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Possible Spectator Mode for Xbox2

Posted by Zonk on from the watching-you-watching-me dept.

BlueMoon writes "Spong.com posted an article about a new Microsoft job offering. The job details not only confirm the internal codename of the next generation Xbox console is Xenon, but it also reveals more information about Live features. It looks like many games will have a 'Xbox TV' feature allowing some sort of spectator mode with tickers at the bottom of the screen featuring recent high scores and game highlights, a tournament system, and tradable trophies."

25 comments

  1. Worth it? by christopherfinke · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm not a big gamer, but I play Counter-Strike and some other FPSs from time to time, so maybe I'm not the demographic they're taregeting, but my question is, what is the draw of watching other people play? If you've got an XBox and XBox live, wouldn't you rather be playing than watching others play? Could someone who finds this new aspect exciting explain it to me?

    1. Re:Worth it? by Ayaress · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can see a good few uses for it, actually:

      1. Newbies: New players to the game can watch better players and try to learn the game. I did this with Starcraft, Warcraft III, and Shattered Galaxy and picked up those games very quickly when I started playing myself, compared to, say, Red Alert II, which I still suck royally at.

      2. Tournaments: See some of the competition in action. Same idea as with the newbies, but a bit more specific as to what you're looking for.

      3. "Referee": I had a friend who I beat very badly at Starcraft repeatedly. He constantly accused me of hacking. The only way he would stfu was if we set up a 1v1 between us with the same setup as the previous loss, and have two neutral third parties (we each picked one of them) as spectators who would then tell everybody at school wether or not I was a hacker. I wasn't, although it turns out he did have a map hack running. Sometimes you need somebody who wasn't in the game to settle stupid arguments like that.

      5. Just plain bored: I have a few gameplay videos stored, and I run them sometimes when I'm doing something and can't dedicate the time to actually play.

      I know that replay files are pretty popular downloads for Warcraft III, largely for the same reasons as above. The same could easily apply on XBox Live.

    2. Re:Worth it? by StocDred · · Score: 4, Interesting
      This would make me buy an Xbox, being able to spectate games. I don't want restrictions either, I want to browse every game out there and jump in to watch.

      Guaranteed I'd find something a damn sight more interesting than whatever is on TV these days.

    3. Re:Worth it? by rebill · · Score: 1

      Simple,

      It is a great marketing ploy.

      For an gaming cafe (Korea, et cetera), an owner can buy one of these, and use it as an ongoing advertisement to get people into the cafe.

      For G4/TechTV, they can show the "game" to the viewing public without having to rig a system, anymore ... ... making it easy for them to focus *only* on the games that XBox puts out. (Advertising the X-Box without costing Microsoft a cent.) ... making the viewing audience want to buy those great games that they see on TV.

      There is a small cost associated with the hardware, but sell 2 more game licenses per X-Box, it's a worthwhile investment.

      --

      Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley

    4. Re:Worth it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah but then you would have to listen to those damn 12 year olds being attacked by grasshopers

    5. Re:Worth it? by Ayaress · · Score: 1

      That's why he says he doesn't want restrictions. Just hop from game to game until you find somebody who isn't a moron. Sorta like channel surfing the TV, only with more killing.

      Realistically, there will almost certainly be options to disable or limit the number of spectators in a game to control latency, or just keep the asshats away (if spectators can talk to actual players, which would be useful in some cases and a pain in any other), but I suspect there will be enough people who leave them open that you can just flip through them and find a good game going that doesn't involve people talking about the size of their penis.

    6. Re:Worth it? by StocDred · · Score: 1
      Although on second read, it sounds like only certain games will use it, which stinks. Plus, it occurs to me that you'd probably need to own the game to be a spectator... which would limit the ability to jump into any game to see how it plays or looks. If you didn't need the game itself, I'd buy an Xbox and probably never a single a game for it.

      For a system that has been relatively low on innovation, this could develop into a genuine feature. Imagine if having spectators affected the game in some way... like say they can choose a side in a football game, and if your side has more spectators your players get a morale/speed/whatever boost.

      I've long wished somebody would sell full recorded gameplays, because I would totally pay to watch someone go through the entire MGS2 or Kingdom Hearts or Fatal Frame or Mario Sunshine. INCLUDING cutscenes, I don't care about speed runs, I want to see the entire storyline. This news is close, but not there yet.

    7. Re:Worth it? by orion024 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I wonder if it will be possible to watch games you do not own. This could turn into:

      A) A *great* marketing tool for good games. People can watch a particular game and say "Dang, that's cool! I wanna give it a shot

      B) A *great* way to avoid games which are just plain ... poo. Bad for marketing, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't happen anyway.

      The same things can be said about game demos. There have been a few games whos demos were so great, I wanted to play more, and so bought the game. There have also been many games where the demo stunk, so I knew to avoid paying for it.

    8. Re:Worth it? by Ayaress · · Score: 2, Funny

      I actually have a VHS tape sitting around of me playing all the way through Link to the Past. It runs about 5 hours, and its not very good quality, though. You can probably find playthrough movies in the ZSNES movie format for SNES games (you need the ROM to view them, though), but for most later games, the sheer length of the games adds up against this sort of thing. I have games that have taken me 80+ hours. I feel for anybody who would watch my playthrough of Morrowind, which took two years of fairly active playing, months of which consisted of me walking back and forth along the length of an uninteresting valley trying to find the cave to get the hell back out and being swarmed by cliff racers ten at a time.

    9. Re:Worth it? by hai.uchida · · Score: 1

      If you play Counterstrike, and if you ever die (which I'm sure you do if you only play from time to time) then you have a taste of what it's like to spectate. And if you don't take advantage of the ability to switch between the P.O.V. of the remaining players, you really should.

      I think it's a great tool-- watching, rather than enaging other players gives you valuable insights on different playstyles and strategies. You might learn a technique to use a weapon you normally wouldn't, how to use a device like a flash grenade in a way you normally wouldn't, and best of all you get to "explore" the nooks and crannies of a map-- e.g. all the places snipers camp-- without someone shooting at you.

      --
      my password is private, but unchanged.
    10. Re:Worth it? by AlexMax2742 · · Score: 1
      3. "Referee": I had a friend who I beat very badly at Starcraft repeatedly. He constantly accused me of hacking. The only way he would stfu was if we set up a 1v1 between us with the same setup as the previous loss, and have two neutral third parties (we each picked one of them) as spectators who would then tell everybody at school wether or not I was a hacker. I wasn't, although it turns out he did have a map hack running. Sometimes you need somebody who wasn't in the game to settle stupid arguments like that.

      A hacker accusing you of hacking? The ironing is delicious.

      And to actually contribute something to this thread, I would actually love to see that sort of standardized spectator system in place.

      --
      I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
    11. Re:Worth it? by ImaNumber · · Score: 1

      Get a big screen TV, hook your Xbox2 up to it and use someone else's gaming experience as silent visuals at your next party. You'd be suprised at how many people will end up crowding in to see.

    12. Re:Worth it? by AvantLegion · · Score: 1
      In ESPN NFL 2K5, a bunch of us at EvilAvatar.com have a league going. ESPN provides KILLER online leagues with amazing generated websites (eat crap, Madden).

      Being able to watch the other games of the week would be awesome. Partly for fun, partly for scouting. :)

      Games like Counterstrike would be awfully boring to watch, but not all games would.

    13. Re:Worth it? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      It's not really probable that they would do such a thing. You'd either have to render to video and send out a compressed video stream, which would look like crap at any bitrate they'd be likely to use, or send textures to the machine and follow it with polygonal data, each of which represents a significant consumption of bandwidth. Television is the place to watch games you don't own, although you only get what you're fed that way.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. /.ed by wikdwarlock · · Score: 4, Funny

    For all the M$ sux0rs talk on here, that job link sure was /.ed quickly. I guess tech unemployment > Microsoft hatred.

    --

    "I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
  3. What about just doing it? by NashCarey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We watch people play reality games on TV. We watch people play sports. Why can't society just freaking participate?

    1. Re:What about just doing it? by GodHead · · Score: 3, Funny


      Watching can be just as much fun as participating. And sometimes having more people participate can be a BAD thing.

      Example:
      girl on girl porn
      vs
      girl on girl on CowboyNeil.

      --
      Just wait till some crappy band steals your nic.
    2. Re:What about just doing it? by AvantLegion · · Score: 1
      >> We watch people play reality games on TV. We watch people play sports. Why can't society just freaking participate?

      You draw the assumption that "we" don't.

      "We" go out and play sports all the time. But we don't need new technology to do it, so there's not much to say about it on Slashdot.

      Playing a video game sport is a completely different experience than physically playing the sport. One does not replace the other. NFL players play video game football all the time - why? They play the "real thing" at the highest level. Well, the "why" is because one has nothing to do with the other, except subject matter.

  4. spectator mode by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I watching over someone's shoulder as they play just wasn't cutting it

  5. Half-Life by Satertek · · Score: 5, Informative

    Half Life (and its mods) has had this for years, HLTV. You can just open up the spectate tab in Steam under servers and there they are.

    1. Re:Half-Life by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      HLTV is just a system where one "player" joins as a spectator, and everyone else connects to him, thus saving bandwidth. UT2k4 has UTTV also.

      This is a system of broadcasting games like they're sports events, which would be really cool and fun to watch.

  6. If you can't beat em... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...join 'em.

  7. Cheater's wet dream? by RaymondInFinland · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I hope not all games get this spectator mode. It might be ok for action games(like sports or fighting games), but for RTS/FPS games it should have the option to turn it off. Otherwise, just get another X-box and you can spectate what your opponent is doing...

    1. Re:Cheater's wet dream? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you can be pretty sure that, like most games, you can control which features are enabled. (IOW, you can be almost positive that this is one feature you could turn off if/when necessary.)

    2. Re:Cheater's wet dream? by hollismb · · Score: 1

      If someone is that concerned with stats and cheating that they'll go to the effort of buying a second copy of the game, a second Xbox, and a second live account, not to mention having a second network connection, screen and whatnot, just to be able to cheat in an online match, then I say, let them do it. If someone wants to go to that much effort in order to know my location in Rainbow Six, for example, then they've got some serious problems.