Possible Spectator Mode for Xbox2

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."

Comments

Worth it?

[christopherfinke]

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?

Re:Worth it?

[Ayaress]

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.

Re:Worth it?

[StocDred]

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.

Re:Worth it?

[orion024]

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.

Re:Worth it?

[Ayaress]

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.

/.ed

[wikdwarlock]

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

What about just doing it?

[NashCarey]

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

Re:What about just doing it?

[GodHead]

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.

Half-Life

[Satertek]

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.

Re:Half-Life

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Cheater's wet dream?

[RaymondInFinland]

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...