PS2, Xbox Online Titles Show Record Player Numbers

Thanks to the QT3 forums for linking to a Yahoo-hosted press release describing Sony's SOCOM II as a 'major online success', with "more than 22,000 simultaneous players in its first 48 hours", apparently taking the "number one online console game spot." The press release also reveals that "...the original SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs supports 11,000-14,500 simultaneous players and between 50,000 and 60,000 people are playing every day at an average of three hours per session." Meanwhile, Microsoft have announced that Xbox Live enjoyed its busiest weekend ever, as: "On Sunday, November 2, no less than 83,652 players spent a total of 262,268 hours online", and the most popular title, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3, "recorded a total of 24,478 players for the day, and at one point accounted for 6,731 players simultaneously."

Comments

I believe PA said it best...

[Recoil_42]

its actually EA vs. MS, but since EA is sony's bitch anyways....

quote from PA :

it was easy to think of EA's offering and Microsoft's offering as fungible initially. EA was doing theirs for free, and Microsoft had a pay service, and obviously free is... nice. But while I was being desiccated by Las Vegas nights soaked with alcohol, it seemed to me that their service is free because it sucks. It's free because it is so without ambition that it can be offered for nothing, until such time as they want to charge for it. Why else would they reserve the right, why else would they go through all the trouble?

I've spent enough time on Live with recent titles that it's impossible for me to compare the two approaches. You don't sign in to Live, you don't create a password, you push A. Every game supports voice and a universal friends list I can view from the web. I have a hard disk built in for content. There is an ethernet port. That's not so you can put a jelly bean in there in case you need it later, it's so you can put in a cable and access the Internet. You assholes.

That is all to say nothing about game invites. If I'm playing a game by Ubi Soft, I can still receive invites to play games from other developers - each publisher doesn't have it's own little fairy land where I can only play games with other people who have their games. I can be playing Crimson Skies and get an invite to play Ghost Recon. If I say yes, the tray pops out and I put in the other disc. Then, it joins me automatically. When I can do that with games from EA, I'll shut the fuck up. Until then, they need to act like big people and make choices that are of value to consumers.

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and i wholeheartedly agree.

btw, off-topic, i just got the grand theft auto double pack (xbox version). absolutely fantastically awesome. everything is so shiny, im all ADHD for it. ;) most definetly recommended to any xbox owner. the upgrades are as promised.

Re:Questions about online ps2 and Xbox...

[Recoil_42]

when the load is high, microsoft breaks out the "Xservers"... they did so last weekend.. there's a limited amount of them, but so far they seem to have helped deal with high loads. otherwise, its p2p -- which actually works really well, believe it or not. MS pulled miracles with XBOX live, its fantastic. best ms product yet, well worth the 50 bucks a year. with voice and everything, the lag is actually very manageable. i rarely hit a motoGP game with and lag at all. Ghost Recon is supposedly the worst. i own it, and have had very little problems with it. when there is lag, its generally accepted that the host will disable explosives. team games have more lag than coop games. but again, remember that there is full voice, which is fantastic. it really takes gaming to the next level, as the amount of teamwork going on is spectacular. it really is fantastic. and now back to my shiny new copy of the GTA double pack ! w00t!