Slashdot Mirror
Xbox Live Goes Online
abhikhurana writes "
Internetnews is reporting that Microsoft has launched Xbox Live
broadband gaming service. To access Microsoft's service, Xbox gamers
have to buy a $49.99 starter kit, which includes 12 month's worth of
access to the Xbox Live service and a headset kit for voice
communications. Microsoft said that about 16 games with online play
capabilities will be available by the end of the year.
So has anyone already tried it? If so, what do you think about it?"
I mean, being able to play Xbox games online is really neat... but the little Fritz chip they solder into the back of your head really itches...
As with all good ideas involving technology they hardly reach outside of the US, Japan or europe.
In Australia the X-Box is doing okay, still lagging behind the PS2 though. Such a service may never reach our shores, it's a shame because there would be a market here for it.
I guess it would depend if the market was big enough for Microsoft.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
I have been playing since the beta and I have found that the service is really good and fun. Moto Gp is a fun game on Live, but MechAssault is a whole different world of fun. XBL runs pretty nicely because of all the broadband users. A much better experience that some online gaming on the PC.
Unreal Championship
NFL 2K3
NBA 2K3
NFL Fever 2003
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon
Whacked!
To be quite honest, nothing earth shattering here. I guess I was hoping for something that would set their service on fire; but, like the rest of the games in their library, there isn't any one game that is fantastic except maybe MechAssault which Gamespot rated a 9.0. Personally, I was really hoping for a coop-able network Halo.
As an aside, it is important to note that companies aren't required to go with Xbox Live as Electronic Arts chose to support their own servers and ditch Microsoft.
Bryan R.
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, or $12.50 as seen on eBay.....
If you have a modchip you are banned permanently and it seems so called "legitimate" users are being banned as well in the midst of microsoft's "anti-cheating" efforts.
They better get to it, since they seem to be lacking a strong title to sell the service.
I picked up my XBox live kit Thursday, and although I haven't been playing it constantly since then, I really enjoyed the experience. The only live capable game I have at the moment is Mech Assault, which is a great game, but I was hoping for a couple more play modes, including Co-Op.
I think the idea behind the service is a great one. MS specifically defined the network performance to which the games must conform to make sure that lag was minimized (haven't had a single bit of lag yet) and that the voice worked without interfering with the game. The voice feature itself works as you'd expect. Voices are very clear, and the sounds of the other players only comes through on your headset, so the sounds for the game itself are not affected.
One feature I did find interesting was the ability to have more than one user on the local XBox, and still use the Live. Using this, a friend can play with you (split-screen or what have you) against the other Live players.
All in all, I thought the service was extremely well done. I hope this helps Microsoft come a little closer to breaking even with XBox. Not that they need money, but I enjoy my XBox, and I don't want to see it disappear.
I got an XBox back in December as a gift. I was very happy with games like Halo and Max Payne but little else for XBox was very good. Friday however, I bought XBox live with Ghost Recon and Mech Assault. I am happy now that I didn't sell my XBox like I was tempted to last summer. Ghost Recon was an outstanding game to begin with on PC but now that I have a video card that can do it justice it look INCREDIBLE. I liked the logical layout of controls too. Mech Assault was more of the same. The controls are over simplified compaired to PC Mech games but that doesn't detract from the game. In fact I found that it made it even better. Mech Assault is by far the best of all the XBox Live games. The only negative things I can say about XBox Live is the setup. I find it stupid that they only support a few different gateway routers. Mine is not supported. I was lucky that the XBox website had a good workaround for my particular router (Netgear RT314). It's also stupid that XBox live doesn't support Visa or MasterCard DEBIT cards. I mean, WTF, it's a goddamn credit/debit card and you can't support it. That was very short sighted. Lastly, I didn't see a function to boot players from a game. That is needed IMO because in Ghost Recon, when beginning an XBox Live mission, everyone has to show themselves as READY before the game can begin. One person not showing as ready will keep the game from starting. So if he's AFK or just being a dick, we are all SOL. They need to fix that.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
Frankly, I'm somewhat glad that MS has forced broadband in this product. There's nothing worse than paying the $40 a month for broadband, mostly for gaming, just to get on some awesome CS server where within minutes a bunch of losers with dialup come on and ruin the game for everyone.
By at least setting the bar to broadband they have excluded some gamers, but they will have improved performance for everyone left.
The real issue with this service is that they haven't set the yearly rate yet. Next year this service could be 20 dollars a month if MS so desired...we don't know. The other sad point is that they aren't stopping 3rd parties from charging over and above the normal Live fee for their games. Example: Sega has announced they will charge for PSO on Live...so this could get really pricy!
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
I think so. The Xboxer's I know have really been jumping up and down at this and from my own experience with a friends machine I can tell you it's very addictive: much more so than playing alone.
One thing that I have considered is how good an internet telephony app this is - i've already heard of friends who would normally make long distance calls using the lobby of one of the games to chat in.
I wonder whether Microsoft will develop a specific telephony app using the Live system as a backend... AFAICT the demand is there and this would be a really killer app.
I would pay to play online for this. I know it is hard to put away the anti-microsoft bias for just a few minutes, but really - think about what your getting here. Games free of cheating and any sufficent lag - if it works as well in effect as it does on paper. .
1) an Action Sports game would not lag awfully bad. Everyone on this network must have a broadband connection. No 56kers lagging down the server
2) Too low of a resolution? Have you ever heard of HDTV? I know that is a bit of an investiment, but for those who have it, i cant imagine it would be too grainy to play an RTS.
3) Have you tryed Halo? How about Time Splitters 2? I was skeptical weather or not I could stand to play a FPS on a console, but the controller works. For me, it just seemed natural, even after playing on a key/mouse combination for quite some time.
500 Dollars? Thats a little more then you would spend on a Xbox. 200 for the box, 50 for the service and 50 for a game. Whats that..300? Might make a more reasonable Xmas present for a high school student then a Computer.
Maybe the Xbox is a kids system, though I dont see where you get that impression from. Just because it is a console? And it is hardly a system for the computer illiterate - I have my computers for when i want to play on them, but I have my Xbox for gaming. When i want to go out, buy a game, and pop it in the Xbox and play online I can. No need to worry about drivers, compatibilty, or anything else of the sort.
I never liked consoles much, and I know that computers have there advantages, but im beggining to like my Xbox more and more as I play it.
Amazing how many people posted and god modded up without even replying to the post at all, but just M$ bashing.
Well, after playing MechAssault for about 10 hours, I can say it ROCKS. I've been a gamer a LONG time (1984 or so), and I've played online since qtest, but I have to say MechAssault is over the top fun. The graphics toast my GeForce 4 Ti 4200, the talking to the other players feature is amazing (finally some REAL socializing in a game), and I have yet to see any lag whatsoever.
The only minor problem is joining games, it takes a few tries to get in (if your doing it manually), but that's fine as it's assuring you actually have the right connection speeds to the server in question.
There's also the great feature where you scores are permanately on the scoreboard (kills/deaths in each gametype) so you can compare with friends.
Two thumbs up for the Xbox Live! team!!!
Maybe, if it's reliable and handles voices under stress. And if Microsoft doesn't give Clippy the job: "I see that you're trying to kill the Zerg..."
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Here in NYC I went to 4 different stores to see if they had xbox live. Each store I went to said they were sold it. Looks like MS is doing something correct with xbox live.
They offer the 12 month deal at the local store for $80 Canadian Pesos, but what they don't tell you, is that even though you've paid for a whole year, you still need to give a credit card number before you can use it. How many 14 year-olds have a credit card? How many parents trust giving their credit card to their children? Heck, how many people are still paranoid about giving their credit card over the net? I can understand after 12 months asking for a card, but why do they need to do it up front when the person has already payed for the service?
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
It's a bug. Some devices are getting a bad response from the Kerberos authentication server. I also thought at the beginning it was a ban (I have a mod'd XBox), but it doesn't appear to be. A lot of people with "legit" boxes are getting the same response while some people with modified XBoxes are working fine.
Note, they do seem to be bloking mod chips, not BANNING them. If you go on with a mod chip you can't connect to Live. If you disable it you can get on fine. This is a seperate issue than the connectivity issue many beta users are now having, including me.
You could say the same thing about Microsoft's Internet Explorer. For some time, it was known as having less than stellar performance, and for being a copy-cat of Netscape Navigator, with a very similar UI and features.
Since then, it has improved somewhat with its stability and performance, but since Netscape has gone to the wayside, almost no features have been introduced. In fact, most of the changes between version 3 and version 6 have been internal, such as additional automation calls and additional events for programmers to use.
In reading your comment, something occurred to me.
The only live capable game I have at the moment is Mech Assault, which is a great game, but I was hoping for a couple more play modes, including Co-Op.
One of the most popular FPS shooters is still Half Life because of the Counterstrike mod. Gamers took a basic game and changed it completely to become the kind of game that they wanted. With an XBox, this isn't going to happen because Microsoft has to keep tight control over the game licensing. If they don't they can't make back all the money they lose on selling the boxes. Furthermore, to even begin writing games you have to buy their SDK which is very expensive for an amateur developer.
This was one of the promises of the Indrema game console that was making me really look forward to its release which will now never happen.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service