Slashdot Mirror
Tom's Hardware Reviews Xbox Live
VividU writes "Tom's Hardware has a review of Xbox Live." Also includes a bit of a summary of the state of networked gaming on the other 2 major consoles (Coleco and Intellivision). A good read if you're looking to see what's going to keep you glued to your couch in 2003.
What's next - Magnavox Odyssey and the Atari 2600?
I bought mine on launch day along with mechassault and unreal. I sold both on ebay. Mechassault is pretty mediocre single player and multi player is any better. You walk in a line and shoot stuff as you get to it. No strategy like outflanking your enemies.
Unreal is the same. You shoot and kill and that's it. I also bought Ghost Recon, but haven't had a chance to play it. Going to try it this week. Otherwise it's a wait for some decent games other than sports.
As far as the service itself, it's pretty good. On my sdsl connection I don't see any lag.
Since we were not asked to participate in the beta test, we can't tell you much about the beta; but things must have gone fairly smoothly, because on November 15th, Microsoft rolled out Xbox Live to the masses.
Poor testing and pervasive bugs have never stopped MS from releasing anything. Looks like wishful thinking on the reviewers part.
Arbitrary sig
Personally, I prefer the way Sony is handling online play with the PS2 network adaptor. There is no centralized service for all games, and at least right now there are no subscription fees for most if not all of the current games.
And for those who want to jump out and say "But who wants to buy an expensive PC to play games online, when it only costs $200 to buy an XBox." ..
Well, consindering you NEED broadband to play XBox Live, this basically translates that the person has some fat cash to pay a $50+ monthly fee for internet access. Do these types of people typically have really crap computers? No. MicroSoft has walked into a virtual minefield without looking at marketing demographics first. The people that will keep this afloat are people without broadband and decent computers, which are NOT the people who can actually use it.
And after your first free year, targeted monthly rate for this service will be $10-15/Month. It's not set in stone, but if it is any lower than $10, they will lose money on every single player.
You can see why Sony and Nintendo are taking their time. Leave it to Microsoft to boldly blunder into a market area it is entirely unfamiliar with and die, then work out a program that actually *works*.
SEGA has released a dev kit for all games to get online who uses its SDK which is cross platform compatable with PS2 and Gamecube.. So people who want to play Football on both systems can play each other seamless. They plan on putting up a "Blizzard" type of service where it will be free, etc etc.. Who knows if this will take off. I predict: No. At least not unless the PC dies a horrible death.
150,000 people gave Microsoft their credit card number and agreed to be billed a to-be-decided amount indefinitely, until they figure out how to cancel it (which might not be a piece of cake, considering that MS do not seem to understand that with consoles, unlike software or one-off hardware sales, you have to keep the customer happy).
Does this worry anybody else? It worries me, because it confirms Microsoft's long held belief that the retail market is ready for software-as-a-service, and that people really are dumb enough to pay upfront for the device, and pay ongoing amounts for the functionality.
You know those friends you have who tease you because you spend $X a month on computer bits that you don't really need? Well, they're about to enter your world, only they don't even get to build a collection of little anti-static bags as a bonus.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Perhaps he meant that he needed a DSL/CABLE router so he could actually use it? Those are typically around $100 ...
Cripes, that is a needlessly long rewiew... Did the man have a quota of pages to fill? Here's the summary from another person who has been with Live since Beta-
:p
If you have any sort of hardware knowledge at all (ie; are a regular reader of Slashdot), connecting Live will be cake, unless you have a real exotic network configuration, since the process is pretty well automated. A keyboard is seriously need to fill out the registration info, but doing so can still be done in under 10 minutes without one.
Live itself works well, but is still rough around the edges. The interface for some options is not the same as others from game to game. It's even non-existant in some cases. Live is in serious need of standardization in all honesty. Other than that, it's pretty smooth playing in most cases, though the occasional laggy player will dampen your gaming experience.
Live titles are kinda slim pickins right about now, the majority of them being sports related. Ghost Recon, Unreal Championship and Mech Assault are strong contenders, though each has it's own interface issue. Be that as it may, I suspect MS is working on the problem and I've heard up to 80 Live enabled games to be availible around next Christmas. Likewise, the downloadable content isn't in any sort of quantity yet, though some is there. I'd be surprised if it didn't increase as Live matures.
Verdict: If things stay the way they are now, I can't justify another year ofLive, especially after having grown up in a PC gaming environment. But I don't think they will stay the same. They've been getting plenty of feedback from the boards and it's still in it's infancy. Aside from playing select games from a limited collection, I think the biggest draw right now is reserving you Game Tag. Waiting at this point certainly won't hurt, that fact aside.
Wow... And that was less than a page too...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
This same thing happened to my little cousin (14 years old). He actually bought an Xbox on launch day and this year bought Xbox live only a few weeks after it launched. It told him to call microsoft with code 522 error. When he called they told him the older Xbox'es needed a "Hardware upgrade". I wanted to find out exactly what this "hardware upgrade" entailed so i called them after he told me about it.
apparently the first gen models had an unflashable (via software) TSOP. the so called 'hardware upgrade' was in order to allow for onboard, software-based TSOP flashing and upgrading. not sure if they actually replaced the chip or merely changed the TSOP circuit, but we were pretty angry about it.
the byproduct of years of oppression by the white man
(I'm one of the Xbox-hackers. I know what I'm talking about here)
The connections needed to flash the internal flash rom from a program running in the Xbox are NOT CONNECTED. It's possible to connect them if you open up the Xbox and solder yourself - but a virgin Xbox CAN NOT have it's BIOS flashed. Not by you, not by Microsoft.
it's in my head
Been playing PS2 SOCOM U.S. Navy Seals online for a week with no subscription required. Took just minutes to set up and join an ongoing session (and there was a long list of games in progress and locales to choose from). No problems and right into play. The game was $60.00 and included a headset. Seals is DVD/ProLogic Surround, and with the PS2 connected to a home theater, the sound and interactivy is impressive, not to mention the game play itself. Being able to talk to other players via the headset adds to the realism.
Please stop spreading misinformation/FUD. You're just repeating something you heard elsewhere.
Everyone knows MS is looking to profit from subscription based services. That doesn't mean there aren't other business models and options out there, and it doesn't mean that fee based gaming is the only way to play. There are many, many choices...not all require monthly fees, and fees never guarantee you'll be happy with the experience.
Gee, I Must be confused. I had a friends PS2 on loan for a few weeks and could swear I was playing on-line games free.
THPS3 and 4 both support on-line play without the sonly network adaptor (they support most USB ethernet connectors including the one I had laying around) and don't require any kind of subscription since individual players run their own servers much like PC based multi-player gaming. The game included Gamespy based code to find on-line games and it worked flawlessly.
In fact one other thing the PS2 supports that apparantly Xbox dosen't (since it was a complaint in this review) is the use of a USB keyboard. I grabbed my own keyboard ( a MS natural no less) tossed on the PS/2->USB adapter it came with, plugged it into the PS2 and was able to enter my game info that way instead of using the controller - saved a lot of time and made chatting in-game possible without a headset.
I also have to agree with the other posters who want to know why the built-in ethernet is such a benefit when you still have to pay to use it on-line and then keep paying (an unspecified ammount no less) on a regular basis to keep using it. I like the pay once for the hardware model of the PS2 way more in that regard. But then again I always prefered buying my own cable or satellie box instead of paying a monthly "rental" fee as well.
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
becasue the Playstation is not going to sell a service that lets you play al your games, you have to subscribe to each individual on-line game.
Funny... I have yet to subscribe to ANY game. and I have played 5 different offerings... including Tribe 2 Arial assult.
from everything I have heard... almost NO playstation game will be a pay for play online, except for the MMORPG or other online "community" or server resource heavy games.
sony is way AHEAD of ms this way.. just like my Pc games.. I dont have to pay anything to play them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
But the showstopper for me is two-fold: The lack of a dial-up option (not everyone has a cable modem accessibility yet!), and the fact that, by license, it appropriate for use with "kids under 13".
:)
A lot of the times, these things do not go hand in hand. If you were to allow your young children to go online to play, they would most likely be left with an impression of swear words and sexual references.
I understand that maybe you'd like to have at least one of these (I would love to have dialup access for the Xbox as well), but either one is possible. If you're unfortunant like me (can't get broadband even if you wanted to), then there really is no way currently to play over the internet. However, you can still get little kid's games. There's multiple copies of MAME for the xbox, and you can buy a multiple cd set of all the MAME roms for around $7 from tombestones.
Hope it works out