You have all the right to hate them, but to hate the service, just because it doesn't have another alternative...that's MS's fault, not Xbox Live's.
That makes it more than worth it in my book. And it's not as simple as the other things you said. The fact that Xbox Live has a set of guidelines, makes online game developing easier for developers, which in turn you're going to get a lot more online games, games which otherwise would probably not have online components.
"Which would be fine in of itself if they didn't also lock basic peer-hosted online gameplay behind the same subscription fee. "
Yes it does suck I agree, but that still doesn't take anything away from what Xbox Live's offering. You have all the right to hate them, but to hate the service, just because it doesn't have another alternative...that's MS's fault, not Xbox Live's.
DarienA said:
Well, to be honest, there really hasn't been any CE applications that would necessitate broadband upto this point. It's been a somewhat natural evolution of the PC that it would be the point of entry and usage of online access thus far.
But, IMHO, looking forward this is going to change -- and it already is to a large extent. Look at the explosion in the use of the internet and chat functionality on cell phones in just the last year or two. It's been a phenomenal success of how once broadband/online access becomes pervasive enough, people will shift away from using the PC back towards more natural (organic if you will) ways of accessing it.
5 years ago if you wanted to use AIM or check a stock quote or baseball score, you needed to use a PC since your Zack-Morris phones couldn't do shit. Today, who even thinks twice before using the camera phone or text-messaging or AIM?
IMHO, this same movement back from what is a somewhat unnatural lifestyle based around a PC to more free-form and comfortable ways to communicate and live is as inevitable as death and taxes... What an odd pairing. </ obscure quote>
I just don't see the hurdles that MS is clearing for devs as large as you think they are. Not when there have been efficient codecs for voice chat since the days when the fastest way you could play online was with a 28.8K modem, not when there are industry bodies that have written open standards for basic IM/matchmaking services, and not when PC devs have been writing netcode for at least two decades across hundreds of games. I don't think it should be considered a difficult task to enable a basic yet competent online game experience with simple matchmaking capabilities. Failing at that should be blamed on no one but the developer of the game itself, certainly not any platform owner for failing to subsidize online gaming 101.jimbo said:
I never said anything sucked, nor did I express any hate for MS or XBL. But, trying to treat MS and XBL as two completely independent entities is more than a little disingenuous. XBL is entirely a construct of MS's own making and could have been a lot more open-ended from the beginning than it has been and which it is only starting to embrace now (and will hopefully continue on this track). MS banked on being able to force gamers to pay to play, with extras, but didn't quite get the kind of response they had hoped for. It's no failure by any means, but their approach isn't beyond criticism either.
"I just don't see the hurdles that MS is clearing for devs as large as you think they are. Not when there have been efficient codecs for voice chat since the days when the fastest way you could play online was with a 28.8K modem, not when there are industry bodies that have written open standards for basic IM/matchmaking services, and not when PC devs have been writing netcode for at least two decades across hundreds of games. I don't think it should be considered a difficult task to enable a basic yet competent online game experience with simple matchmaking capabilities. Failing at that should be blamed on no one but the developer of the game itself, certainly not any platform owner for failing to subsidize online gaming 101."
That may be true but obviously PC developers STILL chose to go with the easier, keyboard friendly method of developing communications and voice chat was always a distant second. Why? Because everyone has a keyboard. So just because it was around, and it's easy to figure out how to do, that doesn't mean they will do it. That's the same reason why those guidelines enabled ALL Xbox games to have voice chat and helps make Live gaming such a great online gaming experience. Because voice chat is the ONLY method of communication on Live.
That may be true but obviously PC developers STILL chose to go with the easier, keyboard friendly method of developing communications and voice chat was always a distant second. Why? Because everyone has a keyboard. So just because it was around, and it's easy to figure out how to do, that doesn't mean they will do it. That's the same reason why those guidelines enabled ALL Xbox games to have voice chat and helps make Live gaming such a great online gaming experience. Because voice chat is the ONLY method of communication on Live.
Actually thats probably the one thing you *aren't* paying for LIVE for.
Most games are peer-peer, very few have MS hosted servers, so the less lag, good netcode is simply good developer support from MS. Perhaps PS2 was limited by not having networking built in, but fundamentally its nothing PS3 couldn't do.
You can still provide freedom for other companies to charge, or have services on top, just provide them with reference code that is of a similar quality to that provided by MS.
If Sony do a free basic live style service, they wouldn't piss off EA, who I beleive were mostly concerned with MS controlling the money and the user data. That could easily be unbundled.
Scalemail Ted
Member
Who cares aboue FFXI..
Is WoW coming to either Xbox360 or PS3?
Is WoW coming to either Xbox360 or PS3?
Scalemail Ted
Member
>.<
Vince said:
Oh I don't deny there is an evolution of moving towards more widespread use of broadband in the home, it's just that there hasn't been much of a push to get broadband devices in living rooms... and most folks aren't going to get broadband in their living room JUST because of a videogame console. And it's this weird thing.... with comcast you get a cable modem... so where do you put the cable modem.. in the living room? No you usually put it where your router is... where's your router? Usually in a bedroom or office room. The console.. is usually somewhere else. But we're getting there. We need more living room broadband devices to help though.
I think we'll definitely see an upswing in broadband gaming... I just think some of the percentages some folks are predicted are skewed on the high side.
Kiriku said:How many % of the console owners actually play online with Xbox and PS2? I just have a feeling online play is a tad overrated right now, no matter how much it's being pushed and touted as the "next big thing". It'll increase next-gen for sure, but I don't think it will be absolutely vital. As anecdotal evidence I present myself, who haven't played online once with any console ever, and I've had a 10 mbit connection for over a year now.
I can guarantee you this much. Online gaming, and the community surrounding it, WILL be important. Maybe not nextgen, but it's coming, so get used to it. As well, you can bet your bippy that if Sony DOESN'T take online seriously nextgen, they're digging themselves a hole that they may never crawl out of.
I think they will take it seriously though- Sony isn't blind.
jimbo said:
But that's covered under the QA standards that every game on every console has to meet before it's allowed to be published. This doesn't help justify a subscription fee.
You know what would rock? If Sony came up with a strong netcode library, enforced a coherent set of online standards in their QA process, offered a basic DIY matchmaking server package to developers, maybe even offered use of their own matchmaking servers, and then got the hell out of the way.
Those guys at Microsoft are crazy for trying to do that with the Xbox 360. We already have a perfectly fine community with online PCs. There's hardly anything original or innovative with this 'Live' service. Besides, the whole fuss about trying to get online with a console is playing games, not chatting... chatting is too lame and can be done on PCs.HokieJoe said:
Obviously, but getting developers to commit to a set of features that are relatively easy to implement and doing it in a closed environment isn't something that's helping me feel that MS really requires compensation from me on account of their level of effort, esp. when they lash peer-hosted online gaming to that and make it inseparable.jimbo said:
The merits of Live and online services like it are well known. I don't think anyone can seriously say that Live is worthless or a stupid option. But the fact is that online gaming isn't the lynchpin yet. Apparently, not even close. Xbox360 could possibly make it really important, but there's no hint of it as of yet. If the cost of a Seganet/Live service is too high to justify, then don't expect it from Sony. Sad as it may sound, it's the way it is. Hopefully having internet connectivity builtin will make devs use the feature more often. Even if it's not through some centralized hub. Live is more like the AOL of online console gaming. It makes things a bit more convenient, but it's not really a necessity to go online and game. PEACE.
HokieJoe said:
Yes, and you get all that on the FREE Silver option. You only pay for games.
IMO MS have fucked it up.
They should have sold the service - the community aspect, the friends list, messaging, integration into MSN etc. IMO thats worth paying for. The online gaming part is a given, but benefits from using the service behind it.
Instead, with SILVER and GOLD, they are effectively saying you pay for the online gaming part only. All the matchmaking, messaging, GamerTAG etc are free. Thats all the difficult stuff. The gaming is peer to peer, so why charge for that?