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EA, Eidos Have No Plans for Xbox Live
News for nerds writes "Eidos, maker of Tomb Raider, said it doesn't plan to make games for Xbox Live because Microsoft controls the system and manages subscriptions itself, leaving no incentive for a publisher to collaborate. Sony's approach is to sell just the equipment needed to connect to other's services, such as those run by game makers. Electronics Arts, which makes titles such as 2002 FIFA World Cup and NHL 2003 for the Xbox console, is also reluctant to join Microsoft's system, while supporting GameCube."
Until the evil Empire made it. Give it time, give it time...
...for consumers, I mean.
...then again, I wouldn't exactly consider EA a _good_ developer.
The Xbox is the console in most need of some sort of killer-ap (if you'll be so kind as to excuse the dot-bomb era expression). Gamecube and Playstation both have great developers, good franchises, and a decent selection of games, and what's the Xbox have? Halo? Sure, it was a decent shooter by console standards. Phantasy Star Online? It's been delayed 5 consecutive times, beginning in November of last year, and is supposedly due out in April.
The problem is that if game developers are disuaded from producing games by Microsoft's control of Xbox, it's bad for the consumers; we won't get any decent games made for the system. But on the other hand, I actually like what Microsoft's done with Xbox Live; every game has voice, and they all seem to have a unified (if someone spartan) interface. From a gamer's prospective, Live is a good thing; certainly better than Sony and Nintendo's feeble online offerings.
Xbox Live has a ton of potential. It's a shame Microsoft can't strike a deal with some of these developers to bring their games to Live.
The closed shop! ;)
To me this is the difference (the true difference) between pc and console - only approved developers can publish on the consoles while on the pc anybody can.
Does this keep the quality levels up? You decide
Sony know how to encourage developemnt of their online system - make it open!
An interesting parallel here for me is DRM coming soon to a pc near you! Imagine your windoz box having the same requirements as a console (hardware manufacturer mandated software certs), no coiencidence here that microsoft network=closed, sony=open.....
EA wouldn't know a valid online gameplan if it bit them in the ass. These are the people who killed "Ultima Online 2" because they were desperately afraid of hurting the original UO, their accidental cash-cow. These are the people that have driven countless quality game studios into the ground. They managed to bungle their license-to-print-money, "The Sims Online", which even Sierra probably couldn't have fucked up.
Paraphasing: "To calculate how much cock EA sucks, you'd need one of those hilarious web page counters that keeps spinning and flipping out of control with the numbers appearing to race upward to infinity but really only getting to 999999 before resetting to 000000."
Meanwhile, Microsoft is by all reports the most developer-friendly game publisher out there, and yet gets no loving from anyone because they're The Evil Empire. Bah.
should be the ability of playing online without any additional cost. IMO it should be left for the makers of the game to charge so they can keep making great games we all love to play. How much of the M$ XBOX tax do game makers receive? That's why I've never gotten an XBOX, because I can play Madden 2003, Tony Hawk 4 online on the PS2 for free.
That said. There's only one game on the Xbox I'd buy it for, and I'm not going to shed $200+ to play it. I'm also not going to say what it is, in the even some Microsoft researcher/marketeer is reading ( nyah! :p )
If anyone was unclear on the concept, before, Microsoft does not want to sell games, they want control over your entertainment console, as it's a portal. Once they 0wn it, you're just another entry in the journal of receivables.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Actually if you read up on XBox-Live there may be a fee of $10/month once your first year is over. Also MS has never ruled out extra fees for future games. So basically there is no "designed in" cost savings over the PS2 online model.
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/361/361526p1.html
Extra fees are already being charged (will be charged upon release) of Phantasy Star Online for the XBox.
http://www.rpgfan.com/news/2002/1655.html
Cheers,
_GP_
Contrary to the average gamers belief, neither bandwidth nor running a server is not expensive. For example at serverbeach they sell 100$/month packages with 400GB bandwidth and hardware included. Now that will probably not be enough to handle an entire continent, but the upkeep costs are maybe a few thousand $/month - neglegtible compared to development, marketing and packaging/sales costs.
With all the optic cables dug in for years, the cost of bandwidth has come down to almost nothing for datacenters. (Of course the last mile is still expensive, but you don't run your gameservers via DSL)
Or to put it in another way: The expensive part about online gaming is making a server and supplying the clients with online capabilities (aka development) and marketing.
my 2 cents but hey i think i have a damn good point !
You have never had anything to do with running servers, that's for sure.
Microsoft is asking the game developers to do more work and don't let them control it. For example, it might be feasible to let gamers use online services for free (see above) to boost sales. Or the game might be so good, that you want to charge much more.On XBox, both is impossible - MS just won't let game-publishers make their business decisions.
Gamers happily playing MGS2, GT3, GTA3, GGXX, VF4, Tekken, Halo, FFX, XenoSaga, Dark Cloud, Splinter Cell, or any of the other hit games for PS2 and Xbox would probably be inclined to disagree with you. Having worked in the software retail field, I can say that PS2 and XBox tend to have at least one hit a month. Usually several. Sure, there's crap too, but so is most of the Gamecube library (that or ports from other systems). Most of what the GC gets that's good are remakes of older games, or solid ports from PS2/Xbox. That's not to say they're not good...but seriously, A+ original titles for that system have been somewhat few and far between. Nintendo has always chosen paths that give it ironclad control over software distribution. They hand you that "good for gamers" line so you don't suspect them. You know where the Playstation even came from? SNES CD. Sony worked with Nintendo on it, but when Nintendo realized that their business deal (which gave Sony profits from CD games) wasn't well though out, they cancelled it. Sony took the work they'd done and came up with the PSX. Even then, Nintendo knew gamers would buy CDs over carts. However that didn't stop them... N64...long lived, but really lost the battle. There's what, a PSX in 2 outta 3 homes in America? Why? Cost. Wanna play FFIX? $39.99. Wanna play Majora's Mask? $69.99 plus a $29.99 memory pack if you don't have it. Oh, and there's no movies or CD sound. Forget about $15-20 greatest hits games. Why use carts? Because nobody but Nintendo can (legally) make them. They're expensive and limited. But they could hand consumers the line that they're "faster access". Right. Don't get me wrong, there were some great games on the system. But Nintendo screwed up royally when they decided not to go with CDs. Gamecube? Sure, elegantly designed CPU (IBM Gekko PowerPC), efficient GPU (albiet with only 3MB of texture memory, less than the N64 wound up having), and...MiniDVDs? Um, why? Ports from other systems have to get things dropped (DVD extras from SSX tricky for example). Anything that fills a typical DVD-9 would take 6 GC discs to port (in theory). So it won't see things like FFX with video intact. Ever. While multi-disc games are somewhat rare on Xbox and PS2, there are already several for GC. The controller, while nice, is not very versatile. Why did Capcom Vs SNK 2 on that platform have "simplified" controls? Because Nintendo apparently didn't consider the 10 year old fighting game genre worth taking into account. True, they kept the controls on the Xbox version, but it was made for the GC. So yeah, the GC is nicely designed for standard OpenGL and PowerPC programming (after the royal programming pain that was the N64). However, it's still using a controlled, limited format to release primarily remakes of Nintendo franchises. But of course, it's the true gamers system, right?