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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")."
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?
All your likely to hear for the first few weeks is a flood of ten year-olds yelling "All your base
*voice mute*
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green pink yellow red blue orange potatoes
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.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-08 -30&res=l
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These aren't the droids you're looking for.
You will be able to block some rude people if you want so that you can't hear them.
This headset thing is really cool. However:
Do you think it's occured to microsoft the repurcussions of the fact that they are going to be relaying voice unfiltered?
Unlike text, there is no realistic way they can filter voice for obscenity.
Do you think they've considered what that means? All the gaming communities i've seen, everyone seems to be pretty free with using just random obscenities. They will probably be more so when communicating requires nothing more than muttering under your breath, instead of having to type out stuff.
How long do you think it will be before that Xbox Live thing comes with a little note saying "Warning: To prevent exposure to adult language, it is suggested children do not use the headset component of this product."
PLease wait while your xbox connects to MS main database..
...Completing survey.. Why don't you get a drink of warm milk?...
Enter name:_
Enter Age:_
Address:_
When do you go to sleep?:_
Do you think the Xbox is out to get you?:_
Cuz you're wrong:_
Why don't you take a nap now:_
Thank you for completing your survey! Don't worry, the Xbox doesn't actually have little green men in jumpsuits waiting for you to fall as... uh.. nevermind that...
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
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.
I thought the following quote said it all: "The trick for Microsoft will be ensuring that lag remains a non-issue when the system opens up to a vastly larger player base."
Latency doesn't add to the gaming experience and the net isn't always the most accomodating environment.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Microsoft has nothing to fear about the viability of the X-Box: in a year or so, the X-Box will become the dominant console platform.
:) But that is my current conviction.
Historically, the console with the most shovelware running on it has been the winner in the console wars for that generation. Because it's easier to grind out Britney Spears or Blue's Clues games than truly otiginal creations, there are far more publishers of shovelware than there are publishers of outstandingly unique games, and console platforms like computer platforms have a sort of "developer gravity about them": the more developers they attract now the more developers they're likely to attract in the future.
The PS2 had a head start in the shovel-wars, but the X-Box was designed from the ground up to be a shovelware console platform. What with its use of fairly stock hardware components and the industry standard Direct3D API, porting games from Windows (another big shovelware substrate) should be easy. Developers which find getting decent results on the PS2 or Gamecube difficult will flock to the X-Box.
I could be wrong on this. In a year I'd love to be proven wrong.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
You use a free ISP and got a free dsl modem. This is why MS should offer Xbox Live for free, not the over-price $50. Nevermind that it is in competition with the PS2 and nothing else; the PS2 charges $50 for the actual hardware: equivlancy.
Many ISPs offer free game servers. Except you just made that up, because I have yet to see an ISP market this fact unless we're talking about Speakeasy.net (which doesn't even give out the IPs to their servers, they're mostly clan servers). Apparently ISPs do mind doing this, because they don't do it. Let's pretend we live in a fantasy world where there are free servers by ISPs; they're not very free if you're paying your ISP. With your logic, we could say that Xbox Live's servers are free. Of course, that would be a fair comparison which you simply wouldn't use.
Localized servers. So instead of putting Xbox Live in the hands of Microsoft, you want to bet that your ISP will throw up free Xbox servers for you to play NFL on? We're talking broadband here, you can realistically get a 100ms travel time from your Xbox to MS to another Xbox. Replace realistically with almost always.
So you're saying when Xbox 2 comes out, MS will stop accepting money? You're cynical in all the wrong places. It's also likely that Xbox 2 will play Xbox games like the PS2 does with PSOne games, I see no reason why Xbox Live wouldn't do the same. Otherwise they'd lose money/customers the instant Xbox 2 came out, and Microsoft doesn't like that.
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.
You have a perfect idea. That has never been successfully implemented anywhere and magically it's Microsoft's fault. I don't know how long you've been playing games (maybe you're more casual than I), but there is no way you can possibly improve by playing with people who are at the same skill level as you. If there's more than one super-duper player on the server, then you either really suck (which is okay, everyone gets better with time) or for some reason that's a "hardcore" server and you should try another one. Also, some games are team games where certain skills are more focused than others.
BTW, I believe the author was joking. His wombat coordination skills wouldn't really hurt him that much in a football game.
Now sorry if this sounded like a flame, but I just think far too many people treat MS unfairly in every single instance possible. Not only is Xbox Live a far more organized online platform compared to the PS2 (which has already launched, did you notice?), it'll increase the amount of people who have broadband (even by a slim margin), and it had some exciting titles in the future (unlike the PS2, which has a pretty clear calendar for 2003).
But I will tell you that the PS2 is still the better system, and Xbox Live certainly won't get my money until Halo 2. Cheers.
Also, if you don't already have your house wired for electrical power, you're going to have to add that in. Not to mention that you'll need to buy a TV. Damn you, M$!!!
To me $50 is a deal. You get the hardware and a year of gaming. If you don't want to pay to play don't. But, how many of you pay to play Everquest or something similar? The same rules apply here. MS is running servers on their side. The downsides are you have to pay and you can't play against other types of consoles. The upsides are that you can do full online stat tracking, find your friends in any game, set up tournaments, and have the same online identity anywhere.
I'm VERY happy they limit this to broadband. The PS2 net play is getting slammed due to all the modem users lagging games and causing problems. I don't want that.
It's a simple case of ease of use. Sure, someone could build a great Linux system by hand for CHEAP, but most people buy Windows since it's easier to deal with and does what they want. It's the same here. I'll pay for the convenience of it all. My beta kit should arrive next week and I can't wait to sit on my comfy couch in fron to fthe 64" HDTV and just play some good online games. No drivers. No patches. No "why did my game just die to the desktop"?
You could have fooled me. In Japan, XBox is locked in a life or death struggle with the Dreamcast for third place. And the Dreamcast has been dead for a year and a half.
Welcome to October 2002. If it weren't for the infinitely deep pockets of the parent company, XBox would aready be dead. As it is, it's on life support, because Microsoft can pay companies up front to produce a game for the XBox, which is about the only way they would ever do it.
And, FWIW, development on Gamecube is rumored to be a breeze.
IMHO, you're already wrong.
Sorry.
Jon Acheson
All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.