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How Online Services Will Shape the Console War
Next Generation has a piece looking at the role online services will play in this round in the console Wars. With Microsoft's Xbox Live already in the field and both Nintendo and Sony working on plans for their own online environments, there would seem to be quite a bit to talk about. Despite that, the article offers up a pessimistic view of the competition. From the article: "The short glib answer is that online games will probably be a more important feature for console systems over the next several years, but once again the traditional retail model is likely to be the dominant driving factor when it comes to how the new game systems build an installed base."
More important than in the past. Which is pretty obvious, and also not saying much, as the proportion of people caring to go online at all via console is something like 6-10%.
I've used my PS2 online, but only to download cheat codes... I've played several games which had online capability, but none of the online functionality was interesting to me. They need to fix that problem before they start building grand schemes to charge subscription fees.
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Nintendo isn't exactly new in this field either. Their extremely popular DS and DS Lite has passed one million unique gamers. Though the DS / DS Lite handhelds aren't stationary consoles, the principles are the same. Handheld consoles has more or less the same problems and the same gaming possibilities, and it does appear to be a huge success.
I'm not sure what you mean, but I don't own an xbox but a couple of my friends do and we routinely go on Live with up to 4 people on the same xbox. Depends on the game to support it though, e.g. Halo 2 you can have 4 people but PGR can only have 2. All with one live account and 1 xbox.
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