Consoles Sluggish To Get Online In Europe

Posted by simoniker on Wednesday June 18, 2003 @02:21PM from the slow-boat-to-bournemouth dept.

Thanks to Evil Avatar for pointing to a Reuters article discussing the relatively slowly developing online console gaming market in Europe. According to the article, "Since launching in mid-March, [Microsoft] has signed up to Xbox Live 50,000 European gamers across much of Western Europe." As a comparison, "Microsoft and Sony Corp have.. [signed up] over one million subscribers between them in the U.S. since launching services in the second half of 2002." Although it's early days for Europe, will the many separate markets/countries and varying broadband penetration help or hinder the big console manufacturers?

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Re:Phone System by Sebadude · 2003-06-18 17:08 · Score: 3, Insightful

It most likely has more to do with broadband penetration as the poster suggests.

The cost of a high-speed connection is generally much higher in Europe than in North America, and if a lot of people can justify these costs for their professional needs, the number of people who will be willing to spend that much money for such a restricted form of gaming (relatively speaking... when you compare to online gaming on PC) is probably very low.

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Eh.