Microsoft's Big Bet on Online Gaming

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "The Wall Street Journal Online analyzes the prospects of the Xbox's online-gaming component. Analysts say Microsoft has spent hundreds of millions on Xbox Live, with little guarantees of returns. 'It is not clear that companies like Microsoft and Sony will be able to lure large numbers of players -- each has attracted a small fraction of users to online play with their previous consoles,' WSJ Online writes. 'The companies also must be careful about new business models for distributing games -- such as games-on-demand -- so as not to alienate game publishers, who still rely heavily on in-store sales. And games designed for multiple players have a mixed record of attracting customers.' Says analyst Michael Pachter, 'At the end of the day, we don't play games for social interaction ... We play games to escape.' Microsoft's strategy is 'absolutely flawed,' he added.""

Comments

Little Guarantees of Return?

[Anonymous Coward]

Live is the most important aspect for the xbox 360 ... look at battle.net for example, it's practically destroyed most korean youth. If it's as easy as fun as that service then MS will kill everything even is ps3 looks twice as nice.

Re:Microsoft Wallet

[Generic Guy]

I failed to articulate my points, so I suppose I deserve the vitriol.

Taking money from customers - what will we think of next?

As your greed becomes so obvious, don't be surprised when your victims (or sorry, ex-customers) dump you like old laundry.

Everything about the 'new' live is designed for extra-cost after the initial purchase. Marketplace is set up to push extra-cost content at people (I'm sure you brilliant folks at MS would use a term like "Value Added"). Things which should be free cost ridiculous amounts, like the "Skins". Why is it that you can't remove creditcard information once it is entered? How long until missing levels from $60 games start showing up as purchasable content? Extra cars or characters for extra-cost purchase to complete otherwise unattainable portions of a game?
I'm sure someone like you will call it a "Good Idea", where the folks who have already dropped $60 on a title will feel fleeced. Sorry, I'm not biting.

Uh... .NET isn't a web service. If you're going to slam our stuff, you could at least get your story straight.

As if you guys at Microsoft could explain .NET to begin with.

.NET (aside from a unification API) is a platform to move applications "online", and guess who wants to be the tollbooth in the middle? Oh yeah, Microsoft! The console Live service is obviously a big market test towards that end.

First off, that "10% or so of original Xbox players" is impressive. It's easy to say that it was "only" a tenth of the potential, but how many people own original Xbox systems? 10% of *that* number isn't too shabby (you *did* read the article, right?).

The article stated you Microsoft guys want 50% of 360 customers on Live. Yes, I'm afraid it is ridiculous, especially when you are moving to the cell-phone model of charging extra for everything.

Seriously, yo - a lot of good people put a lot of work into the Xbox, the 360, and Xbox Live. There's nothing wrong with slamming a technology, or a company, or whatever, but you could at least do so from an informed point of view.

I'm hardly slamming the machine itself. But the greedy, extra-charge everything on Live coupled with your company's insane idea that 50% of owners will go online makes it seem you are driking too much of the Kool-Aid.