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Which Console Is Leading The Online Race?
Thanks to GameSpy for their 'Sole Food' editorial discussing which console has the lead in the online marketplace. The author says: "If you asked me a year ago which console would be the online leader, I would have said Microsoft Xbox - no doubt." But, twelve months later, he's rapidly drawing other conclusions: "I forgot the most important lesson in publishing: Content is king. And most of the killer online content is not on the Xbox, but rather the Sony PlayStation 2." And, after citing specific examples of great titles on both PS2 and Xbox, he concludes: "There's just more games for the PS2, ergo there are more online games. It doesn't matter how good and how uniform the online user interface is if the content isn't there."
Fair comment.
I think they're just pointing out that, while online works on both, XBox's iteration has that much more polish. Logging on in Madden is a simple process, but logging on to XBox Live...uh, well, you don't have to. Instead of selecting "1 Player" or "Multiplayer", you select "Play Online". For the most part, there is no login.
They jellybean comment just refers to the fact that the XBox has online capability from the get-go, not as an expansion pack. I don't find it a very useful statement either, though.
As for multiple folks: you can have guests on XBox online. I forget how it works (not having done it myself), but while person A is playing, people plugged into ports 2, 3, and 4 play as guests 2, 3, and 4. Obviously, if people living in the same house want their own accounts/friends lists/etc., they'd need to pay for it.
As for the friend's list: with XBox Live, you don't need to connect to a server to do anything. It's an always-on connection. You just turn on the XBox (heck, mine is on 24-7 anyway, so that's even one less step), go to the Live control panel, and you can see the online status of all of your friends, what games they're playing, and invite them directly to play. Sure, you could do the same on computer, but it just doubles the amount of equipment and work you need to do. Plus, the obvious: if they're currently playing, they aren't going to be on the computer to answer your request to play! Yeah, all of this could be done without the XBox, hell, you could call up your friend on the phone, but with the friends list it's all in one place.
I'm not going to try to convince you to buy one. It's just that your comments remind me of my dad talking about how computers are unnecessary overhead, and that if he wants to tell someone something, he doesn't need newfangled email or instant messaging, he can just call the person on the phone. Yeah, he's right, but the convenience factor is not something to be easily overlooked.
And, to reiterate, the different functionality EA wanted was primarily that they didn't want Online available for older games. That is, once SSX 3 came out, online functionality for SSX Tricky would have to be halted. Although in principle developer power sounds great, in the XBox Live case it seems that the XBox Live specifications provide developers with the tools to do what they want to do, except for hosing their users, and that is precisely what EA was being stymied at.
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Unfortunately, they also haven't done online play on the Cube, despite most of their multiplatform titles being available there and the Cube's online strategy having few differences from Sony's (except, of course, that Sony's now pushing the online angle).
And don't be fooled into thinking that it is because XBox Live prevents developers from taking a cut of the profits. Phantasy Star Online charges an additional users fee that goes to the publisher.
The one thing EA wanted in this realm, though, was customer data, as stated here:
http://money.cnn.com/2003/05/14/technology
EA gets to use the infrastructure in which it invested so heavily and collect the revenue and marketing data [by making online play available on the PS2]. Microsoft, on the other hand, built out its own infrastructure (and service, called Xbox Live) and handles the billing and customer relationships.
There's another quote which I remember also seeing in US articles (but I can't find those articles at the moment) here:
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0
EA declined to join with Microsoft because it felt it would lose "ownership" of the customer, EA spokesman Jamie McKinlay said.
"The player would buy our product and then pay Microsoft to play it online. Microsoft would retain all that player information on a database and we wouldn't have access to it."
It's truly an interesting thing when Microsoft, of all people, is keeping information about your use habits from someone (especially since EA has a deal with AOL that means customer data for people playing EA games online is sold to AOL, if you'd like proof of that, read EA's privacy policy).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
"Effortless patching" will make the console game market the same cesspool of unfinished, buggy software that PC gaming currently is. The fact that console games were NOT patchable has meant that console game developers put a lot more effort into getting the game *right* before they release it.
You're a crazy person.
There are plenty of console games that crash and generally have all kinds of bugs. Enter the Matrix leaps to mind but it isn't alone. Pick up a copy of GamePro magazine and check their monthly feature on bugs that appear in recent console games and how you can work around them. These are games that are selling well.
There are a lot of reasons that PC gamers have to deal with more bugs than console players. The biggest is that each of the consoles has standard hardware. PC programming, on the other hand, requires you to take into acount a wide variety of different hardward, driver, OS and software configurations. More unknowns means that more can go wrong.
On top of all that, effortless patching doesn't just mean "fixing bugs" it also means "adding new content". As in "here Mech Warrior player, here are some new maps for you to play". That's pretty cool and it's something that neither Nintendo nor Sony can do yet, though Sony is well on the way with their new Final Fantasy with HDD package.
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
XSN's only for first party titles to my knowledge. For reference, I'm the lead programmer on our Xbox SKU and I did the analysis of what it would take to add Xbox Live support to the game.
We could implement our own league system on Xbox Live but it would be really expensive and time-consuming (such servers have to live inside Microsoft's data center so the testing is pretty exhaustive). On PS2 we get all that stuff basically for free because we use Gamespy for our frontend (ie. lobbies, chat, matchmaking).
Of course gamers can do whatever they want informally but that doesn't compare to something integrated and supported by the developer. We can run online tournaments on PS2 and even give away prizes but currently we can't do that on Xbox Live.
Graham
hardcore gamers make up the majority of the xbox numbers. naturally you'd expect to find more of them in a college setting.
ps2 sales have predominately been to casual gamers. why else could the ps2 have 4x the installed base and yet there's still an actual competition on the game sales chart each month?
one would expect even a halfway decent title for the ps2 to have 2x the numbers as a good xbox game, and yet that doesn't happen.
because xbox gamers buy more games. because they have more hardcore gamers - and hardcore gamers buy more games.
hell, alot of the ps2 installed base was solely due to the dvd playback functionality. that and 'playstation' was the name on the tongues of parents come the holiday season. 'xbox' is relatively new, and parents are always buying last generation's winnner. (note strong n64 console sales despite ps1 overall dominance)
but frankly, i could care less whether there are 'more' people on one service or not. pc gaming taught me that you're better off -not- playing than playing against HPBs. it just isn't fun to try to shoot someone with a 400ms ping. xbl does its damndest to minimize lag, and for that i applaud it. (though they'd do better to have more highbandwidth dedicated servers like unreal has)
microsoft had the foresight to realize that a consistant, quality experience was the way to bring console gamers online to stay.
Sony's just trying to keep up, and as the original poster pointed out - is leading due to their raw numbers. keep in mind, their lead isn't that significant, and their product is -free-. microsoft can not only charge for their better product - but they can charge -and- compete with free.
that's an achievement.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"