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Microsoft Hopes for Matchmaking in all 360 Games
1up reports on comments from Phil Spencer, the Head of Game Development for Microsoft Game Studios. Speaking with the news organization at DICE Spencer clarified that, ideally, all 360 games should have matchmaking services ala Halo 2. Why didn't Epic's Gears of War ship with the feature? "The Epic scenario and why we don't have that code in Gears of War is really more of a scheduling issue than a 'We weren't going to share the code with them, or help them add that feature to the game' because it's clearly a great feature in online shooting play. For us, it was just 'could we get this done on time in order to get the game to come out when it needed to come out.'" Spencer does say that they have no problems sharing Halo 2's matchmaking code, and that future first-party titles should definitely offer it. Gears may even offer it one day, via a patch to the game.
Sony is teaching Microsoft how to do online right, but the real question is will Microsoft listen and learn?
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Gamers demand to have these MINIMUM features for online play in a console:
1) No idiotic fees just for the privilege of playing - milking cash out players for online shouldn't be a way to hide the high cost of your console like Microsoft does with the 250 dollars they charge people to play over the life of the console on top of the 400 dollar base price. Dumb Microsoft. Dumb.
2) Dedicated servers. The absolute crap online play in games like Gears of War - massive lag problems, server disconnects, silly 8 player max - show just how important it is for a console company to have the infrastructure in place for developers to use. Someone needs to sit Microsoft down in front of Resistance to see how a modern online console game is done right. Seamless matchmaking, 40 players with absolutely no lag or frame rate drops. Linkage to an active online community with http://myresistance.net/
If you can't do those two basic things you have no business in the online console world. Microsoft needs to get their shit together fast. Sony has shown them the way. The early reports on Halo sound like it is another Gears of War type mess - no dedicated servers and only 16 players max. What a joke.
Wake up Microsoft. Throwing in gimmicks like achievements is no substitute for a modern and quality online service like Sony is providing.
Microsoft, read this thread and take notes:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1406
Am I the only one who sees this as an inappropriate attempt by Microsoft to extend their OS monopoly into the gaming market? Microsoft is already flexing this muscle by requiring that all games published under the "Games for Windows" brand are compatible with the X-Box 360 Controller. This seems to me like an attempt to force all PC Game publishers to make their games not only for Windows, but for the X-Box too. If you don't make your game X-Box compatible, well, you lose out on all that free "Games for Windows" marketing that Microsoft is paying for. I seem to remember Microsoft doing something similar with Internet Explorer a few years back that got them into a tad of legal trouble. Now, not only does Microsoft want all games to be X-Box compatible, but now they want all games to use their matchmaking service. It won't be long before Microsoft will be pushing for all PC Games to be compatible with X-Box live. I'm sure you X-Box fans would like this, but personally, I don't want Microsoft to be sticking their thumb into every single PC game that I play. It's bad enough that I have to play almost everything on Windows to begin with. If I were an anti-trust lawyer, I would have already sent Microsoft several warnings about where they're going with this. I think they're violating the spirit of their anti-trust settlement.