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Xbox Live Beta Report
mrquackers writes "CNN has an interesting article up giving its thoughts from the Xbox Live beta test. The system actually gets high marks for its ease of connectivity, matchmaking and voice communicator, but the writer doesn't seem convinced that Microsoft's going to have a big success with this (though he vows to do a better job of backing up that statement "next week")."
He mentioned trash talking. Does this mean the games with the headset can't be rated E? Perhaps MS could design a parental lockout for the headset to keep the games rated E. Or even include some of ther voice recognition software to strips out the nasties.
-Foxxz
Its hard enough to get people to pay for music. I'm not sure why MS thinks it will be any different for people playing games. I can't imagine this will be cheap. (Sounds kinda like game porn. "give us your credit card number and we'll charge you for the minutes.....till your card runs out....")
I wonder how long it will be until someone has figured out how to set up an 'illegal' P2P network to 'illegally' play your games online without paying?
Interesting article. Microsoft has never been so much an innovator than an integrator, taking existing technologies and bringing them to the masses (bugs included).
Kits for chatting live with online oponents have been available for some time, even though I've never had the chance to use one. What Microsoft is doing is standardizing this feature on the XBox Live. It is a huge bet for them, but perhaps the only way to save a system that is lagging behind the competition.
The question is, of course, whether the new "experience" will be "compelling" enough to save their virtual ass. Is there a slashdotter here that has already experienced online chatting? The reviewer says it actually is a good feature, is that your opinion too?
But then, even if this feature proves to be that good, Microsoft will be facing another challenge: scaling it up. As the reviewer said several times, the architecture has yet to be tested at full-charge.
As for me, sorry Microsoft, but some of your competitors have a game catalog that is much bigger than yours, including hundreds of old games that are available for a bargain. Yes, I am cheap.
Forget about the obscenity factor.. how long is it going to be before little Johnny's mom in California realizes she can talk to little cousin Jimmy's mom in New York.. without paying a long distance phone bill?
Moderation totals that amuse me for one of my posts: Flamebait=1, Insightful=2, Funny=2, Overrated=1, Underrated=1
I'm on the beta and I'm quite impressed. Two games were included in the beta: NFL Fever 2K3 and Re-volt. Both games completely suck. The amazing thing is that it doesn't matter. Despite the face that both games suck the easy voice chat feature completely redeems them. Everyone is required to have a decent connection which means less drop-outs. Also, since players can't edit the game files there are no cheaters.
Neither of the included games has any team-play aspect so chat generally is reduced to three phrases: "Fuck...I crashed", " Ha ha. I passed you"and "I win!". It will be interesting to see how it works out in Unreal Championchip and Battlefield 1942.
Lets look at this article and some of the facts.
:)
First, you are essentially getting a headset and a demo game for $50...
Ok, now, you have to buy a REAL GAME for another $50...
So...you've got $100 into the set to get a game and all the stuff to play online.
Now, a year later, they will charge you for the "privilege" of using their servers. Now, I understand that they make back some costs by selling the service, and they can't offer this service totally for free, but doesn't this seem like an antiquated pricing scheme to anyone else?
Look at PeeCee games like UT/Quake/etc...in most cases all of these games have free/cheap servers available either as a free download or in addition to the client (game). As a service to their customers, many ISPs offer "free servers". They don't mind doing this, because it is fairly cheap and it brings in the customers that spend 99% of their free time playing games.
Now, I might understand having a centralized server for an RPG, but these games (most are sports games) would be helped dramatically by a localized server. The other thing is, making the server freely available forces pay services to offer higher quality, lower ping times, etc.
The other problem with this is that when M$ brings out V2.0, how likely are they to support their old hardware? It's a known fact that even though UT2k3 is out now, there are still many UT servers out there...and will be for a long time.
And the author even mentions what happens to be one of the biggest problems that has plagued online games...
The experience, for the most part, has been an enjoyable one. Even though I'm regularly on the wrong end of a metaphorical butt-kicking, it's always fun to play console games against someone else.
Even though the author seems to dismiss this as "ok", most ppl don't like paying $50 for an online game and getting their A$$ kicked 99% of the time. M$ should have forced all game manufacturers to implement a ranking system so that a novice player is *never* pitted against an expert. "OptiMatch" seems like it might TRY to fix this, but it obviously isn't working...what's to keep an expert from selecting a novice skill level?
Of course, I just don't feel very good about giving M$ my CC#
As for the actual features, I like the idea of voice masking...this would be kewl, especially for games like UT...but as the author of the article says, "it comes at the cost of making you harder to understand". And if OptiMatch actually works the way it should, it would be a very kewl feature.
That live chatting is mostly a bunch of teens swearing back and forth. Extended Play (TechTV show) talked about this a little bit saying that while the technology is neat, it just isn't workable because all everyone does is swear, and when you have more than two people talking it becomes unintelligible. On top of that, any parent that catches on to what their kids are hearing though this will mostly likely be a quick subscription cancellation.
The thing is, M$ opens themselves to critique like this when they try to pass off everything they do as "new and innovative"...
As for the ISPs doing servers, I guess I must live in someplace where the ISPs just aren't "with the program"...because almost every ISP in the area offers some sort of online servers...this is good for them, because they only need to run a POS Win-Tel box and you're playing on their internal network...read not using their internet connection, so most of em encourage the use of their servers..."and bring your friends too...because you can get lower latency when both of you are on our network"
Yea, Sony may charge similarly for their online hardware, but they're not charging for the use of it...
Now, where did the "Free ISP and Free DSL Modem" come from? Yea, I want the ability to do a LAN game or play with my friend across town...
And M$ will certainly be "crafty" when the XBox2 comes out...the XBox players will stop getting updates, they'll have different pricing categories for them, slower service, etc...if you think M$ has your best interest in mind, let me introduce you to their OS Life-Cycle...never mind that businesses don't want to switch from Win2k...
If you want me to pay for the service, give me the hardware for free...M$ is hardly taking a hit on the hardware cost...it's just a cheap $10 headset+mic combo.
And if M$ is marketing OptiMatch as a solution for the aforementioned problem, it deserves to be railed for not meeting my wishes.
And yes, I am probably harder on M$...they have failed me before, every time they skrew their customers it makes me a little more cautious.
Sony and Nintendo seem to be less devoted to skrewing their customers everytime they turn around...
Now, if you're suggesting that M$ will be offering DSL for $50/yr then I just might sign up for that, but as far as I know you still need to buy your service from a local ISP (if it requires you to pay for MSN then the service should be free as well as the hardware)...